Intergalactic

The holographic display at the captain’s station showed Red the grim truth, its luminescent glow reflected in her crimson eye, painting a grim picture across her face. The freighter was still well outside the solar system of the red dwarf whose asteroid belt the crew had been using for cover, but they needed time to get into hyperspace and then to match its speed, which was almost twice what they had anticipated.

The ship AI was busy running through simulations and doing multi-dimensional calculations, because the Xylar freighter was at the moment traveling through higher-dimensional space.

Red was impatiently watching the simulation runs and projections it showed. „Damn seven-dimensionals“, she grumbled, „making a girl's job a nightmare.“

„Could’ve picked lower-dimensional aliens, capt’n.“, Grubs responded from below, „Fiver or Sixers.“

Red nodded: „Sure, but the Xylars have some of the best hyperdrives. And for them, building new ones is so easy that it’s not worth hunting a few pirates just because we steal one or two from a freighter that has eight or more of them.“

„I know“, Grubs returned to attention to the engines, „wouldn’t want to provoke a full-blown punitive expedition.“

First time estimates appeared in the holographic display. Six minutes until they could create a warp bubble. One minute after that, the Xylars would enter the system’s heliosphere.

Twitch was mumbling changes to their approach to himself: „Need that hyperspace gravity assist to get enough C-Factors quickly enough. The Xylars will pass well above the ecliptic plane, in order to avoid the deeper parts of the star’s gravity well. Correct trajectory upwards via slingshot to save the engines for acceleration.“

Red was rethinking their heist. Her original estimate for the time the freighter would be within the heliosphere of the system, the best time for them to pull off the heist, had been 8 or 9 minutes. But at the higher speed they saw now, taking into account the power function of C-Factors, that time was almost half her estimate. „We may have to chase the freighter into interstellar space.“, she said, loud enough for the others to hear, but mostly to herself.

„Old Rusty won’t like that.“, Grubs answered in the same way without addressing anyone in particular, „Not one bit.“

„I know.“, Red replied. She had become calm now that the tension was on. „We won’t get that nice, clean intercept, match speed, get in and get out. It’ll be a chase.“

Not their most favorite way of doing things, but beggars can’t be choosers.

The holographic display settled on a solution that Twitch and the AI had agreed upon. They would reach the gas giant almost the exact moment the freighter came into the system. Even with the gravity assist, they would catch up to it barely before it left the system a few minutes later. Their heist would complete, if at all, well outside the heliosphere, in interstellar space. It would be a rocky ride.

One minute later, the viewport went dark as the Rusty Bolt slipped into its warp bubble and the roar of the sub-light-speed engines was replaced by the alien whir of the hyperdrive. During faster-than-light travel, the world was a very different place, and navigation was entirely by sensors and computer predictions.