Sannaro hovered her off the ground and carefully slipped her out of the hanger. Once he was clear, he angled her up into the sky and increased power to escape velocity.

He smiled as she shot firmly through the stratosphere into space.

She had good speed.

Once he was beyond New Sailia's solar system, he increased her to three quarter speed.

The stars looked like they compressed for a second, then leapt into elongated strands rushing past the fore portal.

He engaged autopilot, then sat back and grinned. By the on board computer's estimation, she could reach Earth in fifteen twenty-four hour intervals at faster than light speed.

The Kumani would make it in ten days.

For a medium sized ship, fifteen days was impressive.

The computer suggested a stop at Alpha Centauri for refuel and restocking. That was a little more than half the distance between New Sailia and Earth. She was a very nice ship.

He entered in the Urvasi tracking code and a page of information popped up on the screen. Urvasi was at Serius at the moment for another day. Reports were that they'd visit Earth four days later for about two days and possibly voyage toward the Centauris. He projected he may reach the Urvasi at Alpha Centauri or near it so his voyage might be more like ten days.

That was a lot of days he wasn't used to being constantly vigilant to flight controls, but he knew he could do it with the help of more video games to occupy his time.

He blew his breath out slowly to try to cool himself. He swept his shirt off and laid back in his pilot's chair. He went back to the bedroom and pulled out a pair of shorts. He pulled off the shiny leggings and put on the black shorts.

The days passed as quickly as he could expect in an empty ship. He went through all of his cousin's computer games as well as his favorite Astrisi games and listened to all his audio discs several times.

Just to wile away his time on the flight, he'd gone back to the cargo hold to do a systems check on it and was happy to see that both fuel tanks had been topped off at New Sailia. All he'd need was to restock the food for the last quick journey to the Urvasi.

Finally he had to dim the reflective coating on the forward port as he came closer to the twin suns of Centauri.

He dressed himself in a pair of black pants and a Saili silver blue tunic.

He returned to the cockpit and checked the track on the Urvasi again. It was just a day behind him, having stayed at Earth for a day longer than the BST report said they would, so he'd get to Alpha Centauri Seven hours ahead of them, which was fine with him. He had plenty of time to store Euryanassa away and prepare the Astrisi shuttle for liftoff. Now he received a signal from the control console that told him it was time to call Centauri Seven.