4 Captain Argentear (1/2)

It wasn't until Ivan's stomach grumbled in displeasure that he realized he hadn't eaten anything for the past fifty millennia. The hyperspace gravitational sonar was operating under an automatic system and would alert Mazur and himself should any threat be detected.

”I'm going to have a look around,” Ivan stated but Mazur simply waved his hand to express his disinterest in accompanying.

Ivan left the bridge and rather than taking the linear elevator, decide to walk and get a feel of the ship. He walked through the passageways and inspected each part of the ship.

The largest part of the ship, occupying nearly fifty percentage of the ships space, was a massive storage warehouse. It was empty at the moment with the exception of a few shipping crates worth of food and fuel. There were several hovercrafts for travelling along a planets surface, as well as two heavy duty hoverlifts for loading and unloading the cargo. Finally there were a large amount of reinforced steel cages for holding wild beasts.

The next largest were the private quarters. There were a hundred private room and another hundred communal with four people per room. The ship is designed to function with a crew of 500, but most of those are repair and maintenance crew, which Mazur decided to go without as he is capable of repairing anything on the ship himself.

Ivan simply chose a random room near the front of the quarters and registered it to his hand print. There was only Mazur on this ship so it wasn't necessary, but Ivan had developed a habit of security when he sleeps due to memories from the Galactic Fleet Captain. The one was the same as the rest, with a basic bed, several cabinets and drawers, a television, and finally an information and communication terminal.

At the rear of the ship was the engine room. Ivan looked up at the massive Sol Reactor that looked like a dead ball of black steel, but he knew that inside several containment fields within the reactor was a highly pressurized hydrogen fusion reaction. Inside it was essentially a pseudo star, hence the name; Sol Reactor.

Ivan also found the armory, which had several weapons in case of 'self defense' as Mazur often puts it. He helped himself to a standard Cobalt M32 Pistol and Rattle PP3 Plasma Rifle. This wasn't the type of pistol that Ivan used to know, but one which shot armor piercing compressed lead rounds. These were highly effective against people using personal energy shields. The plasma rifle shoots a compressed charge of plasma capable of firing once every three seconds and capable of putting a hole the size of a fist through almost anything.

The kitchen, or 'mess' in Ivan's memory, was a reasonably large room capable of sitting nearly a hundred people at a time. Ivan felt a little lonely in such a large space by himself as he found several fridges in the food preparation area at the back. He was saved the embarrassment of making food with unfamiliar items though as he also managed to operate the automated food preparation service to make him a meal out of the stocked ingredients.

”Hmm, it's a little bland,” Ivan mumbled disappointedly to himself after tasting the pasta Bolognese-like dish presented before him.

”Ivan, we are about to arrive at our destination. Come back to the bridge,” Mazur's wizened voice sounded across the internal communication line inside the mess.

”On my way.”

Ivan scoffed the last of his food and took a linear elevator back to the bridge. He was just in time and operated the reverse thrusters and dropped out of hyperspace just outside of the Oberon Solar System.

”A bit closer and we would have dropped out of hyperspace inside the solar system. The Galactic Fleet's Hyperspace Defense Shield would have turned us to dust,” Mazur cackled to himself, getting kicks out of how close they were to instant annihilation.

Meanwhile Ivan had beads of cold sweat on his forehead. If he had knwon there was a HDS over this solar system, he would have opted to drop out of hyperspace at least a light hour away. He quickly operated the reverse thrusters to slow the ship down to half of light speed in order to avoid activating the Kelbert-Izac Particles spread throughout the solarsystems and running into a figurative impenetrable wall at speeds measurable against light.

Ivan glanced across the holographic monitors several times as they flew deeper into the solar system. His tension was high throughout the next hour as they approached Oberon II, the second planet within the system.

”Deep space radars are picking up a signal of an incoming battleship. It's the Galactic Fleet and they've already locked onto us. Don't let me down Ivan, or we are both as good as dead,” Mazur nonchalantly stated while glancing over several of the ships radars.