Flight

The next morning, Kallou onboarded the wolfpack crews, supervising through scanners as the pirates were scanned for hidden surprises. Nothing out of the ordinary, but he still felt the need to check and register. Complacency breeds danger and he had no plans to be the one to misstep there. So he double checked and triple checked while his crew did the same.

Almost the last to board, in this case his own ship, was Captain Shpak. Kallou nodded at the man, who was leaving his own ship in the hands of others, so that he could help supervise the trip from what would be his ship when the job was done. For now, the Wolf was still the property of Thales Station, with Kallou as the supervisor. But he planned to share the reins with Shpak.

He walked alongside the man, escorting him to the bridge. There, he paused for a bit while Shpak looked around the room. After a minute, Kallou spoke up. "So, what say you, Yakiv? Does she satisfy?" The man grinned at him, a large, toothy grin, which felt close to baring teeth. Kallou noted his own instincts to shiver in response, suppressing them while acknowledging that this man was indeed the wild beast they had expected.

"Aye, that she does, Valis. Still want to take her for a spin or ten, but it looks like the quality we were promised. Alright, let's leave first, then talk second, aye?" Kallou nodded then gave the order. The fleet, accompanied by the wolf pack, left the station and flew towards one of the many pirate shortcuts that Stormfarers loved and merchants feared.

Only once they were outside the range of any curious canners, and after a last onboard scan to guarantee there were no hidden communication devices, did Kallou wave over Shpak to the central navigation controls. A few taps later, and a hyperspace map projected, an eldritch abomination trying to fold what for all purposes was four-dimensional into a three-dimensional display. A few gestures later, the map zoomed in on what looked like a weird nebula.

"You recognise the Tears of the Muses, of course. The product of a binary star system, with a Hypersea flow caught in its interactions somehow. Dancing inbetween multiple star systems, it acts as an infinite loop as long as you go fast enough. The faster you go, the larger and weirder your orbit, but it takes active steering to go deeper or leave."

Shpak nodded. "Aye, I know it. The dark energy stretched to the point of displaying brightly, rainbows visible to even the naked eyes. So that's it then, yes? Where we must go?" He walked around the projection, hands behind his back, looking solemn while hiding his excitement. He appeared to be looking for a clue, but couldn't find it. In the end, he simply raised an eyebrow.

"That it is. Because somewhere there, something is hiding." With that, Kallou tapped buttons and signals appeared on the map, alongside dates and uncertainty estimations. Then a few possible orbits appeared. All of them coming from the same origins, but utterly chaotic in their continuation. That wasn't the biggest concern though. It only took Shpak twenty seconds to realise, then another thirty to question his own beliefs.

Finally, he spoke up, giving Kallou an incredulous look. "That fast?? Is there even anything that can ma... No, of course there isn't. That's why you're here. You're hunting a ghost that is centuries ahead of all of you, nevermind the rest of us! A thousand storms be damned, no wonder you were so eager to pay our price!" Kallou nodded, a faint smile lingering on his lips, before it turned into a grin alongside Shpak's face. In the end, both loved the thrill of the unknown.