Intergalactic

The clock ticked down as the Rusty Bolt accelerated through hyperspace, hurtling towards the gas giant, then around it. Gravity still exists in hyperspace, and Twitch was at this point navigating by the bends and ripples in space that it caused.

He was mumbling navigation data to himself again, barely audible except for the „slingshot complete“ acknowledgment that came eventually. As the gas giant disappeared behind them, visible only on the holographic display, their hunt for the freighter was on.

„I’ll never get over this.“, Red muttered to herself, as there was nothing for her to do in this phase of the operation, „How everything just disappears into a void. Sure, makes sense with space bent around us in the warp bubble. I get it as a theory. But that we could fly right through that planet is something I just don’t get.“

Her attention snapped back as the rendezvous came closer. They were coming up behind and underneath the freighter, who no doubt had them on its sensors by now and since their transition into faster-than-light travel knew for sure that they were not some asteroid or space anomaly. There were legends about naturally occurring FTL objects, but to the best of Red’s knowledge, no human had actually ever seen one.

The minutes felt like hours as the Rusty Bolt inched closer and closer, Twitch matching their speed to the freighter as they came near.

„No comms, no evasion.“, the pilot stated the facts calmly, „They don’t know who we are.“

„Guess not.“, Grubs added from below, „We’re a good distance from normal human space.“

Twitch cut in: „Heliosphere shockwave in under two minutes. Captain, don’t think we can make it before. Wait until interstellar?“

Red thought for a few seconds. At their current speed, the transition to interstellar space that would have been reasonably smooth in normal space would indeed be more sudden and jolt them around. If they had their teeth in the freighter at that moment, it could damage their goods or even the ship.

„Damn it, yes. We wait. Going too deep into the void for a heist unnerves me, but it’s too risky otherwise. You boys know I like risk, but not stupid risk.“

Twitch held the Rusty Bolt steady at the underside of the Xylar freighter. The alien vessel filled the entire holographic display. The Rusty Bolt, with all its glorious hundred meters or so in length, seemed little more than a dinghy bobbing next to a leviathan.

„Shockwave in 10… 5… now!“, Twitch called out, and the crew of three held on to their chairs. They hit the transition between the unnamed solar system and interstellar space and were through it in a few seconds. Then they immediately went into action.

Red gritted her teeth again. „Grubs, push it.“

The ship mechanic had prepared the dimensional shears while they were chasing the freighter and had only waited for the go. Grubs switched the device on, diverting power to it. The lights flickered under the strain of energy coursing into a machine the best human scientists were still trying to unravel. The markings on it were in the language of some alien race Grubs knew nothing about, and he had glued labels in English over them wherever he understood the function of a switch or valve or button - which was less than half of them.

„One warp distortion coming right up. It’s gonna be rough.“, he calmly informed the others.

Red slammed her bionic eye shut, focusing. „Alright, listen up. Once we're in the sequence, ten seconds, tops. Grubs, prep the retraction beam. Twitch, get us out of there clean, no matter what.“

„Ten seconds, Captain!“, Twitch announced, his voice tight.

The ship shuddered as it entered a swirling vortex of shimmering colors. The warp bubbles of the two ships merged as the secret weapon of human piracy engaged. A searing blue light erupted from the device, momentarily enveloping the bridge.

Red, heart pounding, activated the sequence. The dimensional shears went to work, opening a rift into the higher dimensional space that most of the Xylar freighter existed in.

„Five seconds!“, Twitch yelled.

The viewport came to life with swirling colors, the result of the hole into 3D space they were creating. Just energy transitions turned into photons.

„Two seconds!“, Twitch’s voice crackled with urgency.

The blue light faded, and the viewport returned to the perfect black of hyperspace. The giant freighter shuddered in the holographic display, as its pilot - AI or Xylar - corrected for the sudden change it had experienced.

„Drop us!“, Red shouted and Twitch hit the hyperdrive controls. The Rusty Bolt lurched violently, tumbling out of hyperspace with its warp bubble collapsing. Alarms blared as the ship was spinning wildly.

„Hold on tight, everyone!“, Twitch wrestled with the controls, sweat streaming down his face. He brought the ship under control, stopped the spin and started the braking sequence.

Red took a deep breath, adrenaline slowly ebbing away. Her gaze went to the holographic display and found the small dot in the distance that was their loot. Eight hundred-thirty light seconds the display indicated as their distance. Not bad. It would take them two hours to get there with the sub-light engines, and if Grubs’s frantic activity half a deck down was any indication, they would need that time for repairs and patch jobs.

„Grubs, how is she holding up?“, the captain inquired.

„Didn’t like it, as I said.“, the engineer answered, „But she’ll be ok. Warp generators will need an overhaul, though. They’re not made for hard drops like that.“

Red returned her eyes to the display. The viewport was of no use at such distances, even though the Milky Way had returned now that they were back in normal space. The scanner data started to appear, and confirmed that they had done well. One pristine Xylar hyperdrive core was waiting for them, dropped into 3D space when the dimensional shears punched a hole into the freighter’s warp bubble. More valuable than any cargo the freighter carried, at least to the human race who to this day could not manufacture their own cores.

The Xylar wouldn’t turn around for it, they were masters of hyperspace technology, replacing it was a nuisance to them and not worth delaying a transport. Humans and their little piracy were like bugs to them.