By the time the museum pieces had arrived at the station, everything else had been loaded, including over a thousand civilians as part of the Tarith Family retinue.

How they got that many people off the planet without anyone noticing was a mystery to Max, who was still back toward the aft of the ship with Dave, while the old veteran smoked and told war stories to every technician willing to listen. He had been a bit lonely since Max left, taking all the noise and activity of a preteen boy with him.

Nico and Major Miller were watching the door, with a squad of mixed Mecha from the Fifth Battalion stationed on the other side of the internal doors, in case there was trouble with the station.

A line of large transport dollies came into view, with a young man in a suede jacket riding in the lead cart along with a member of the station staff. The man was waving happily, clearly not in the loop on the fact that this was actually a clandestine departure.

“Terminus Trading Company? That’s you right? I have all the museum pieces that we could get in the relic Lander here with me and ready to be loaded.” The young curator explained.historical

“Straight into the bay gentlemen, we will take them off the station dollies and sort them afterward. This is our last shipment before departure.” Nico explained.

“That’s fine by us.” The driver called back, then slowly pulled the line of roller dollies loaded with machinery into the Colony Ship.

Once they were inside, the line stopped, but nobody moved, as they usually would, to release the locks on the machinery so that the loading bay cranes could remove them.

“Say, what’s the price for a one-way trip out of here?” The driver asked with a conspiratorial smile.

“For how many?” Nico replied in her artificial business tone, doing her best to hide her eagerness to help a few more civilians leave before things got really bad.

“Thirty-five, including the curator. I know it’s short notice, but I would appreciate it if you would give us a lift.” The driver replied.

“Fine, close the station doors and secure the airlock. We will be ready to depart in three minutes.” Nico announced.

The whole bay turned to organized chaos, as the staff activated the remote locking procedure for the station doors, then set the atmosphere in the containment zone to purge after one minute, so that the docking clamps would automatically release without the need for a manual override that would alert the station’s senior officers that something unusual was happening.

The Ship’s doors closed, and exactly one minute later, the lights at the door went green, indicating that they were free of their securement and ready to depart the station.

[Colony Ship Terminus to Station Command, requesting a clear lane for translation to faster than light.] The Admiral requested when he saw the ship was free of the station. He moved them just far enough away that the locks couldn’t engage again and waited for the reply with his hands on the command terminal.

[Colony Ship Terminus, follow the route provided out of the star system before translation, this is a no Warp zone. It was a pleasure doing business with you.] Station Command replied, sending through a set of coordinates that would send them in an entirely different direction than any of the other ships leaving the system.

“Admiral to Mary Tarith. Can you check this route? It looks suspicious to me.” The Admiral requested, forwarding it to the terminal in the Loading Bay observation room.

“No, that route is approved, it is the standard route for Reavers to leave the station so that they don’t show up among the general cargo traffic. Station Command is still among the Loyalists.” Mary replied, before going back into her tablet’s logs to double-check their supply load records.

The bulky Colony Ship began to make its way out of the system just as the first Tapani attack cruisers arrived in the system, following the standard trade routes. Max saw that Nico was recording everything and that there were no fewer than twenty other officers also watching the surveillance sensors on the Colony Ship, so he hoped that nothing important would be missed in tomorrow’s briefing.

They didn’t go straight to the station though, they stopped a freighter and boarded it at the edge of the system before Terminus left sensor range, baffling most of the officers, and causing General Yaakov to add it as a point for the next strategic meeting.

“I think I know what Tapani is after here. Kepler Terminus was the origin of the System. The AI is very particular, and won’t transfer itself to people it doesn’t recognize as friendly to itself, including most non-Kepler descendants born in the Empire. I think that they’re after the source to try to modify it for their own use, to spread the System outside of Kepler.” Nico informed the Command staff.

That could be a nightmare for the Empire, but there wasn’t anything that they could do about it right now, the Tapani Military was more than capable of dealing with one Colony Ship, and if they turned back, there was no way that the Terminus could outrun them to even attempt a flanking maneuver to pick off the most vulnerable.

“I will send it to Imperial Command right away. I know there is a fleet already dispatched to the sector.” General Ming replied almost instantly, followed by a message from the Admiral.

“We are not alone on this route. Five vessels of unknown origin at a stop ahead, blockade formation. Should we hail them or attempt to pass by?” The Admiral asked.

Mary Tarith tapped a few times at her data tablet, then responded to the Admiral before anyone else could.

“They aren’t responding to Reaver security codes. They’re not one of ours.”

That was good enough for the Admiral. He altered course to give them a wide berth without entirely leaving the lane he was assigned to and prepared to engage the Warp Drive.