We left Zip the next day. We finished our shopping, drafted up the baseline of our plan, and steeled our nerves. It would take a few days to get to Yaro’s place anyways, so we were planning to finalize our plans during the trip. We separated into our different ships, but we were flying side by side.
Getting into the GU capital system also wasn’t a huge issue. It turned out, Bubbles had a lot of money on hand, so he could just straight up buy our ships access into the system. Normally, you needed permission from an official, or had to pay a large sum of money to get registered, which I couldn’t do. However, Bubbles was rich after decades of doing mercenary work, so he covered us.
A few conditions for our plan met before or during our journey. First of all, a day into our flight, Noah’s tracker stopped moving, and it was stopped on the GU capital planet. That likely meant that Noah had arrived at Yaro’s place, and my father had dropped him off. With my father out of the picture, our heist would go a lot smoothly.
Secondly, according to Bubbles, Noah was in the same spot that he had been captured before. Which meant that Yaro had kept her collection in the same spot, and were likely using the same cages and displays.
Lastly, we were at full power. Bubbles had his new suit and had completely regenerated his lost flesh. I completely recovered from my concussion and was feeling perfectly fine. Keshi and Sil were already in tip top shape. Needle was a lot less depressed and was determined to redeem himself.
Also, I checked the bounty boards to see if any information on Noah had changed. Like I had suspected, my father completed his bounty, and Noah’s bounty was completely gone. This meant that after we recovered Noah and killed Yaro, there would likely be nobody chasing after us anymore, which was perfect. This could’ve been a blessing in disguise except that Noah was still in trouble. He’d be in Yaro’s collection for a couple days before we could bust him out. I hoped he would be fine. If Yaro did anything to him, I’d beat the shit out of her.
One thing I was a little concerned about was our escape plan. To put it mildly, it was a little half baked. I’d be using the cloaking technology on my ship to aid my escape, but it wasn’t a complete failsafe. If we took too long getting Noah, the law enforcement would be all over us. To be honest, the law enforcement would come barging in very quickly. We were going to have to deal with them too. The amount of time that we spent recovering Noah dictated how much law enforcement was going to be on our asses. I wasn’t keen on dealing with the cops.
Sure, mercenaries were given a lot of freedom on what they could and couldn’t do. For example, as long as a person I killed was doing something illegal or had a bounty, then I wouldn’t get in trouble at all. The cops didn’t even care most of the time. If they saw a dead gangster or poacher they probably wouldn’t even bother to find out who did it.
However, breaking into a trillionaire’s house was very much illegal and would get me in a lot of trouble. If I was caught. Breaking in to free Noah was one thing, but breaking out and not landing in prison might be even harder. We had a decent plan, but Sil and Bubbles were still finalizing our escape routes. With luck, we’d be fine, but plans don’t always go so well.
Also, even if we escaped, instead of being wanted by bounty hunters, we might be wanted by the law. I was going to use my old suit so I could conceal my identity, though. My wiresuit didn’t have a helmet so I couldn’t hide my face. I was just going to wear my wiresuit underneath it.
Despite my concerns about the plan, I was still confident in our ability to pull it off. I mean, there was no other option. If we tried this and failed, Yaro would totally up her security, and that was assuming we managed to retreat. If we get arrested, we’d be left there to rot for a long time. No trial, depending on how mad Yaro was. She had the influence to just have us thrown into prison immediately. Bubbles would probably go back to her collection, though. That was probably worse.
As our ships got closer and closer to the capital, the space tunnels became more and more crowded. An unfathomable amount of trade passed through the capital, and the capital system probably had the highest concentration in population in the Galactic Union, so it was no surprise. The capital was a mostly urban city, too, but luckily Yaro’s estate was pretty isolated. She had a lot of space to herself.
This was actually going to be my first time to the capital as well. My father had never taken me despite having a pass to get in, and I never accrued enough money to get in myself. My plan to get Noah back to Earth did include getting to the capital, but that was mostly to find the connections to find Earth.
In fact, I could probably find information relating to the coordinates of Earth at Yaro’s place. However, I doubted I had the time and capabilities to do that. It was supposed to be a simple rescue mission. If I got sidetracked by something like that and tried to search Yaro’s mansion for information, it could take too much time and get me caught. The main goal was Noah. Everything else wasn’t even close to being a priority.
I spent the entire trip feeling restless. As the light years ticked down on my cockpit monitor, it was harder and harder to sleep, and I found myself repeatedly doing maintenance on my weapons and armor to keep myself at ease. Even though I had been traveling with Noah for less than half of a year, being alone in my ship was terrifying. In a short amount of time, I got used to the conversations I had with him, listening to music together, and watching movies. But now, I was alone. But I was going to fix that.
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“We’re about to pass the checkpoint to get into the system. Be ready.” Bubbles’s voice flowed through my comms. “Your ships are already registered, so we should pass through with no problems.”
A nearby security ship scanned my ship for any bounties or illegal cargo. Once it confirmed that I was clean, it lazily drifted to the next ship, and let me pass. Keshi’s ship and Bubbles’s ship were allowed to pass, too. We were officially in the GU capital system.
The system’s real name was the Del system, but most people called it and the capital planet simply “the capital.” The Del system was a relatively large system, with over ten planets, four of which were rocky. The capital was placed on the second farthest from Del, the orange star in the middle. The fourth rocky planet in the Del system was actually the homeworld of the Aeon. It was 80% water, and a lot of Aeon lived in underwater cities there. Since the Aeon were one of the founding species of the GU, and the second planet in the Del system was a planet with a lot of resources, the second planet was chosen to be the capital.
Even after passing the checkpoint, it would still be a while before we actually reached the capital and Yaro’s estate. According to Bubbles, Yaro lived in an extravagant skyscraper in the heart of the biggest city of the capital. The skyscraper boasted 150 floors, and Yaro usually stayed in a penthouse near the top. Also near the top floor was where she kept her collection of rare animals and people that she would show off to her guests and business partners.
As our ships approached the capital, I could make out more and more of what its surface looked like. Most of the planet was covered in ashen gray, with splotches of bright lights. Its two oceans separated the planet into halves, each continent shining as brightly as the other. It was a mostly urban planet, but I could make out some splotches of green where wildlife reserves existed. Overall, it was a grand planet worthy of being called the Capital of the Galactic Union.
The planet started to loom in the foreground as we got closer and closer. Soon, we’d be making a landing at a space harbor near Yaro’s skyscraper. I sighed. Noah would’ve loved to see this sight. He’d have to catch it on our way out.
It had also been the first time I had been on a planet in a while. Noah and I had been on moons recently, but not an actual planet. I occasionally stopped on planets to get work, but I hadn’t since I found Noah. They were sometimes a pain to go to since they had more regulations than moons or stations. However, Bubbles handled everything for me, so there was no issue.
I gloomily stared out the window as one of the capital’s three moons slowly crept by. The planet itself was pretty close now. It wouldn’t be long until we entered the atmosphere and started our mission. We had finalized our plans during the trip, and even had some backup plans. Noah’s tracked location had stayed put the entire time, and was within Yaro’s skyscraper, so there was not going to be much of a problem finding him. The first challenge was getting through security.
We were going to go in guns blazing, though. Stealth was not an option because of all the cameras and motion sensors that Yaro likely had in her skyscraper. We were going to reach the floor where Noah was kept, and then wreak havoc. Yaro’s skyscraper was also the base of operations for her tablet company, so the public could access the lower levels of the building. We just had to walk through the places we had access, and burst through the places we didn’t. According to Bubbles, we could even get within five floors of Yaro’s collection hall, so we were going to work from there.
As I mentally reviewed the plan, our ships broke through the atmosphere. Heat started to gather on the nose of my ship, and everything around me rattled as friction shook the ship. After a minute, my ship was back to normal, but plummeting through the sky. Bubbles, Keshi, Sil, and Needle also made it through fine, apparently. Atmospheric entry was my least favorite part about flying. It unnerved me each time. Even though it was completely safe, the rattling scared me.
Our ships had drifted slightly apart during atmospheric entry, so we grouped back up. We were approaching the capital city. Below us, I spotted spires made of glass and metal, concrete grids embedded into the ground, and lines of flying dots flowing through the city. As usual, the planet had a lot of air traffic. There was ground travel too, of course, but there were airways that people used to travel across the megacity.
We slowed down our ships and entered one of the airways. We were going to navigate our way towards Yaro’s skyscraper and a nearby harbor. I took in the views as we flew, though. This city was full of tall buildings, of course. Verticality was very important for such a highly populated planet, so most buildings were dozens of stories tall, and some buildings hit the hundred story mark. I saw Yaro’s skyscraper in the distance. It was the tallest in my current line of sight, stabbing into the sky like a spear. It was a pretty thin skyscraper. The base was larger than the rest of course, but it still looked like it would topple over at any second. Its chrome frame and silvery windows reflected light everywhere, making the skyscraper a dazzling beacon visible from almost anywhere. We were going to invade that.
After almost an hour of getting caught in traffic, our ships finally made it to our docking bays. We were all docked next to each other, and our ships were pulled underground to maximize space usage. When it was time to launch again, our docking bays would be moved to the surface.
After double checking if all of my gear was ready, I stepped off of my ship. I was currently wearing my wiresuit and my older suit on top of it, and a jacket over the top. My hand cannon was shoved into one of the pockets, and my trusty shotgun was hidden under the jacket, strapped onto my back. I also had the submachine gun that Noah and I seized from the bounty hunter from before. Noah’s weapons were definitely confiscated, so I brought an extra gun to give to him.
Outside, everyone else was waiting for me. Keshi, Sil, and Needle were wearing standard suits with dark coloration to not attract attention. Needle was probably toting a lot of grenades, too, but I couldn’t see them. He probably kept them concealed, as he should. Bubbles was wearing the new suit that he got from Yori. It was of pretty high quality, but it was otherwise a normal suit. Bubbles wouldn’t be able to wear a wiresuit anyways. Next to Bubbles stood someone else. They were wearing Bubbles’s old suit, the one that got blown full of holes and was hastily patched up.
“Uhh, who’s that?” I asked, pointing at the newcomer. “We’ve got an additional person.”
“Oh, that’s me!” Bubbles said. “I had some time, so I regenerated double the flesh I normally stay at and crammed it into my old suit. I can still move it around and see from it, so it’s like having an extra person. But I’m still a little limited in the ways I can move it, so it’s not like there’s two of me. There’s like one and a half of me.”
I inspected the fake Bubbles. “Huh. I didn’t know you could do that.”
“It’s how I got away from Yaro in the first place.” Bubbles replied.
Keshi, Sil, and Needle already knew about Bubbles’s nature. He told them during the flight so that we wouldn’t have complications in the plan. They were surprised at first, but quickly got used to it. I assumed he already explained his clone to them while I was still in my ship, judging by the way they didn’t react.
I poked the clone. “Let’s just hope the suit doesn’t leak or anything.”
We all reviewed the plan one last time, and started heading towards Yaro’s skyscraper. We were all walking there, since we didn’t want to leave records of us taking a taxi or anything. Our ships were parked close, so it was only a ten minute walk to get to our destination.
The skyscraper towered over our heads. I craned my neck to try and see the top of the massive building. I had to look straight up to see a glimpse of the tip of the spire, far above my head. Seeing it from below was dizzying. I was no stranger to the massive difference in scale since I’ve been flying around in space for a while, but with boots grounded, it was a little disorienting. I turned my attention away from the skyscraper. It was time to walk in through the front door.