During Avery and Kasandra's chat with Jasmine about her past, the Dauntless received a transmission from Commander Berks vessel.
They were now only three minutes away from the warp portal.
"I suppose that more stories from your childhood will have to wait. We should probably return to the cockpit." Kasandra said regrettably.
The three of them got up from the seats at the table, but as he was about to exit the room, Avery felt a tug on his hand and turned around to see Jasmine grabbing a hold of him.
When he looked at her face, he could see that she was wearing a nervous and fearful expression.
"I'm really sorry if my presence brings you any trouble. I promise to do my best to resolve any issues before they co up."
"Don't worry about it. If your past cos to kick up trouble, I'll just kick back. I brought you onboard knowing that problems could show up following you. We've all got targets on our backs for one reason or another. I don't plan on ever abandoning anyone that joins my team, and that includes you." Avery said reassuringly.
He then placed a quick kiss on Jasmine's cheek and pulled her along to the cockpit.
Waiting there, already at her station, Kasandra gave them both a wry grin as they sat down.
The mont that they dropped out of light speed, the sight of an enormous structure ca into view.
Without even needing to magnify the image being displayed on the viewscreen, Avery could clearly make out a giant spinning ring off in the distance.
It was mostly composed of a white tal that seed to be glowing due to how it reflected the light.
At certain intervals there were what looked like bumps protruding out of the ring. Though these were actually compounds where maintenance staff lived, and spare materials were stored.
In terms of any sort of structure Avery had ever seen before, this warp portal was by far the largest and most impervious.
It had a diater of nearly two thousand kiloters. A truly enormous device, capable of swallowing even so smaller moons.
This was simply how large it needed to be to facilitate connecting two points in space. Nearly a year's worth of energy expenditure for an entire planet was used every week just to use this single warp portal.
Maintaining the network was by far the most expensive and resource intensive project within the Dramid Alliance but being able to travel tens of thousands of light years in a single mont was more than worth the effort.
Using light speed and hyper space travel alone would have made it nearly impossible to govern the vast territory of the Dramid Alliance.
From one end to another it could take over a year of dedicated traveling with minimal stops. And this distance continued to grow as the Alliance expanded its territory.
Yet thanks to the warp portal network, even the farthest reaches were accessible within a month. They were a true marvel in the current age of spacefaring and those in power would love to build far more if not for their exorbitant costs.
Of course, only certain people had access to warp portals.
Their use was heavily restricted. The Alliance Police, high ranking governnt officials, and the few approved rchant companies were the main demographics that were allowed to co and go through the warp portals.
People like Avery were an exception. Thanks to his ritorious service and receiving the Silver Cross of Heroism, he had been given permission to use warp portals. A perk rarely handed out to rcenaries, though one used as an incitive for the best to stay within the Alliance and not take their skills elsewhere. Especially to an enemy power.
"Oh, it looks like we've received out tislot for entry." Jasmine said, reading the ssage that they had just received.
Despite being escorted by the Alliance Police, there were still procedures that needed to be followed.
Activating a warp portal was by no ans sothing to be done lightly, so only once a sufficient number of vessels had been accumulated for the jump were they activated. Sotis this could take several days, but fortunately, they only needed to wait a few hours.
Now that his attention had been montarily drawn away from the warp portal while he was listening to Jasmine repeat the transmission the Dauntless had just received, Avery turned his gaze towards the thousands of ships hovering around the system.
A vast majority were Alliance Police vessels serving as protectors for the warp portal. Other than the capital world itself, there was no more strategic target for any of the Dramid Alliance's enemies.
Just at a glance, Avery counted over thirty heavy cruisers and saw two types of ships he had heard of but never laid eyes on before.
Battleships, the true behemoths of the Alliance Police.
Avery sighted four of them within close proximity of the warp portal. Standing in position as its guardians.
Each one was larger and more heavily ard than the heavy cruisers that Avery was familiar with.
While heavy cruisers typically ranged in size from around eight hundred to twelve hundred ters long, Alliance Police battleships were all at least fifteen hundred ters long.
Up until now, the largest craft Avery had seen was the Moonrise rchant company's flagship, but these battleships were all slightly large.
Except, among all of the Alliance Police vessels, there was a single one that stood out amongst the rest.
It was the largest and most prestigious type of craft currently in use by the Alliance. A capital ship.
While technically a class of battleship, capital ships were the largest and strongest, and served as the lead vessels of massive fleets.
At around two thousand ters long, the Alliance Police capital ship was by far the most impressive.
Its very presence here showed off the might of the Dramid Alliance and served as a warning to any that might have any nefarious plans towards the warp portal under its protection.
"Wow, that's an impressive craft." Avery said in awe as he stared at the capital ship. "I don't think that there's anything we could do if we had to fight that thing."
"Probably not. "Kasandra replied. "Perhaps if we still had phasic torpedoes and caught the crew completely off-guard, we might be able to do sothing. But yeah. There is no way we could hope to stand up to that thing's firepower even with the Dauntless."
Fortunately, the Alliance Police were currently their allies, so there was essentially no chance of having to fight against one of their strongest ships.
Still, being rcenaries that often got drawn into battles, Avery and Kasandra could not help but start thinking of ways to overco the challenge before their eyes if the outlandish scenario ever did present itself.
While the three of them marveled at the vessels all around them, the ti for their departure soon arrived.
Encircled by Commander Berk's squad once again, Avery and his team lined up with the other people aiming to go through the warp portal and reach the other side of the Alliance.
"Woah!"
When the warp portal finally beca active, what looked like an inky black liquid film slowly spread out across the empty space between it.
To all that had ever seen this before, it was undoubtably an astonishing sight. And if not for the Dauntless currently being in flight sync mode, Avery would have missed his cue to begin moving and sat in the cockpit in a daze.
As Avery, Kasandra and Jasmine watched the line in front of them, every ti a ship passed through the inky threshold, it completely vanished.
Soon they had reached the front, and Commander Berk's light cruiser disappeared.
Once it was finally their turn, Avery gripped the Dauntless' controls a bit tighter as they were engulfed.
For only a single second, the entire viewscreen went black, before they arrived on the other side.
""That's it."" Avery and Kasandra said in unison.
From all of the starting fanfare, they had expected so more flashing lights or so realty bending experience, but instead, it was simar to simply walking through a door. All they had done was go from one point to another.
"I think I did say a while ago that traveling through a warp portal isn't all that impressive. All they do is connect one point to another, so really you just fly through it."
While a bit disappointed by the lack of any flare, Avery and Kasandra still had to marvel at the distance they had traveled.
Their navigational computer swiftly updated their position by reading predownloaded star charts and the positions of nearby celestial bodies.
In a re instant they had just traveled over twenty thousand light years. A trip that would have taken several months through hyperspace.
Nevertheless, they had not quite arrived at their destination yet. They still needed to go through one more hyper lane, and then they would finally reach the Cocarro System. Where the trial Grtio would testifying in and Jasmine's mother awaited.
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