Hilda
Hilda sat at the table in her large briefing room surrounded by her senior staff. She listened as her staff went on about the royal wedding, and preparing to leave the System. There were some that agreed with her though they were few in number. That their duty was to hunt down the location the cruiser had been to, to make sure that there were no other members waiting out there, and if they waited until after the wedding, they would have time to flee.
“We’re not leaving,” Hilda said softly.
It took a moment for the chatter to die down, and one by one everyone around the table looked at her.
“But the king…” Commander Cuthbert Sunwatch, the ships Fabian Bishop began to protest but Hilda cut him off.
“The King is not here,” Hilda said firmly. “Do you really think the King would wish for us to abandon what we have found if he knew?” She said.
“No,” Idunn Vault said curtly, even though it was not her place to speak, and it brought a smile to Hilda.
“The King had charged me with command. As a member of his person guard, I command with his voice…” Hilda began but was cut off by the bishop.
“But the King gave an order,” Sunwatch said again.
“The King does not know what we have found out here, and has charge me with the safety of his subjects,” Hilda said coldly, and stared at the Bishop. “And if you cut me off again I’ll remove your tongue from your mouth, is that understood?”
The bishop gulped but noddded before he spoke. “Yes ser.”
“We will send a messenger ship escorted by one of the frigates in our hangar bay to inform the king what we have found, and that we will arrive before the wedding,” Hilda assured those at the time. “How long is a royal wedding?” she asked and tilted her head. She had never been to one, not that she wished to watch King Oswald wed and bed some new whore.
“Gods, must be a week at least,” The ship helm officer Commander Taft said with a laugh. “Wouldn’t want to miss a party like that.”
“Plus another week to reach Bastion, so three week out of the Sector for these scum to escape,” Hilda said coldly. “They may already have.”
“It would make sense to abandon any post if the cruiser missed a deadline, but these systems are out of the way, most don’t even have a habitable moon let alone world,” Captain Atwood said. “Still, if they are out there, I would rather catch the now, instead of letting them get away.”
“I would like to know why this cruiser has been in so many dead systems,” Hilda Said. “The minor ones were likely raiding targets, but we can’t know for sure until we explore them. We do that until the last possible minute, than we leave for Bastion.”
“Aye Aye Ser,” Hilda heard her staff say from around the table, even from the bishop.
“Commander Taft have your team draft up the best route to hit as many systems as possible, I want to jump within the hour,” Hilda told the Helm Commander. “Dismissed.”
“Aye Captain,” she heard as she stood from the table.
