We were all silent for a moment.
“That’s a great deal larger than the Odin Geirr’s harbor,” Eve said.
“Yeeeahhhh,” Zea sighed.
“And we are in the middle of it?” Juliette asked.
“Look at the map!” the hacker spat.
“I see the map! I’m just making sure you all are seeing what I’m seeing. We have to run at least four kilometers to get out of the harbor? Then what? The entire fortress is sixty kilometers long!”
“Hey,” I said before anyone could answer Juliette. “It is going to be okay.”
“We are trying to find a needle in a farmfull of haystacks,” Juliette said. “Look, maybe I’m dumb, but I didn’t quite think this fortress was going to be this big. I was thinking like big carrier size ship or something.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said as I felt a calmness descend my body and relax my shoulders. “We’ll find Uffe and kill him. Nothing will stand in my way. He is as good as dead. I have seven of the nine most talented women in the galaxy at my side. Get your shit together, and let’s do this.”
Juliette binked at me a few times, and then she nodded. “Aye captain.”
We were silent for the next minute as we drifted toward the four connected planets. As we got closer, we all looked at the massive pillars of metal that connected each of the planets and marveled at their construction. It almost looked as if they had drilled through the entire planet to connect the bridges, but I couldn’t quite tell from our travel angle.
Then we were at the doorstep of the massive fortress, and its harbor entrance hung open like a horrific whale intent on swallowing us.
“Here we go,” Kasta whispered as Juliette pushed us past the energy shield and into the interior of the harbor.
As soon as we entered, a different female voice came over our communications systems, and she said a few words in Nordar. Kasta answered and then gestured for Juliette to cut the communications.
“They are sending docking automation. Just accept, and we’ll land automatically.
“Fuck,” Juliette sighed. “I hope this will work.”
“It will work,” I said, and I was a bit surprised at the lack of fear I felt. There had been a bunch of challenges on the way here, but now we were in the belly of the beast, and it was just going to be a matter of time until we found Uffe.
Maybe I actually was Odin’s avatar.
Juliette took her hands off the controls, and our ship drifted through the flow of traffic seamlessly. A half minute later we drifted over our indicated landing spot, and I had Kasta swing the screens around so that we could check out the area. I didn’t see a contingent of Jotnar warriors ready to assault us, so I knew that this part of our plan had worked.
Now we just had to get out of the harbor without raising suspicion.
“And we are down,” Juliette said a moment after our craft shook.
I moved to stand, but there was a beep from our terminal, and Kasta indicated for us to all be quiet so she could speak. It was a male Nordar voice, and Kasta looked a bit annoyed as she spoke to the man. They only exchanged a few quick words, but Kasta raised her voice, and the other man seemed to back down. Then I heard Kasta dismiss him, and she brought her hand down on her terminal.
“Well done,” Aasne sighed with relief.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“That was the crew chief,” Kasta answered. “He was asking for me to wait on board for an hour so that he could review the damage with me. I told him I had to speak with admiral Olanhar, who was indicated in the logs as being a big deal. So the crew chief person is gonna meet with me in a few hours instead.”
“Good,” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
We all piled into the elevator, took it down, and then jogged to the hold. Everyone grabbed a rifle and pistol, and then we stood in a circle outside of the bay door.
“We are going to walk out of there like we belong,” I said, and the women nodded.
“Closest exit out of the harbor is ten o’clock to our hold door,” Kasta said. “It’s four and a half kilometers across the harbor floor in a straight line, but there are two hundred and fifty ships between us and the exit.”
“We’ll probably be able to find a hovercraft or vehicle,” I said as I reached for the hold door and ramp buttons. “Let Kasta do most of the talking, since she’s got a feel for the accent. Elana and Aasne, jump in if you have to, but we don’t want them to guess that you might not be Jotnar from your inflections.”
“Understood,” Aasne said, and Elana nodded.
“Alright,” I said as I let out a long breath and looked once more at my women. “We will do this. Let’s go.”
Then I hit the button to open the bay door.
Chapter 13
I pushed the fear deep down within myself along with the growling beast and stepped down the cruiser’s hold ramp with my rifle held casually in my hand. I half expected a hundred Jotnar troops to materialize from behind the ship docked in the space next to us, but I didn’t see anything but the streaking of ships overhead as they sought their landing spot or tried to leave the harbor.
My crew of beautiful women fell into step behind me, and I risked a quick glance once my boots stepped off the metal of the ship’s ramp and connected with the metal of the fortress’ floor. They all looked well composed, except for Zea, who looked like she was chewing on the inside of her cheek with concentration.
We walked left once we exited the ramp and then traveled at an even pace down the double lit pathways that separated each of the landing pads. The entire floor of the harbor was made like a massive grid of lights, and as we walked past the next closest ship to where we parked, another destroyer class vessel gently landed on the spot next to us. I gave it a passing glance and tried not to show any emotion on my face. We just needed to keep walking until we reached the end of the harbor or until we found some sort of vehicle that could get us out quicker.
We walked past four more docking platforms with ships parked and then came to a frigate class warship that was being unloaded by a group of four dock workers and six packing drones with tank tread wheels. One of the women in the group called out to us with her hand raised, and Kasta returned the greeting as we continued walking. I didn’t even turn my head to look at them, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief when we got one more spot past them.
“That was close,” Juliette sighed.
“Not really,” Aasne chuckled. “The woman asked us if we were having a good morning.”
“Oh,” the cop said.
“I told her to fuck off,” Kasta said.
“You did?” Juliette gasped.
“Got ya,” Kasta replied, and Juliette sighed.
“Hey, I’m not the gullible one anymore,” Zea said.
“Oh, Blondie, I’m not gullible, just nervous about being balls deep in an enemy’s pussy while her husband just walked in the front door.”
“I don’t know if that analogy means what you want it to mean,” Zea said.
“Sure it does,” Juliette said. “Think about it harder.”
“Focus up,” I hissed, and the woman stopped talking.
“Hovercraft to our left,” Elana hissed, and we all turned our heads to glance down the pathway. Some two hundred meters at the corner of the next parking grid was a red and gray painted hovercraft with an emergency strobe at the back tailgate. It had ten seats and a wide trunk, but my eyes focused on the woman sitting in the driver’s seat. She was staring up at a mini carrier that looked to be taking up four of the harbor’s docking spots.
“Think she’ll give us a ride?” Paula asked.
“Nope,” Zea hissed. “We should keep walking. It might take longer, but we can’t risk getting noticed. We might even find an unoccupied vehicle we can take.
“We should try,” Eve said. “I can use my powers on her, if I need to.”
“I thought you didn’t want to use them?” I asked.
“I do not wish to use them to communicate with you until I can figure out how the SAVO are linking us, but I doubt they care about this woman.”