The journey back to the Imperial capital had been uneventful so far, they carried the reactor safely within Glen and no Bakan ships or otherwise seemed to be on their trail. When entering Imperial space Jack noticed something while looking out of one of the windows of the Black Bird. A sign attached to a cement block was floating around next to them.
"Welcome to the Empire,” was written on it in bright neon lights that seemed to flash and dim again with each second that passed.
“Oh, how nice, who would have thought there would be street signs in space,” said Jack
"Well, it just makes sense, doesn’t it? How else would you know where you are without them?” answered Ted, sitting at the control panel of the ship.
“I guess you are right, but can you really call them street signs if they are not on a street?”
“You know that is a good question,” said Lyra, “I never really thought of that.”
“Accessing, database, the word street sign was decided to be put into use as most intelligent species decided to continue using them although other systems of location were available.”
They continued speaking about street signs and the logic of maintaining them in space when the signs would probably just float away infinitely in one direction or another with the slightest push, perhaps that is one way to expand borders within space.
BANG BANG BANG
“What was that?” asked Jack
“I don’t know, maybe we hit something,” answered Ted
BANG BANG BANG
"Okay this is weird, anything on the radar?” asked Lyra
“Nothing out of the ordinary, no ships or asteroids large enough to bother us,” replied Ted
BANG BANG BANG
“I think this is what you humans call, knocking,”
"What do you mean, knocking? As in somebody knocking at the door?” asked Jack
“Affirmative.”
“C’ mon people don’t just knock on the door of a spaceship, especially not once it is in space,” replied Ted, “let me see if the cameras show anything.”
With a couple of clicks and taps on the screen and an image appeared large enough for everyone to see. Three people were standing or rather floating outside the entry hatch to the ship. These three people had a little cart behind them loaded with boxes of different colours. One of the people came closer to the hatch again to knock and was properly revealed to the cameras. It was a girl, no older than 12, probably, you never knew in space. She wore a black blazer, and a red skirt and had a hat on and for some reason had not frozen to death in the coldness of space.
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BANG BANG BANG
Apart from her impressive survival skill she also seemed to have a knack for knocking loudly on spaceship hatches.
"I guess we should open up,” said Jack, “we can’t just leave them outside.”
“I will go with you,” said Lyra, “Ted open the hatch!”
"On it, but don’t tell me we are going to have more people staying here, this group is strange enough already!”
Lyra and Jack ran over to the door leading to the room with the hatch. They opened the door and before them were the three girls. All dressed the same with little pigtails coming from below their hats.
“Hello, how can I help you?” said Jack, “I am Jack and this is Lyra, who would you be?”
"My name is Cindy, that is Caroline,” Cindy said while pointing at the girl holding the cart, “and that is John.” she pointed at the third member of her group who was standing off to the side and gave them a little wave.
“Okay… so what are you doing here? It’s not usual to see people just floating around outside. Especially not dressed like that, you must be freezing.”
“Oh, we are used to being outside, it’s quite refreshing. To answer your other question let us introduce ourselves properly. We are the Imperial Scouts! We have come to deliver a message from the Emperor himself and to raise funds for a trip to Snargle.”
“Are you like girl scouts then?”
“No, we are the Imperial Scouts, not that hard to understand.”
“Don’t be mean to them now, they are just trying to fund their trip;” said Lyra to Jack, “could I see that message please?” Cindy handed a small tablet to Lyra who immediately started reading while Jack continued speaking to the scouts.
“How do you do this floating around in space stuff?”
“It is a Scout secret, sir.” said Caroline, “would you like to buy some cookies?”
“Uhhh, sure I guess, what do you have?”
“Let me see,” Caroline searched around the cart, “we have chocolate chip, Lamerian Ox, blood sausage, lemon and vinegar and Bako fruit!”
“Most of those don’t sound like cookie flavours at all,”
“What would you know about cookies? You are not the one selling them,” said John.
“Fair enough, I will have some chocolate chip then, you want anything Lyra?”
“I will take some Bako fruit,” Lyra said briefly glancing above the tablet at the cookie assortment.
“Alright, here you go, that would be 100 credits,” said Cindy as she handed the boxes over, “As for the message, is everything alright?”
“Yes, don’t worry. The Emperor has another task for you, can you wait here a second?” Lyra left the room for a minute leaving the rest of them standing around awkwardly. She swiftly returned, holding the reactor in her arms. “This is for you, tug it in safely and bring it to the capital, they’ll know what to do from there.”
“Understood!” the three scouts said and saluted, “we shall depart now, I think you should probably go back inside before the latch opens again!”
They went behind the door and looked through the glass as the hatch opened itself up to the maws of outer space.
“Have a safe journey!” the three girls shouted as they disappeared into space.
“That was strange,” said Jack
"What do you mean?”
“Well, what were they doing selling cookies here?”
“It is the border, after all, there is lots of traffic,”
“Guess that makes sense, what did the message say?”
"We are supposed to go to Yatok III, the leaders of the planet seem to have found another reactor but are only willing to return it to the Empire if we help them with a problem of their own first.”
"Is there anything interesting on Yatok III?"
"Oh, just squirrels."