CHAPTER 60

Derrick watched as each of the sixteen ships was brought into the bays, there they were locked down enough he knew that they weren't going anywhere 'til he let them out. Already he had several ideas on how to extract the information he wanted, though it might take a little bit of time on Mary's part to implement the machinery they needed. That and the fact that they were basically asleep 'til he let them up, they needed to increase the scans to different wavelengths before they even started to question them though.

"Mary, we are heading back soon. I need you to adjust several of your scans." as Mary appeared before Derrick.

"Yes Sire, please input all data and I will commence on all upgrades." Mary replied as she watched Derrick step to a console and begin to type at an almost blinding speed. Mary smiled as she began to implement the changes as fast as Derrick input them. Interestingly she thought the wavelength ranges were extreme to say the least but if the emperor wanted them then she had no doubt there was a good reason.

Several minutes later Derrick stepped back not sure if he'd gotten all of the ranges that he wanted but at least now they were more onto the sects energy areas than they were. "Mary were you..."

"Yes Sir I tracked all of the other ships to another outer rim world though one ship broke off and headed in another direction. I am afraid that it is headed to ; I still have several guardians there. They are equipped with the new light shield so I am more certain they will not be detected as easily as before." Mary told him, stopping his comment short.

Derrick was afraid that those that had survived were trying to get whatever they could on him and his family. Too bad for them that he had all of them with him well except for Thomas and obviously Thomas was a master at hiding. Smirking and nodding, Derrick remembered Thomas with all his camouflage. Smiling bigger, a sudden thought hit Derrick camouflage! That had to be it! Thomas was hidden, "Mary I want you to access all records of the salvage company that I worked for. Look for any employee that seems out of place like they are older than they seem they should be; any anomalies like that should raise a red flag." Derrick instructed her.

Mary nodded, "starting to reanalyze records now." A few minutes later Mary replied, "I am detecting two such red flags as you put it Sire. The first is a very old man whose records indicate that he has been with the company for well over 20 years. The times that are in his records do not coincide with the information that is available. The other appears to be a young man but the pictures of him indicate a much older man."

Derrick looked over the records still not able to tell if either might be Thomas. It was obvious that Thomas had damn near perfected his camouflage since he got out. "Alright Mary see if you can get a location on either of them, we need to find Thomas as soon as we can. I have a feeling that we aren't the only ones who are looking for him right now."

"Searching now, I have the first man on a return trip to the company from a near deep space run. The other appears to be not far from where you originally were found by Shelby." Mary informed Derrick.

"Bring up all the information you have on the second man," Derrick told Mary. Looking over the records carefully, yes, he could see that something wasn't quite right; the records didn't match up to what the readings were telling him. It had to be Thomas! Unless you looked very close, there really wasn't any way to actually tell the difference in the records or that they might have been altered.

"Shelby, scan the area where we first met. See if you can still detect the ship like mine that we saved back then." Derrick ordered Shelby.

"Yes Derrick, scanning the area now, detecting a signal half a parsec away from the last position (a parsec is 19 trillion miles so half = 9.5 trillion miles) it appears as if the ship is still salvaging. You must have great patience, Derrick , this is a very slow job that you had." Shelby stated.

"It wasn't the patience; it was a chance to be alone; it helped with the PTSD greatly." Derrick informed her.

"I see; do you wish to communicate with this individual? I have the coordinates locked in. We could be there in a matter of seconds." Shelby said.

Derrick was nodding they could yes, but he had to make sure it was Thomas before they flew off to the other side of the galaxy. "Open a channel to the ship I have to make sure, no sense going if it isn't him after all."

"Channel open Derrick," Shelby reported.

"To the salvage ship, aren't you the one I saved from the pirates all those months ago?" Derrick asked.

There was a momentary pause then a voice Derrick was sure he recognized came back over the loudspeakers. "Well hello pardner! Ya never did let me thank you for saving' my bacon back then! Got a question who in the heck are ya?"

Derrick smiled a moment now to find if this was Thomas or not, "I thought you'd have recognized my voice by now Tom T." The more the man talked the more Derrick was sure it was Thomas. Looking over at Shelby she nodded then the engines whined.

"Recognize your voice now how in the ... holy crap what in the hell is that!!??" Derrick had to smile as they pulled next to the salvage craft. "Hey whoever you are, alert the Rangers I need help! The biggest damn ship I've ever seen just appeared out of nowhere!" The panicked voice of the man replied.

"It's ok that's just us Tom T.," Derrick told the man.

"You!!? Huh!? Where in the hell did you get a war ship like that? That appears to be ... Tom T? Alright, who in the hell is this?" Came the man's voice.

"Uh huh I thought it was you Tom T. You always did hide real damn well. What say you come on board and we can talk?" Derrick told the man.

"Look buddy I don't know you from Adam ok? Give me some time and..." the man was saying.

Derrick nodded to Shelby and the man was standing in front of Derrick and Hartwell who to this moment had been trying not to laugh. " ... then we ... Can ... talk? What the hell? Where am I?" Looking around the man spotted Hartwell, snapping off a salute. "Sorry, Lieutenant , I didn't know it was you."

Smiling Hartwell nodded, then nodded toward Derrick, "It wasn't me believe me it was the emperor who pulled you here Thomas."

Nodding the man slowly turned his eyes wide then he spotted Derrick sitting in the command chair. "Com ... Commander?! We all heard you were dead!" Running up Thomas threw his arms around Derrick after snapping off a quick salute. "When the office didn't receive the update from you last week, we all feared that you were captured or worse! God it's good to see you alive and well! So sir where did you find this ... war ... holy crap!"