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Wolf's Daughter - Ch. III


Pakkrat

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Wolf's Daughter - Ch. III
by Pakkrat

III. Never before had Vitaes suffered such strict traffic control in Progen space. With permission of local Republic authorities, the Jenquai Grandmaster Explorer had merely been studying the gravitic and mineral relationship between Kastor and Altair here in Altair III sector. The two planetary bodies were slowly tearing each other apart with their gravity and proximity. As they danced a mutual destruction, a good portion of their masses were strewn over much of the sector in the form of asteroids. Vitaes had come here to catalogue the two planets' interaction as well as survey the fields of asteroids for mineral potential.

It had never been much of an interest to the Collegia Forgemasters, the Progen arm of manufacturing and trade for the Republic. As the two planets demolished each other, Vitaes scanned field after field of mineral-rich asteroids. The Jenquai Explorer wondered why the Forgemasters never contacted the Sabine Order to come and take advantage of this developing resource. As he studied the slow, inexorable destruction, it came to him to catalogue the minerals and gasses in order to alert his Jenquai contacts in the Sharim, the trade Faction of the less-xenophobic Jenquai. If the Progen had yet to realize the value of these doomed planets, perhaps the Sharim could seek to purchase mining rights in this sector.

His troubles began as he finished his survey and was to return home the way he had journeyed. Vitaes had rounded the circumference nav-path that avoided the chaotic debris fields of Kastor and Altair Planet. Ahead lay a streaming line of Collegia trade transports, Arx Emporos supply ships, merchants, and even a few Privateers. All were backed up in a long wait and patient log jam for clearance to pass the system gate to Gallina.

With his advanced scanning and survey systems, Vitaes could detect that a Progen checkpoint had been set up just outside gating range of his only exit from Altair III to the Gallina system. Obedient to traffic and customs laws concerning Progen space, Vitaes pulled gingerly into the line and began a contemplation for patience, his means of dealing with bureaucracy, especially that of the Progen Republic.

Though Vitaes had been educated and trained by the Jenquai Sha'ha'dem, the scientific-philosophers, he had quietly and politely slipped from the spiritual and religious indoctrination of the Hierate. Often, when his teachers had taken classes into more esoteric subjects frequently assisted with music or other sound-based aids, Vitaes would become distracted. It was his chromesthesia, or seeing sound and music as colorful lights with various intensities and hues, that distracted him from the indoctrination. On a medical excuse, the Novice would slip from the class and devote his attention to drink, women, or other interesting subjects at the university. With four sciences masteries, the Explorer had shocked his instructors at his graduation ceremony when he announced his departure from the Hierate, though he stressed his loyalty to the Jenquarum as a whole. As a new Grandmaster, it was assumed that Vitaes might enjoy his new title in the Sha'ha'dem, but the unknown of the frontier had already called to him.

Now, Vitae's vessel, the *Rocinante*, was parked in a holding pattern as the long line of vessels were scanned and given egress from the Sabine Order checkpoint. His turn would not come any time soon. In his contemplation ritual, the Explorer barely cared that he was no longer the last in line. A formation of two vessels pulled up behind his craft.

"Ben Joseph's blood," Vitaes half-swore irreverently as he found that his ship was now committed to the traffic ahead. He had thought to turn around and find berth at Arx Emporos for a while so this traffic could clear out. Gazing curiously at his rear view monitor, the Explorer saw the huge sail fans of another Sabine Sentinel being led by a Jenquai Defender of all craft. Surprised at the pairing and curious that the white-hulled Sentinel did not bypass the waiting line, Vitaes took a closer look at the odd couple.

At first he mistakenly misjudged the genders of the pilots in each craft. With the Defender's black hull with blood red fins and nose cone, Vitaes thought the pilot of that craft was probably male. And then with the glossy white sails and sharp wing fins, the Explorer too guessed the Sentinel pilot to be female. Even the names of the craft behind him were ambiguous. "Culler" and "Warchild" swayed him that perhaps both of the craft were piloted by men, perhaps friends in a formation. But when, out of further curiosity, Vitaes scanned the two vessels, he came up with a male pilot of the Sentinel and a young female at the helm of the Defender. It was quite a strange combination of ships and their pilots, thought Vitaes. But it was the huge "N7 News" decal painted on the wings of the white Sentinel that brought familiarity to the contemplating Grandmaster.

His better sense about the Progen race warned Vitaes not to make contact. It was more Sabine Order Sentinels that were holding up traffic ahead at the checkpoint. It could have been the xenophobic indoctrination that the Sha'ha'dem had spoon-fed him. However, seeing the familiar logo that was accompanied by the Net-7 News theme that caught and held the attention of the Explorer. This Sentinel had to be the anchor for Net-7 News, Magister Magna Pakkratius, scientist, journalist and Doctor of genetics and the debatable Progen Call Forward.

Vitaes had seen many of the newscorp's station-based broadcasts. Many times he had downloaded a program from a nearby Net-7 beacon. Net-7 anchors Zona Mason and the Dr. Pakkratius would be there to keep humanity abreast of every corner of explored space. The Jenquai Grandmaster especially liked any pieces on scientific breakthroughs, new horizons of explored frontier and space weather to be avoided. While the Pakkratius would interview locals and study trends in space phenomena, it was evident that his co-anchor Mason showed him up with her stories of governments, politics, high society, entertainment and the like. Any Novice, to Vitae's eyes, could see the competitiveness the two reporters brought to the news-desk. In this, the Jenquai Explorer could appreciate, just a little, the Progen race for trying to show more social than martial tendencies.

Thus, on a whim, the Grandmaster hailed the formation behind him. The "Culler" answered him but the Jenquai Defender did not. Strange, thought Vitaes.

With a vid-comm feed, Vitaes was answered with, "Net-7 News, this is a
Anchorman Pakkratius." Such formal greeting but his voice had a tinge of eagerness to listen to anyone as traffic crawled forward toward the system stargate to Gallina.

"Um, Greetings Magister Magna," said Vitaes. "I am Grandmaster Vitaes. How fare you today?''

The Magister Magna's face betrayed him before he spoke, "Well, for a first time as your galactic anchor, I am trying to keep a story *from* becoming breaking news." His hand gesture and his facial expression lent more to his nervous body language. Vitaes read his mind with his telepathic psionics. Thankfully, this Progen Sentinel's mind was not fully clouded with cybernetic machines and enhancements. His emotions were loud even as he tried to be polite and friendly as the face of Net-7 News. The Grandmaster registered impatient fear and nervousness, concern for the Jenquai Defender next to him, and a desire to be hidden. Something was wrong about it all. Why would a Progen be protectively concerned about a Shinwa?

With no vid-comm and no answer from the fellow Jenquai, Vitaes reached out to the craft. He was met with a feral desire to destroy the Sentinels at the checkpoint ahead. Anger, there was anger. This was perplexing. A fearful Progen concerned for an unbalanced and dangerously angry Jenquai. Normally the the scale would find more balance in such a rare and strange pairing.

"Is...everything alright, Magister Magna?" asked Vitaes hoping to pry up some more responses to get to the truth of this pair behind him.

From far ahead in the line of ships came a locally transmitted signal from the Sentinel ships at the checkpoint.

"You, Jenquai!" called a Progen Sentinel, his ship turning to face Vitaes' direction.

"Me?" answered the Grandmaster.

"No, not you," corrected the Sabine. "The one behind you." Vitaes looked again at the formation behind him. The *Culler* and the *Warchild* were already reverse thrusting, their vector thrust-panes steering them away from the waiting line.

"Time to go," said the image of the Pakkratius who looked to his side at the Defender next to him.

"I'm trying," answered a female voice, her image appearing on the Explorer's vid-comm screen. She had wild, silvery-white hair with light bluish tips that matched the crystal blue of her eyes. The Jenquai was young, almost too young. She wore a red top that exposed her neck and shoulders with a loose platinum collar about her neck over it. As the Jenquai girl barked at the Pakkratius, "Your ship turns like a pregnant Nagifar, Progen," Vitaes could see and hear her mind. She was on the run from the Sabine Order even though one of their number was right next to her. And she wanted to fight first and leave after. It was battle-lust. Vitaes had seen it before in the hearts of the the now-excommunicated Mordana some years ago.

"In the name of the Sabine Order and the Progen Republic, I, Magister Caius Hellstrom arrest the Jenquai Wolfsdottir!" announced the lead Sentinel ship with flame coloration and copper sails. His vessel was on a power buildup and Vitaes could feel the confidence exuding off the leader, this Hellstrom.

"Move move!" called the Pakkratius.

"You move move, you old Progen!" answered the Jenquai girl named Wolfsdottir by the Magister. Her voice had an immature and improper inflection of a Jenquai that no longer called the Jenquarum home.

The two ships winged over and began to charge up warp cones facing back toward the planets Kastor and Altair. But before they could take off, multiple loud and brown-black beams struck the paired formation. Their report was a dissonant chord as its energies played over the hulls of the white Sentinel and the red-black Defender. Vitaes' mastery of physics and his scanners read the paralytic news. The pair had been caught in temporary gravity fields, their movement halted, warp denied, and their impulse drives severely hampered. They were caught in a Progen weapon of a slow death, the Gravity Link beams sported by Sentinels and the fearsome Warriors. Any caught by such a beam were helpless before the chain-guns of the Progen Republic.

But worse for Vitaes personally was the sound the Gravity Link beams had made. Indigo spots and bands of blue wavered before his eyes. The atonal noise made by the capture beams had triggered his chromesthesia. He gripped his temples in an attempt to ignore the sounds. If it could be termed such, it was a painful muddling of consciousness to the Jenquai Explorer. Why ever did the Progen have to be so off-key?!

"Good," said the girl Wolfsdottir. "A good Dance of Destruction." Vitaes could hear over the vid-comm as the Defender's computer began to charge up a Psionic Shield, a defensive shell over and above the normal shield matrix all spacecraft had to adopt in this dangerous galaxy. At least the *whirrr* of her psi-shield was tonal and had semblance of a key. However it was like mixing ice cream dessert with hydraulic fluid and taking it all in the ears to Vitaes' senses.

The *Warchild's* plasma and energy beams lit up as they activated for combat. The Explorer's sensor lock on the Sentinel also registered the lock and load of some pretty frightening ammunition in some of the strangest projectile launchers yet seen.

At the readying of weapons, (and Vitaes abhorred violence), the Grandmaster could see the closing Sentinel ships emit bubble fields of their own. It was widely known and seen, the Repulsor Fields of the Sabine Order Sentinels. Any strike upon those retributive fields would repel a fraction of incoming damage back at their source. If the anchorman and the girl fired now they would bring further harm to themselves in addition to the weaponry of the Sentinels trying to capture her. This was to say nothing of the political and criminal ramifications that resisting arrest in Progen space would bring them.

"This is not good," said the Pakkratius who most likely knew best the signature fields of the incoming ships. His own Repulsor Field lit up over the *Culler*.

"Bring it!" called the girl called Wolfsdottir.

"No!" protested the Reporter. Vitaes could hear the journalistic neutrality that conflicted with his membership in the Sabine Order in his voice. No doubt that even though he had the most frightening weaponry in the area, the Pakkratius was trying to remain cool since their vessels were paralyzed by the repeated and renewed Gravity Link beams.

A moment of irritated clarity struck Vitaes. Amidst his colorful reaction to the dis-harmonic beams, the vibratory emanations of the many Repulsor Fields and the Defender's Psionic Shield, the Explorer snapped to action.

And it worked like magic. Vitaes opened an invitation to the two captured vessels via a tight lasercom beam. "Care to escape this noise?" he called verbally as his computer requested a navigation and helm linking with the *Culler* and the *Warchild*. Via his psionics, the Grandmaster input into the mind of the Net-7 Reporter the desire to accept the computer's request and escape. With the Pakkratius' fight-or-flight reactions demanding action, the acceptance returned to Vitaes. Wolfsdottir's acceptance came next as the group formed and nav computers locked. They had reflexively accepted a group invitation without care or checking who it was the pair were grouping.

Amidst the calls to stand down, power down and prepare for boarding, the chromesthetic reactions, and the emotional emanations from all parties, the Sha'ha'dem Grandmaster saved all from approaching bloodshed. With a piercing ache attempting to destroy his concentration, Vitaes reached over and pressed a button on his ships cockpit console. It was a green button, almost welcoming him home.

"Where to, people?" he asked as his reactor awaited his command. Power in his Jenquai vessel was routed to the jump field that now emanated outwards from the hull.

"Anywhere but here," answered the Pakkratius desperately.

"Helios' Weft!" called Wolfsdottir, though she said it reluctantly.

Vitaes, in a herculean psionic effort, reached outward across the galaxy with his mind and focussed on the wormhole wrinkle that was named Helios' Weft. The weft was deep inside Sol system's asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. There was little time left to make a better decision. Attuned to his attentions, the Jenquai Explorer ship and the Jenquai pilot opened a temporary wormhole to that far-off point of interstellar, space-fold stability.

Greenish gasses erupted from the jump field of the Grandmaster's ship, enveloping the *Rocinante*, the *Culler* and the *Warchild*. They covered each entirely as the process began. The laws of relativity bent at the psionic mind of Vitaes when it was focussed and given momentum by his ship's empowered jump field.

"What the-?" came the amazed call of the Sabine Magister Hellstrom. "Somebody stop them!" he protested in rage.

* * *

To the Jenquai, so used to space-folding and manifesting wormholes to make way across interstellar space, the effect was probably old hat and expected. But to a Sentinel like Pakkratius, the instantaneous travel was always a marvel. He had time after time watched as his vessel was taxi-ed across the galaxy by Explorers-for-hire. And each time, the Pakkratius, could not fathom how the process worked. It was a widely used, but never shared ability that the Jenquai utilized. The Terrans coveted the short-cuts that the Sha'ha'dem were able to take. The Progen turned from red to greed with envy at the tactical advantage the process could be taken.

From the moment the gasses erupted from the *Rocinante*, (for the Reporter always took note of the person calling him and their vessel's name), his white ship was clouded and all sensory intake was inhibited as all scopes and sensors registered green. Then temporary green beams of what the Explorers called a "jump field" that initiated the wormhole effect, lined the Doctor's ship. Then all was concealed with green, whatever that was outside unknowable. A second or two later, and the green field was gone and the gasses dispersing as new space came into view and registered on the computers. For the Sabine Sentinel's navigation computers, it was a hiccup of calibration as it had to re-read the stars and find its new position. He had no doubt that Jenquai prepared their onboard computers to be ready for the new location ahead of the wormhole effect.

Looking out his bridge's view ports, the Pakkratius could see fields upon fields of the Sol Asteroid Belt. When his computer had finished recalibrating seconds later, he found the formation in a sector of the belt named Asteroid Belt Beta. The Doctor assumed the two Jenquai ships were waiting on him.

"Why here?" asked the Pakkratius. "Was it the first weft that came to mind?"

"She picked the destination, Dr. Pakkratius," explained the Grandmaster across from him in the formation, indicating Wolfsdottir.

"So, um Dot, do you have a particular destination in mind?" asked the Sentinel.

The answer was quiet as if she were hoarding an unspoken confession when she answered. "I want to go to to D.C.O." At that she aimed the formation towards the sector gate that connected Asteroid Belt Beta with the neighboring sector, Asteroid Belt Gamma. The formation took off like a shot due to the averaging of warp capabilities and agility of the three craft.

The Pakkratius had instantly wanted to protest. Detention Center Onorom should have been the last place a Jenquai girl on the run needed. The station was a huge penal colony prison for the Progen Republic. Under the jurisdiction of the Centuriata Warriors, the colony was the most secure station in Progen space. It was secure at keeping things incarcerated.

Nestled within a ring of artificial gravity wells, Detention Center Onorom was generally accessible only through a special in-sector gate called an accelerator gate. The accelerator would shunt incoming and outgoing vessels that passed the checkpoint. At any time the two gates could be shut down, thus paralyzing any vessel trying to break in or out through the 'walls' of the prison territory.

"They are not going to let two Jenquai through the accelerators without proper authorization," the Doctor announced. He was not trying to argue the wisdom of this destination. Rather he felt it necessary to point out hurdles in the way. Somehow, the quiet calm of the girl said to him that Dot had a plan and to hide here in plain sight was quite ingenious compared to his plan of running the rim of human space.

"Let me drive and I can handle that," said Grandmaster Vitaes confidently.

Wolfsdottir yielded over the lead position as the three ships entered Asteroid Belt Gamma through its connecting sector gate.

* * *

In her training, Wolfsdottir had heard of the rigorous astrogation classes the Sha'ha'dem imposed upon Novice Explorers. At the starboard wing position next to the *Rocinante*, Vitae's Explorer vessel, Dot could watch as the Grandmaster led the formation. The Progen still had his use to come as Dot looked past the lead to the white Sentinel.

The Sabine had let his frustration be known and yet was not complaining. Dot was beginning to like this Progen. He was nice to offer his hand at Paramis. The Sentinel was willing to protect her with his strange weaponry against the Outlings and his own kind, the Sabine Order. He verbally complimented her skills in Moto. She had never had such praise from her teachers, only silent encouragement to continually do better than she was at any given time. Yes, this Pakkratius was not the usual fare of Progen Dot had encountered during her service in the Shinwa's Sev Tushnim.

The Grandmaster could get them beyond the wall instantly and hopefully unseen once the formation dropped out of warp. All the 'tower' at D.C.O. would see is a visiting Sentinel.

Instead of taking the usual rounding course of navigation bouys, the three ships, her 'pack' as Dot was coming to think of it, shot straight past Mier's Perch by freewarping from the gate. Thus removed from the usual path of spacefaring, detecting the three ships would take the Progen scanning technology only the Jenquai used. In return, Dot used her own purchased devices, her Sextans and Telescopium focusing device to have a scouting look across the territory.

Dot registered the presence of normal traffic, the general spread of searching Sentinels near the stargate to Saturn sector, and then she saw small trio formations of Jenquai Defenders. Every five or so nav-points, a single Defender would stop, back off the nav a few clicks and then engage its cloaking.

"There are Shinwa in this sector," she noted to the Pakkratius.

"You are being hunted, Dot," explained the Doctor. He then explained what he had learned from an ex-Shinwa contact of his. The news was surprising but not shocking to Wolfsdottir. She had walked out on them without so much as a farewell. But to hear the part of the entire Shinwa Faction put on alert-search for her was disturbing. What had she done to them directly except leave?

The formation paused at a remote asteroid that was not on the general galactic map. Vitaes explained that he in the past had found and mapped Asteroid Marin 33, a short chain of fellow asteroids that streamed just out of sensor range of usual traffic in the sector of space. In the distance, at least to her extended and enhanced scopes, Dot could see the huge red structures of Detention Center Onorom through the clouds of thick asteroids.

"Are you sure you can fly through the 'wall', through all those?" asked the Pakkratius, indicating the floating fields of meteors and the gravity fields surrounding the territory.

"Watch and learn if you can, Progen," said the Grandmaster. Then the formation, with the *Rocinante* in the lead, charged and dove into the fields. Just out of reflex, Dot checked her harness belts. They were secure. If the gravity fields were to stop them, the jolt might try the inertial dampeners of the ships. She did not relish in having her innards yanked to a halt so abruptly. The console tended to become messy like that. As Vitaes the Explorer weaved through the asteroid belt, closing on the gravity wells, Dot braced herself for the the abrupt stop.

But that stop never came. Looking over to the *Rocinante* and the image of Vitaes, his confidence shown plainly, his astrogation was superb. The formation breached the gravity wells as if they never existed. It shot forth through the 'wall' and into the inner territory of Detention Center Onorom.

"Now," said Vitaes. Dot reached for a blue button and closed her eyes. The two Jenquai ships shimmered and were gone, fully invisible, as their warp cones dissipated. The formation dropped out of the travel speeds to the more tactical impulse maneuvering velocity. Ahead lay the space station, red and glaring.

Of the three ships, only the Pakkratius' ship, the *Culler* was still visible. Dot ran as silent as she could when the traffic control tower at penal station hailed the Sentinel.

"You're not on our schedule today, Magister Magna," noted the tower traffic controller to the Doctor.

"I know," said the Pakkratius, "but that's my orders from the Sabine Order, to see and interview an inmate. I won't be long, I believe." The Sentinel stole a glance towards Wolfsdottir's invisible ship with the appearance of hope on his face.

"Shall I double-check with Warden Orphant?" asked the controller.

"Shall I fly all the way back to Endriago and give a null-report to Magna Vinda, the current leader of the Republic? Both of our genomes may take a downturn."

There was a pause. Even the signal clicked off. The Pakkratius merely sighed with some air of confidence. Dot decided then that the Doctor had great patience. She would have not lasted so long.

Dot watched as the Pakkratius folded his arms and leaned back into his chair over the vid-comm link in the formation. His confidence was mocking his effort, she thought. How was the Grandmaster Vitaes taking this encounter?

Then the second hail from the station tower came. "Hail, Magister Magna Pakkratius! Your docking approach has been cleared and a berth is waiting."

"Wisdom and strength to the Republic," said the Doctor with a patriotic response. Then Dot eased the formation, with two cloaked ships into the station docking bay hangar.

Vitaes called the two as the ships docked, causing two of them to uncloak. He used a tight beam lasercom to ask, "Um, why are we here again?"

The Doctor shrugged and looked over at the Defender craft. "She's driving and I promised to leave her alone once we find a station where I can truly interview her. And Detention Center Onorom is no place for a young girl of any race."

Dot bristled at the Pakkratius' answer but resolutely shut down her vessel and exited to the hangar deck. She was followed by him and Vitaes.

"We get caught doing anything illegal, I don't know you," said the Grandmaster.

"Just walk casual like you belong here," assured the Doctor.

"But I don't-" Vitaes was cut off by the approach of none other than Warden Orphant, administrator of Detention Center Onorom. Edited by Pakkrat
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