Hilda
It had been more than a week of searching, and with no results. A dozens of systems with so little importance that most didn’t even have a proper name. A minor systems settled by a few hundred or a few dozen people which had indeed been hit by the cruiser but little else to show for it.
The best that they had discovered was an old abandoned listen post. Barely large enough for one to live in, and Hilda or the crew of the ‘Jade Grip’, couldn’t even confirm that it hadn’t been sitting there for a hundred or thousand years, let alone that it was used by the Fabian Order of Drala, and the cruiser.
Hilda had been sure they would have found something. Some sign of something, she didn’t know what, didn’t care what, but something, anything. She had been sure the prisoners hadn’t told her everything, and had spent countless hours with the Bishop in her cell to question her, but it all proved to no avail.
The flight path of the cruiser offered them nothing they had not already known. There was no new trail for them to pick up, and no new prisoners to capture. The trail went cold, and bishop continue to say she would only speak to the king.
Hilda admired Bishop Fyre’s strength of will, but if the bishop would not speak to her, she would not allow her to be brought before the King, even if that meant she never left the ‘Jade Grip’.
“Helm,” Hilda said from her seat on the command deck.
“Yes ser,” Commander Taft answered.
“Plot us a course back to the Fabian Gateways, it’s time that we return to Bastion,” she said coldly.
“Uh, yes ser,” Commander Taft replied slowly.
Hilda understood the pause. They could search another week and still reach Bastion before the wedding, but she was tired of the chase after nothing.
“Captain Atwood,” Hilda said to her XO officer.
“Yes ser?” he asked with a questioningly look on his face.
“I don’t want to just abandon the search,” Hilda informed him. “Have the two corvettes prepare to continue the search and scout out the system.”
“Yes Ser,” Captain Atwood replied.
Hilda smiled as she sensed the mood on the command deck change. “We have a wedding to get to,” she said with a grin. “We stopped the attack, we did our job, now it’s time for the crew to return for their reward.”
She saw the smiles on the crew at the word of reward. “Besides, what better place is there to spend the money off the sale of that cruiser than Bastion itself?” she asked.
Bastion was a center of trade in the Commonwealth and the nebula itself.
“Between that and the build up of our pay we haven’t been able to spend, it’s going to be a hell of a party,” Commander XXXXX laughed.
“Better give the crew time off just to recover,” Captain Atwood added with a smirk.
