After a bumpy ride through the nebula clouds, the smooth entry into empty space, and traveling through the wormhole from Nuwan territory, my ship dropped out of the end of the wormhole into a clear dark interstellar space designated for ships exiting the Nuwan borders.
The Great Swirl Council banned all hyperspace jumps directly into the Eden planetary system, for security reasons, because of its political and economic importance.
Any idiot silly enough to breach the restriction would get the monstrously sized battle carriers jumping on top of them.
Ship confiscation and jail time would be the least of their worries if that happened.
That is if they still have a ship and a life left.
Those battle carriers appeared as moving big blue dots on my radar. They moved in a circular holding pattern within the outer boundary of the system. The oversized battle carriers made my little ship now look like a speck of dust.
Six hundred galactic cycles ago, those darn battle carriers were the size of large warships about five times bigger than my war cruiser. Now, those battle carriers looked more the size of a small space city, over twenty times the size of my war cruiser.
I navigated my merchant class ship into the asteroid field towards Eden's direction.
Even with the many asteroids, the space in the asteroid field is wide enough to go straight through the narrowest points.
The radar on my ship's front viewer bleeped the multitudes of grey dots and confirmed the name of the massive asteroid belt encircling the Eden planetary system based on long range scanner analysis of the system.
It's too easy to get lost in space. Eden system is one of the rare planetary systems with an orange dwarf star and the only one with thirteen planets in orbit. Four inhabitable planets and the other nine are a gas giant or a frozen wasteland.
The front viewer also illuminated the coordinates of nearby ships on a stellar map, outlines of the nearby asteroids and core functions of the ship in the dimmed compartment of the merchant class ship.
Several green dots moved on the map.
Those represented the civilian and merchant ships cruising around or towards one of the four inhabited planets.
Easy to guess which of the four is Capital Planet Eden with the large amount of moving green dots.
The ten stationary red dots on the stellar map beyond the asteroids are probably the defensive space stations.
Smaller blue dots moving in a regular pattern within the Eden system were the patrol ships, and there were too many to count.
The good old days of shooting them down. I chuckled at my recollection while swinging the ship with the thrusters to avoid a small space dust cloud floating in the vacuum.
So far, the route looks clear with no battle carrier in sight. The battle carriers focused on wider and more accessible gaps in the asteroid fields where most ships will enter.
Small little merchant ships like mine, zipping around asteroids, didn't interest them.
***
The journey to Capital Planet Eden was uneventful.
I checked the shields which ran at 95%, with the 5% snatched away by the atmospheric entry. Still more than enough shielding to use the hyperdrive engine on return.
"Orbital entry control point 111 to Merchant Ship Registration 666-888, we are switching you to garage tower control 10. Welcome to Eden."
I pressed on the top button on the side communications section on the command panel to switch frequency.
"Garage Tower 10 to 666-888, continue to descend on given vectors and prepare to intercept automatic docking sequence," the transmitter relayed the automated instructions and another green signal appeared.
I looked out from the front viewer screen, watching the skies while the yellow dwarf sun rose above the horizon. Where the headings took my ship, my eyes spotted a growing grey storm cloud.
Crap. My ship is heading straight for a forming weather cell. I hated atmospheric turbulence on the planets.
The gloomy morning scenery of the towering skyscrapers and the moving speedways of hovercrafts speedways snaking around the sprawling Sector 111 metropolis across the horizon, greeted me.
Sector 111 is one of the biggest shopping areas in Eden with the best equipment resources can buy.
I met some travellers in other systems who praised Eden as a splendid, well- ran galactic metropolitan city.
They are either brainwashed, a member species, or came from less advanced civilizations.
Appearances are deceiving.
Under Eden's superficial appearance of order, cleanliness and organization, a dirty sociopolitical network of the Great Swirl Council's corrupted politicians and mega corporations, down to the galactic criminal syndicates laid.
Eden's rich facade symbolised the many bloodied hands.
How much innocent blood spilt in other inhabited planetary systems, fuelled by an endless thirst for resource acquisition, power, and greed of the Great Swirl Council?
The Great Swirl Council is the only consortium with an expansionist policy to bully unwilling civilizations in the galactic quadrant, weaker than them, into joining them in their organisational cesspool pit under the threat of war.
They also attempted to weaken stronger ones like mine by repeating waves of war against us, draining us each time they appeared in our system.
The repeated wars cost countless lives on both sides because of the Great Swirl Council's blind greed for resources.
So blind that they failed to recognise the fact that the planets in the then existing Kamuy system had environments too harsh even for their level of mining tech.
The main star of the Kamuy system, an unforgiving red dwarf, bore an explosive temperament of flaring often, even though it radiated less heat than the yellow or red stars.
Our scientists found the five planets in the Kamuy system impossible to terraform.
Hence, all Kamuy lived in Amatsubune, the artificial mobile planet which hid from the red dwarf by orbiting the furthest fifth planet before the destruction of the system.
I often wondered why the Great Swirl Council bothered us.
The Nuwan Imperium concentrated on developing their large territory of planetary systems, making some inhabitable, while the Council concentrated on expanding their territories instead of developing them.
The Council attempted a few full scale invasions of Tengshe system, which the Nuwan Imperium claimed much earlier than them.
In each decisive battle, the Nuwan fleets overran them with sheer numbers.
Remnants of the Great Swirl Council's former invading fleet over the few wars still floated as debris around the nebula clouds surrounding the Tengshe system, a constant monumental reminder of their repeated tactical stupidity.
The Nuwans held them in the highest disregard, so much that the Nuwan patrol ships often hung around near the borders of the then existent Kamuy system each time they learnt of the Great Swirl Council's intentions to invade us for the umpteenth time.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Well, not really my friend, but a jester.
All it took was one Nuwan patrol ship to appear and the magical glow of hyperspace wormholes followed - yes, the entire Great Swirl Council's fleet retreated faster than one can say 'boo!'
Under the guise of offering us help, the Nuwans fed their egos at the sight of quick and fast flight of the Great Swirl Council fleets. Rong used to tell me how his crew on their patrol ship betted on time for the invading fleet to do a mass retreat.
Hey, a win-win for the both the Nuwans and us then.
A large floating alert space buoy lining the ship flyway reminded me of the big news with its advertisement conveying condolences to remaining Inti, who lived in the other territories of the Great Swirl council.
The Inti system was gone, leaving the surviving Inti without a home world. They used to be one of the four major factions in the Great Swirl Council. No home world meant no military.
Now, three major species influenced the Great Swirl Council's decisions heavily — the Haoleans, Perunians and Velesians in that order.
Influence is determined solely by military power and losing the Inti system impacted negatively on the Great Swirl Council.
While I held no grudges against the Perunians and Velesians, since both are relatively new members, I loathed the Haoleans with grand passion.
Frankly, I rather watched the Haoleans, instead of the Inti destroyed.
The Inti acted as Haolean sidekicks in the Great Swirl Council's attempt to invade the Kamuy system a few times in history, but their catastrophic end at the hands of the same enemy lessened my loathing.
I might sympathize with them.
Shed a tear even.
Come to think of it.
Nah.
However, their catastrophe may provide more insight into who and what the mysterious enemy was. The Great Swirl Council definitely launched an in-depth investigation into the demise of the Inti system.
From my recollection, old Rong told me a long time ago that the Great Swirl Council kept historical records of battles, cosmic events and planetary disasters related to their member species in the readily accessible Eden's Central Public Library, and the more detailed material in the Council library.
The Council library was in a heavily guarded sector on the other side of the planet, an area where decision makers of their council also congregated for meetings, including ones which involved moronic decisions for invasions.
Heavily guarded and close to impossible to enter as a non-member species unless under diplomatic missions.
Maybe it's a good idea to pay someone a visit.