The Edge Of Space

Chapter 12 - Infeltration is Merca's game!

After arriving back at the Alcrist 2 they quickly sped off, and after finding a repair bay, docked and got to upgrading the scanner.

After pulling apart the old one and installing, programming and updating the new modification, Vontaine put it back together and attached it back to the ship while Merca finished the uplinks.

"How's that feel Mal?" Merca asked.

"Quite good, I can see a lot further, that probably doesn't make sense to you but my scanner range has increased 10-fold!" She answered gleefully.

"Good, how much faster is the scanner core? Because I updated that too" Vontaine asked.

"Also faster by several times, I could scan this planet in... 13 minutes," she answered taking a second to calculate.

"That's a lot better than 6 days," Merca piped happily.

"That should do it," Vontaine said after screwing down the last bolt.

He also upgraded several other parts of the ship with the other modules they stole. Once done they departed again flying back up into orbit.

As Malketa said it only took her 13 minutes to scan the planet and after some calibration, they had a location.

"Vontaine, I've found coordinates that may be a place of interest".

On the HUD of the screen, satellite imagery of an old abandoned warehouse was playing.

"What's this?" He asked.

"I believe this is a rather large drug den with several operatives that have the Kree pirate's logo on their persons," she informed.

"Could you show me?"

"Of course" she replied and the video zoomed in to ground view. A haulier-class hover cruiser was parked outside the warehouse, several people were unloading inconspicuous boxes into the warehouse. Then the video zoomed into one person wearing a white lab coat. Adorning his right shoulder was the same symbol.

"That's it!" Vontaine shouted startling Zen, who growled slightly.

"Sorry Zen, just glad we finally found something. I was expecting to wait for another week or so," he added.

......................MEANWHILE......................

"Your majesty"...

"Yes, Juel" a calm and smooth feminine voice replied.

"You must come with me at once. I'm afraid there is a matter of great importance that must be attended to," Juel replied with a hesitant tone.

"Could you at least tell me what it is?" She said, standing tall and beautiful.

"I'm afraid I don't know, I was simply summoned to collect you," Juel replied.

The woman gave Juel an unimpressed look but then gestured to Juel to lead the way.

After walking through pristine corridors coloured gold and white they arrived at giant metal doors.

Juel opened the doors and bowed to her queen as she walked through them.

"Your Highness," an alien-looking figure voiced, though it had no mouth.

"Make this quick please, keeping the planets from war is an ever-present task," the woman huffed.

"Very well then" it started.

"A report came in several days ago of a single Triphage energy signature. Our soul searchers sensed it in the first ring of the universe" it explained.