The Alienbutt Saga, Book 1. War of the Coffee Bean. Part 25.

The asteroid belt of Ashia Minor was a vast area of space at the very edge of the known universe. There were no official maps for the area that covered light years of space. It was the equivalent of the ancient mapmakers writing ‘Here be Dragons.' Local guides knew small areas, and outlaws and pirates would often disappear into this region when the bounty hunters started getting too close. Many official scientific expeditions and adventurers had set off into the area and never been seen again. Legends spoke of a hidden lost civilization of a super race of aliens who watched the universe unfold and destroyed anyone who blundered into them. Most locals held to the belief that pirates destroyed them and tried to invent a great cover story of lost civilizations to hide what they were up to.

It was decided that flying around in Alienbutt's state of the art Ick Frigate would attract far too much attention, sending the people that they had to speak to into hiding. So Alienbutt and Ruck transferred to Ruck’s old battered runaround to spend almost two months searching the small outposts and known haunts of Ashia Minor for news of Borgus. Ruck was well known around the whole area and was welcomed by most. When trading on Ruck’s reputation didn’t work, Piestoff would trade low grade coffee powder for information. While there were many humans out in these areas who would not become addicted to the bean, there was enough of the other species out there to ensure coffee was still the main currency of the area, and even low grade coffee was valuable. Finally they had received a lead on their target.

Alienbutt and Ruck stayed close to a large asteroid. The small two man runabout that Ruck used would be undetectable; a high magnetic field blanked out all sensors. Ahead of them was a large clear area of space in which a number of ancient ships drifted.
“It’s dead space Alienbutt. It's believed you fly in so far and then every system on your ship fries. You're stuck there until your supplies run out and you starve to death,” said Ruck. “It goes on for nearly half a light year in all directions. This is just the edge, hundreds of ships trapped over thousands of years drifting forever. There’s pockets of dead space all over the belt, that’s why it’s so dangerous out here. If you’re not careful you end up stuck and there’s nothing that can get you out.”
Piestoff sat looking over the area ahead, empty space apart from a few dead ships in the distance and one large rock just on the edge, not quite far enough in to be affected. This was where Ruck was convinced their quarry was hiding. Piestoff studied the asteroid. A couple of miles across and almost round in shape, it had large holes leading to what Ruck said was a hollow centre where pirates would hide out, a secret base in the last place anyone would look who knew this area, as all tended to give dead space a very wide berth.
“That rock doesn’t look natural, Ruck, it looks like it was shaped and the holes drilled into it.”
“It’s called the Stone of Bia. The old legends say it was a citadel of the Great Ones or El Shaddai. It was a gateway to the otherworlds or something. Those old legends gave birth to the stories of lost civilisations that the pirates use to cover their tracks.”
Alienbutt continued to stare at the rock for a moment longer and then shrugged, dismissing the shape of it.
“Ruck, let’s get back to my ship. You can go over what defences they may have and I’ll tell you the nice simple plan I have.”
Ruck nodded. “Great, I'm sick of replicator food, hope your crew hasn’t drunk all your whiskey while we were away.”
Pressing a button on the control panel, a small droid detached itself from the ship and floated over to the asteroid they hid next to. “It can't transmit pictures to us but it will record anything going in or out until we get back.”
With that, Ruck spun the ship away from the suspected hideout and headed for the rendezvous point with Alienbutt's ship.

To be continued.

Thanks for reading, all images are mine.