Chapter 94: Flying to Sliaryt

"Are you alright?" Cewi-Bano glanced over at Lusac.

"Fine," he said, forcing his knees to stop bouncing up and down. The moon loomed in front of them, ordinary looking enough from general appearances, but he knew that a hidden base was buried under its surface where they would meet the contact.

"You'll be okay, Lus. You've done plenty of missions like this before." Cewi offered him a reassuring smile.

"I know. There are always pre-mission jitters." His fingers tapped against his knees as he stared out the front window. Behind the moon was a purple gas giant, the dark colors blending into the blackness of space as brilliant white dots twinkled behind it, hints of further out solar systems.

Sliaryt was out there among them, the planet of death as so many called it. A place where people infected with a heinous disease were sent to spend long years suffering before their inevitable death. And now he was going to go there too under the pretense of helping them but only for his own gain. Something about that didn't sit right with him.

Silently he vowed that he'd tried to do something helpful while he was there. All those images of nefitis remained at the forefront of his mind, and the thought of seeing that kind of suffering in person made his skin crawl.

Luckily that also made it easy to forget about the other stressful parts of the mission such as flying a shuttle alone through the Astral Highway, successfully going undercover with the volunteers, and then finding an artifact in some decay castle infested with insane zombie-like people and animals.

His one consolation was that this mission should be relatively straightforward, at least until he got to Sliaryt. There shouldn't be any complications before then.

"Unknown ship, state your purpose," a voice declared through the comms.

Cewi was on it in an instant. "This is Patron 413 coming to the Supplier for the agreed package."

There was a pause before the voice answered.

"Welcome Patron 413. You are permitted to land in bay two."

Cewi-Bano nodded to herself and guided the shuttle towards the open hangar which was mostly obscured by a crater. Only those who knew to look for it would ever see it.

The hangar was divided into private bays, all of them closed off except for the one allotted to them. She took the shuttle inside and used the autolander to place them safely on the pad.

Once the rear door was open, Cewi shut the engines off and unbuckled. Lus did the same, though with slower motions as he realized that he would be saying goodbye to her here and officially setting off on his own. He didn't feel ready for the responsibility now that it was here, but he couldn't afford to let doubt drag him down now.

"Come on, Lusac. These guys don't like to be kept waiting," Cewi called back.

Lus stood up, slung his bag across his back, and followed her out into the base. Two Humans and a Kremel waited there.

One of the Humans–a blonde woman–stepped forward. "You're Patron 413?"

"I'm the courier." Cewi gestured back to Lusac. "This is Patron 413."

"You may go courier. We attend only the patrons," she said curtly.

Cewi patted Lusac's shoulder as she passed. "Good luck."

"Goodbye…" He caught himself before he could use her name, remembering that doing such things was a big no-no in this type of situation.

The Nemarian smiled as she reentered the shuttle and closed the door.

"I'm Supplier 3. Come with me, Patron 413," the woman said as soon as she was sure Cewi-Bano was out of sight and sound.

Lus nodded and followed behind her as the other two took up the rear. They left the small bay behind and entered into a wide, dull metallic hallway. It looked to be well-used but also well taken care of, with neat patches to the walls and floors.

It was a short walk to another bay just like the one they'd left behind, except instead of the Argo's shuttle, it had an official government transport ship. It wasn't anything fancy, but it had all the proper insignia to pass as a fed ship.

The woman came to a stop just before the ramp leading up to it. "This shuttle has been updated to have all the correct codes to bypass all federal security checkpoints. It is officially on loan to you for the next thirty days as per the agreement. It is expected that this vehicle will be returned to us by the deadline and in proper working condition. If you somehow trip a security trigger and get the shuttle tagged as an illegal vehicle, you will be charged the full cost plus damages. Do you understand and agree to these terms?"

"Yes," Lusac said simply. Cewi-Bano had taken care of the whole arrangement, including payment so Lus really didn't have to do much else besides agree and then fly off in the shuttle.

"We'll now scan your chip for our records, to complete the transaction." The woman motioned to her underlyings behind her, and the Kremel stepped forward with a scanner.

Cewi hadn't mentioned this part, but there was nothing Lus could do about it now. He compliantly held his wrist out and allowed the Kremel to scan it. His chip had been hacked and changed yet again to give him a proper fake identity so all they would see was Lucas Absti, a low-level federal employee.

"Id checks out," the Kremel announced.

"The shuttle is all yours, Patron 413." The woman stepped out of his way and motioned up to the vehicle.

"Thanks," Lusac said. He had about a million questions and concerns, but he decided to not ask any of them since he didn't think this was the time or place. A lot of them were the kinds of things he'd learn as he went anyway.

Lus walked up the ramp and into the shuttle. He tossed his bag on the copilot's seat and sat down in the pilot's chair. The console was similar enough to what he learned on with the Argo's shuttles that he should be able to manage it okay.

He hoped.

Taking a moment to calm himself, Lus studied the controls just to be sure that he knew what everything was. Once he felt confident with his knowledge, he turned the engines on, closed up the door, and prepared for take off.

Even after practicing with Oaty, Lus didn't feel comfortable with his own skills in free-flying so he used the auto-liftoff sequence to get the ship off the pad and out of the hangar. Once he was a good distance from the base, control of the shuttle returned to him, and he activated the nav sequence he set up to take him to the Astral Highway.

It was going to be almost six hours of flying through nothing to get there unfortunately since he couldn't use a Breach. This shuttle was, for all purposes, an official government one which meant him using an illegal means of getting into the Highway would raise concerns from both the feds and the Runners, and the last thing he wanted was to make any kind of mess. Besides, that would probably also void the contract with the Suppliers, and he definitely didn't have the cryptin to afford whatever the cost of this shuttle plus damages would be.

Lus easily got the course setup, and he flew it manually for a few minutes, but that got old fast so he switched to autopilot which freed his hands to do something else.

Only there was nothing else to do.

He was alone in the shuttle so there wasn't the option of conversation. His bag was basically full of only food and clothes. He dug the few trinkets he brought out: a metal puzzle toy and a single holonovel that he'd been trying to read for almost a year now.

The puzzle lasted him about ten minutes before he grew bored of it, and so he moved onto the book. As expected, that nearly put him to sleep, so he quickly put it away as well.

Five and half hours remained on the journey to the Highway, and Lusac was already out of things to do.

Part of him thought of summoning Avil just for the company, but since he didn't have a [Skill] to send the cat back to the Argo, he decided that it would only be for an absolute emergency.

Lus walked around the small shuttle a bit, familiarizing himself with all the areas of the ship including the small crew area including four sleep pods, a table which extended from the wall, and two stools. There was no real kitchen, only a basic counter to open prepackaged meals.

He checked out the engine area, but it was cramped and basically unusable while the engines were active, so that took less time than he hoped.

Eventually he got desperate enough to start working out in the small cockpit. He did an intense set of core exercises, then squats, pushups, and jumping jacks. And then he repeated it. Again, and again.

Lus worked up a thorough sweat, and his body odor permeated the whole shuttle, but it burned off a lot of his energy so he counted it as a win. That took up another full hour, and then cleaning up with a rag in the small bathroom took up another ten minutes.

He'd exhausted himself enough that by the time he sat back down in the pilot's chair, he was actually excited to just sit around doing nothing. His body needed the rest. It was also his chance to eat a snack, so he busted into one of the prepackaged meals he'd brought along. A non-system one of course since those ones were far too valuable to waste now. He could only imagine how much good they might do once he was down on the zombie planet facing Watcher knew what.

The rest of the time passed a little faster now that he didn't have so much nervous energy built up in his body, and Lus was actually a little excited as he approached the Highway entry point. There were several vehicles entering from several different lanes, and he was forced to get in line to wait his turn since every vehicle entering had to pass a security scan.

Lus tensed up a bit as he visually saw the entrypoint. It'd been over two years since he last took the normal way into the Astral Highway. Runners only ever used Breaches.

His turn came, and the autopilot guided the shuttle up to the large metal hoop and waited while the scans were completed. A laser and metal gate shut the way before him, ensuring he couldn't run into the Highway until he got cleared.

A green light appeared on both his console and on the gate just outside. It retracted, and he was allowed to enter the Astral Highway.

Going in this was a lot smoother of a ride than taking a Breach, and it was only a gentle bump as his view went from the inky cosmos to the swirl of rainbow colors that made up the wormhole network. He changed his navigation course to be Sliaryt, and then he manually guided the shuttle deeper into the wormhole.

Autopilot didn't work when a ship was in the wormhole network due to the complexity of the system, but the navigation computer could still give directions. Lus didn't mind having to pilot though. The Astral Highway was breathtaking, and there were enough turns involved in navigating it to keep the process interesting, unlike manually flying in space.

It took only a couple of hours to get through the Highway, and exiting went as smoothly as entering thanks to the official federal shuttle thing.

Once he was back in space–Helios section–he took himself a good distance from the checkpoint before turning his autopilot on and letting it fly the shuttle the rest of the way to Sliaryt.

"Twenty-five hours?" he said with a groan as the screen displayed the estimated flight time to his arrival.

Lusac sighed and looked around the small ship. He was going to have to find something to distract him for a while.

A long while.