Page 161 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

that would normally have led to the Occlusion taking hold and dragging the ship into its gravity well.
With the rapid and precise shifts; it should mean they would pass this hurdle with the least possible
disruption to ships operations. As a precaution though; the biological members of the crew would
take shelter in the heavily shielded crawl spaces for the duration of the manoeuvre. It took about an
hour and a half to complete the traverse; another thirty minutes to get all the crew back to their
stations for the rest of the approach. All were thankful that the procedure went without problems.
The next possible problem would be synchronising orbits around She’brakda and keeping up with its
eccentric trajectory and the subsequent gravity fluctuations this could cause.

The manoeuvre had taken its toll on Trok’s systems; he spent the next few hours undergoing
maintenance; much to T’luha’s delight as she had wanted to see just what made his series of
Mechanoids so viable. Tom continued to study the circuitry from the cylinder and delve deeper into
the properties of the coating of its housing. Hubris and Jennifer finally managed to stabilise their
equipment and used it to form the basis of a translator device. The hive would integrate the finalised
functions into its translation matrix for the crew member’s headbands. When the system was tried
on the Glyphs found on Shust; the translation had a sing-song lilt to it. It was still in an allegorical
format, but the references became clearer with each translation of Glyph sets. The Hive was learning
the Kryst language in much the same way a child learns its own tongue whilst growing up. Hubris
opened a flagon of Keterian Brandy to celebrate with Jennifer and was rolling drunk after just three
glasses. Vahamat reacted this way to most alcoholic beverages; it seemed their bodies didn’t
metabolise alcohol in the same way as other races. The rest of the crew found it highly amusing. He
would come round about two hours later with a monstrous headache. The brandy was much
appreciated by the other crew members that were present.

Four days after the manoeuvre at the Gravity Occlusion the Veklaar was on approach to the
P’rada system and preparing for the orbit around She’brakda. It was generally accepted that a quick
survey of T’Shon might also be of benefit and give some of the less experienced flight crew a chance
to test their skills; so Krysta and the Flight command set this up. One of the young pilots; a Fenian
named Maria Greer showed exceptional skill for one so young.

“You remind me of myself when I first started my orbital training” Krysta told the young pilot “If you
maintain this level of skill throughout your training; I can see you heading missions on your own, as
the Unity’s youngest Commander” she added.

“Thank you Ma’am. I want to go into Military Flight duties after my time in the Academy; a family
tradition and a first; I’ll be the first female of the line to do so!” Maria responded

“Good! We need more women in the service; back in my own territory the local government saw
the sense of having equal numbers of both sexes in all professions. The Unity is still a little backward
in that sense. Perhaps they should take a leaf from the Buraxin book” Krysta said with a wink. Maria
laughed.

“Who knows; there are Buraxin women standing for election to the High Council this term. The
change may yet happen”. The two chatted as Krysta walked the young pilot to one of the Veklaar’s
scout craft. It had been fitted with deep penetration scanners to survey the magma layers under
T’Shon’s crust.

“The last Untharan survey showed a disturbing rise in the number of Sulphur laden Magma plumes
in the northern hemisphere. She’brakda is going to be at its closest to T’Shon in this part of its
monthly orbit. Remember to get those Gravity readings for Geological before your “sightseeing”
Cadet.” Trok told Maria as she mounted the craft.

“Relax sir; I’m fully aware of my mission stats and requirements. I’ll get the data. I still don’t see why
we just didn’t use a drone probe. It would have been just as effective” Maria replied