Ossanlin nods to Keslin. <<I will defer to the survivors' judgment as to our destination in search of the remaining rebellion members. You may rest assured that we will do everything within our power to guarantee the health and survival of your ho...>> He stops himself from saying "host's" and revises his statement. <<...of your offspring. Every life is important.>>
He nods to Enorryma before a thought-speech voice catches his attention. It was Verden, temporarily in charge of the sensors station. <My Prince, our sensor probe has picked up a Z-Space signature dropping out on the other side of the planet!>
Ossanlin jerks and spins around. <Enorryma, we need to jump now...blind if need-be.> He dials up the ship-wide comm... <Prince Lieutenant Esarvit, report to the bridge sensors station immediately.> He closes the comm and glances over at Verden again. <What does the probe say?>
<It's a destroyer-class vessel, sir. It has readings...unlike I've ever seen before. I can't get a clear picture...but the energy output suggests Shredders sir...>
Ossanlin's face loses expression. Somehow, his own people had tracked him. A destroyer-class Andalite vessel of unknown specifications...it screams Sector 7. They might have a way of tracking energy trajectories...abov
e all he cannot allow them to see the Tyrennian.
He steps into his station and glances down at the temporary helmsman, Erkor. <Warrior Erkor, keep the planet core between us and that ship. It should still be shrouding our signature...we
must prevent them from seeing us.>
He dials up the ship-wide comm using his console once again. <All personnel, this is War-Prince Ossanlin-Rethin-Sephirel. Prepare for a Z-space blind-jump, I repeat, prepare for a Z-Space blind-jump.> He uses his Captain's console to sound the ship claxon, the bridge's alert indicators suddenly glowing bright yellow to indicate immediate hazard, the holographic tactical and information displays jumping up in front of him.
~
Cendir sighs as Model 71 once again drops out of Z-Space. The necessity of the assignment does nothing to assuage its tedium in her mind. Tracking a ship in this manner is troubling at best. Due to the fluid nature of Z-Space, tracking ships through it is strictly impossible. However, all pilots are trained in the Academy to orient their vessels in the real-space direction of their destination before jumping. Physically speaking, it's completely unnecessary...but it made tracking ships possible, if....tedious. It required the tracking ship to drop out of Z-Space at intervals to check for their quarry. It could be maddening and was certainly frustrating beyond reason, but it could pay very big dividends.
<Sir, we have some anomalous readings near the exposed planet core up ahead.>
Cendir raises her eyebrows and nods. <Get us closer...if we find whoever absconded from Corvus, Lord-Commander Iksilon will be most pleased.> She glances around the sleek white, silver, and black lines of Model 71's bridge interior. Iksilon preferred to call the ship "Shadowscythe," but Model 71 is it's true designation. Cendir chuckles to herself at his strange little idiosyncrasies. Her mate was often far more artistic than he would ever admit. Of course she would call the ship "Shadowscythe" in his presence, he would tolerate no less, but while she's in command, it would always be Model 71. "Shadowscythe" had been her own call-sign until Iksilon had appropriated it for his little toy of a ship. She still bristled about having to change her personal call-sign to "Shadowstrike" just to satiate Iksilon's whims...it probably played no small part in her absolute refusal to accept the ship as "Shadowscythe."
She taps at her cheek with a finger, lost in thought as she so often had been lately regarding the Corvus raid. Iksilon was convinced that it couldn't have been Imperials. Oh he was a shrewd one, Iksilon. And powerful, though he hid it well from outsiders. A clever and devious mind...the Lord-Commander of Sector 7 could possess no less. Even the title "Lord-Commander" was unknown to outsiders. Who would expect that unassuming little Sector 7, a mere intelligence analysis branch of the government, actually had strings tied to nearly every person of power amongst the Andalite people? That even those who were tied so tightly that they could not even act without the express wishes of Sector 7 had no idea that those strings bound them? She chuckles to herself again.
Of course she harbors no delusions. A person in Iksilon's position could not afford emotion or conscience. Their mateship is certainly not typical. They respect each other...she an exceptionally talented assassin, and he arguably the most powerful Andalite alive. Love has no part in it, and Cendir has no doubt that Iksilon would have her killed if it suited him. The key to surviving was both simple and elegant...make sure she remains more useful to him alive than dead. There was a sort of exciting danger about their relationship...she could kill him...but she would not survive the effort long. Still...that excitement and the opportunities granted by her position are worth the danger to her.
If Iksilon hadn't had business at Corvus, he would be here too...but it isn't every day that someone manages to locate a highly-secretive Yeerk detention center, infiltrate it, neutralize it, free selective Yeerk and human prisoners, and escape with enough human fodder and Kandrona generators to last several months. So, the task of tracing the vessel responsible had fallen to her. Time, of course, was of supreme essence.
