Her destination was a newly discovered world named Aphrodite after the Greek goddess of love and beauty. In fact, they'd only completed the scientific survey that confirmed the world was safe for human habitation within the last fifteen years. After the tragedy on Timian, no world could be legally occupied without a thorough scientific evaluation that would catalog at least eighty percent of its life. That information would then be posted publicly allowing any future settlers to study their new home site before they got there. In this way it was hoped the Timian tragedy would not be reenacted.
Once released for colonization, the world with its warm mild climate and lush forests had become a Mecca for the rich as a tourist destination. The average daytime temperature over the majority of the land masses, which were all near the equator, was thirty one degrees Celsius. This with the warm seas bordering the continents made for a comfortable and attractive setting for both nudists and nature lovers. Add to this the near absence of biting insects and similar undesirable inhabitants, and it was nearly perfect. A conglomeration of extremely wealthy individuals recognizing this, had purchased rights to most of the planet's surface, thus limiting colonization. The hope was that the planet could be turned to a tourism based economy and left mostly unspoiled for the pleasure of its visitors.
The main problem with this plan that Natasha could see was the lack of a real military force to control piracy. There had already been incidences of pirates taking wealthy hostages for ransom. And, so far they'd gotten away with it. With a small population there was little to draw on to form a militia to patrol the space in the system and keep such activities to a minimum. Mercenaries were a possibility, but they could be, and sometimes were, worse than pirates. Without exhaustive and expensive background checks they could easily create more problems than they solved. Still, if something wasn't done soon, the venture might fail completely as piracy ran rampant and people stopped visiting out of fear. That would plunge the local economy into chaos, a perfect environment for all sorts of trouble makers, criminal organizations and worse.
It was on this world that Ryan's, the officer who'd been killed had caught his prisoner and then been found dead. She wondered how the prisoner had managed to get the best of a G-Pol officer. They were trained to handle almost anything and she couldn't imagine a single individual being able to escape without aid from outside once captured. However, there had been no evidence of a struggle, and none that would indicate the presence of anyone else who could've aided the prisoner either. In fact, Ryan's' weapon had still been in its holster.
This was all the information she'd been given, and it was more than a little disquieting. Someone obviously had to know more, but that information hadn't gotten to her. This meant that someone there had either tampered with the report, or withheld important information in the first place. That probably meant a cover up of some kind, and that wasn't a good thing to have to contemplate. She'd have to be especially careful on this assignment.
Opening the file on the escaped prisoner again she read through it carefully. The man was good looking. He might even be attractive if he wasn't so self serving and willing to help others kill indiscriminately. His name was Sean Mallory, that was so stereotypical it made her want to laugh. It was obviously a pseudonym, but no other name for him was known. He was a biochemist who'd first made a name for himself making drugs for illegal sale by organized crime.
When the organization he'd worked for had been broken up by law enforcement, he'd fled and been lost. A year later he'd resurfaced working with a political group known to sponsor terrorist acts. For them he'd produced a variety of toxic gasses and chemical compounds they'd used in several bombings. The death tolls had been horrific and once again he'd faded into obscurity.
He'd been Ryan's' pet project for years and Ryan's had almost captured him on several occasions. This last time he'd apparently stumbled on him and finally managed to bring him to ground. Now Ryan's was dead with no cause given. Mallory now had a murder charge added to his record as well. This was the first time he was known to have taken a life directly. Was his modus operandi changing? That could be troublesome.
Closing the file and checking the navigational computer, she was happy to see they'd arrived at the jump point and were already at a full stop. Opening the security program, she entered her command code and allowed the unit to scan her iris, retina and hand prints for identification. Once that was complete, she entered her destination coordinates and began to power up the Transit drive. She normally ran with it powered down because she didn't think it needed to be running constantly and wasting power. It didn't make much difference, but it would conserve fuel. There was no point in being wasteful.
A minute later the spacefold drive showed powered up and ready to go. She hit the engagement button and watched through the externals as the stars faded out of existence and the universe went black. Next came the slight wrenching sensation in the stomach as the Drive engaged. It would be eight hours before they reentered normal space again and then they'd be over nineteen hundred light years away from Sol system and Earth.
Once that was finished and everything was reading as normal, she slowly stood up and stretched. Looking over at where Bona lay on the floor she smiled to herself. Bona, seeing her get up did likewise, stretching luxuriantly and yawning hugely, showing all her sharp white teeth. The two of them left the flight deck together with Demeitri in tow.
Deciding to nap through the majority of the Transit jump, she headed for her bedroom. Technically it should've been called her cabin, but she thought of the ship as a house and therefore it was her bedroom. Once she got inside she told the computer to set her alarm to wake her in six hours which would leave her time to get up,eat and work out before showering and getting ready to face the days ahead and the potential adventures on yet another unfamiliar world.
