[snip]

On screen then the Alstaire ship maneuvered carefully soon lining up in a box like formation over the sleeper ship, hard dock couplings extending and latching on in place in four corner points, with a fifth coming down in the center. Scans showed the connections were secure and solid already fuel lines being manually drug by hand in the connecting tunnels were being taken over to the Sleeper ship to stabilize things.

A few minutes later the NE at comms turned again. “..Sir, the Alstaire captain is reporting their teams have connected all hard lines, they also confirm a temporary stabilization of the power core of the sleeper ship. They had cleared us for towing after I informed them of our capabilities and wish to extend their thanks for the help. They also report their teams have surmised the power burst we picked up was acting like a ‘signal flare’ of sorts to draw attention to the ship which came here on auto-pilot.” He said.

Once the go ahead was given for tractoring the Merrimack came about and carefully came into position standing off by about 1km before activating the tractor beam. Things came through clean and they were as ready as they could be to move back into the system.

GM CockRoach

Williams eyes narrowed, who could have sent such a signal flair “Alright, let’s start towing the ship back at .8c to start with. Give me a detailed sensor scan of the nearby area” He ordered “Ask the Alstair Captain if they can figure out how that signal flair was set up and by whom”

CSO

”..Aye sir, I’ll relay the request now..” The NE said.

Slowly then at the order given the Merrimack accelerated with the tractor beam enabled. Soon reaching the relatively slow snail pace of .8c barely reaching about a quarter impulse power. But that said they were soon on their way back to Alstaire Prime with so far no problems reported.

GM CockRoach