As soon as the door opened, Annabelle came running over to hug Nico and then watched the doors nervously until they sealed shut again. Only once they were closed and sealed with the Station's safety barrier in place did anyone relax.
Only seconds later, a solid thump marked the docking clamps retracting, and the display on the wall showed the ship beginning to move away from the Station. It sent out a signal that it was decommissioned and not entirely under control as it moved away from the planet and toward the nearest star, reminding everyone to give it a wide berth so that no accidents could occur, and picked up speed as it went, using the orbital thrusters for the last time to propel it to its grave.
"It's a shame, really. If it wasn't for that infestation, it was still a very good ship, but I don't think it could ever be cleansed from that infestation. There are too many spots inside the structure that can't be sanitized but could have been compromised by the Klem." The Station Boss complained.
"You win some. You lose some." Max agreed, understanding that the Boss was actually more concerned about the potential lost profit from an ownerless ship under his jurisdiction. Cargo ships weren't cheap, and that one had a relatively good record as a legitimate transport, so it could be used for all sorts of transactions without any of the more discerning destinations refusing access.
The ship was picking up speed as it made its way toward the star and would arrive there within ten minutes at its current rate of acceleration when a ship on an intercept course dropped out of Warp and pulled in alongside it as if intending to board the decommissioned vessel.
[Warning unknown vessel, you are about to come into contact with a Class One Lethal biohazard. Per Alliance regulations, any vessel that breaches the quarantine must be held for decontamination.] The Station's broadcast warned them.
The message didn't deter the ship at all. Instead, they increased the rate at which they were closing with the infected vessel, intent on reaching it before anyone could stop them.
"Do you think that ship is associated with whoever paid them to bring the Klem to your region of space?" Max asked the Valkia Station Boss, who he hoped knew more about Alliance ship design than he did.
"I can almost guarantee it. The design is from the same system, the ship is unregistered, and I have no logs of their Warp Drive ever coming within sensor range of a Black Market location in the past.
Nico smiled at that answer. "Then, if the ship was to have a tragic accident, nobody would know anything about it, would they?"
Max raised an eyebrow at his randomly violent second in command, but she was still eagerly waiting for the response from the station boss.
"That is correct. The ship is unregistered, so there would be no records of it anywhere. The occupants could be traced, but if they were to suffer an incident, the chances are that there wouldn't be much left to identify." He agreed.
"Then this should work out very well. The last thing I did before we left was to set a failsafe so that the Warp Drives would go supercritical and destroy everything if there was a hull breach. It was to keep the Klem from finding a way outside of the ship and infesting another passing vessel, but opening an airlock or drilling a hole would work just as well." She explained.
"It's standard practice for invasive species where we come from," Max added with a wink for the Station Boss.
The Valkia smiled back at him. "You know, now that you mention it, I think it is a regular part of the decommissioning process for biohazardous vessels here as well. They can't say that we didn't warn them."
They all waited eagerly to see what the vessel was going to do, but they also refrained from having the Station send out any warning but the standard one to stay away from the biohazard, even after the second vessel clamped itself to the derelict freighter. It wasn't worth a confrontation, and in order to keep the presence of the Klem aboard the vessel from being broadcast to every ship within a hundred star systems, it was better to keep silent.
Importing aggressive foreign species without a permit was a rather serious matter in the Alliance, and it would tarnish the name of not only the company that did it but the deceased crew of the freighter as well. The part that worried the Boss the most was that someone might come looking to see if he had any sort of involvement with the incident, and then they would start asking questions about what the ship was unloading here at his cargo docks.
It wasn't like he could tell them that he bought a hundred tonnes of illicit drugs, even if they were medicinal. That would get a lot more people in trouble. So, they all just watched, and Nico bent down to whisper to Annabelle.
"Do you remember that planet we stopped at? I think we will get an even better show this time but in space."
The little Innu grinned up at her, while the bodyguard who had been watching over her while the team was clearing the ship hid their laughter behind a very fake-sounding cough.
"Do you need cough medicine? There was some in the medicine box." She asked helpfully.
"Thank you, little miss. I will be fine. Just a bit of dust or something."
Nico tapped their small companion on the shoulder to draw her attention back to the viewscreen on the wall just as the new arrivals forced an airlock door open. They had cautiously approached from an external airlock, letting it vent into space in case there was actually something hazardous right at the door, but before they could even go inside, the alarms of the Station began to blare, and the shields on every ship in the vicinity went up automatically.
The Warp drives on the infested ship exploded, creating a temporary star near the next planet in the system, and then multicoloured streaks raced away as the second ship exploded, and the parts of the two ships that weren't vaporized were sent flying away from the explosion.
What was left was a slowly spreading gas cloud, like a miniature nebula between the Station and the star, glowing in dozens of different colours as the light filtered through the various gases.
"Oh, you were right. That is pretty. I wonder if we can replicate that at home?"
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