CONTENTS

1. CHAPTER 1

2. CHAPTER 2

3. CHAPTER 3

4. CHAPTER 4

5. CHAPTER 5

6. CHAPTER 6

7. CHAPTER 7

8. CHAPTER 8

9. CHAPTER 9

10. CHAPTER 10

11. CHAPTER 11

12. CHAPTER 12

13. CHAPTER 13

14. CHAPTER 14

15. CHAPTER 15

16. CHAPTER 16

17. CHAPTER 17

18. CHAPTER 18

19. CHAPTER 19

20. CHAPTER 20

21. CHAPTER 21

22. CHAPTER 22

23. CHAPTER 23

24. CHAPTER 24

25. CHAPTER 25

26. CHAPTER 26

27. CHAPTER 27

28. CHAPTER 28

29. CHAPTER 29

30. CHAPTER 30

31. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For the pilots of The Fatherhood and community of Elite: Dangerous.

CHAPTER ONE

Lee cursed. A cracking sound reverberated through the cockpit of his Asp Explorer, drawing his focus. Frantic, he scanned the canopy, looking for the source. His fears were confirmed; web-like cracks grew before him across the transparent alloy from the canopy’s structural frame. A blowout imminent, he braced himself.

The ship’s engines wound down to settle into system cruise after the drop from hyperspace. With Lee’s focus diverted by the canopy, the giant blue-white star before him grew, filling his field of view. The ship continued to cruise at its corona, rapidly closing on the projected exclusion zone boundary.

Out of the fire and into the frying pan, Lee mused. Or was it ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire?’ He tried recalling the phrase the old man used to say but couldn’t pull it. Snapping to reality, he pulled back full on the flight controls. The ship responded, climbing away from the dangerous stellar prominences looping about the behemoth’s magnetic field. The agonizing gradualness of the climb heightened Lee’s stress.

The ship shuddered—more cracking. The unrelenting gravity from the massive star forced the engines to groan while the vessel strained to pull away. Lee wiped the sweat from his brow. He glanced at the HUD. The projected display confirmed the temperature climbing along the hull.

The risk of losing the entire canopy became too much for Lee. He took his hand off the throttle to hit the collar button on his flight suit—a metal sleeve shot out from behind his neck. Expanding segments wrapped around his head, forming a helmet. Completing the sequence, a visor slid over his face and locked into place. A rush of air through the helmet blew over his ears. There was only seven-and-a-half minutes of life support if he lost the canopy.

Safety was at the system’s edge, the only station in range. That was at least seven minutes away; there was little margin for error. Lee seemed to recall a penal colony somewhere mid-system. But, based on the state of his ship, he knew a planetary landing was the last thing he needed to risk.

“Warning: temperature critical,” his cockpit voice assistant, known as COVAS, announced.

“I know. I know!” Lee barked back.

The feminine voice was Lee’s personal preference. The matter-of-fact tone was not, and it belied the impending danger. Thankfully, warning lights and a harsh alarm also went off—just in case he missed the announcement. Sparks started across his console as the heat began to fry his systems. The nose of the ship was still heading toward the edge of the seething giant.

More explosive sparks flew out of the console before him, and another shower came from behind him. He half glanced back over his shoulder. Then, a terrible glass-like pop sound hit Lee’s ears. A large crack snapped into existence, spanning the width of the center canopy section in front of him.

Lee cursed out loud, despite no one listening except the onboard COVAS. He knew he had to act or risk losing the ship. Insurance would cover a replacement, but this old boat had too much history—too many memories. It was more than a ship. She was a companion and partner.

Looking around for anything that might help, he smacked open a compartment on his left and began rummaging through it. His other hand was still holding the flight stick full-back to continue pulling away from the life-giving death trap. He sifted through the compartment, going on feeling alone. Tossing a few items aside, he felt a cylindrical object he thought could be what he was after. Stealing a glance, he was disappointed to find it was only a rations canister. He tossed it aside, too. His hand chanced upon what he was looking for. He could tell from the texture alone. But it would have to wait until he had a safe heading away from incineration.

A salty taste hit his lips from sweat beads rolling down his face, protected by his helmet. The tickling was distracting and rather torturous. Lee pushed it out of his mind.

“Warning: taking heat damage.” The cockpit warning grew more intense.

“Yes, yes, I know!” Lee snapped again.

The old vessel’s structure creaked under the stress of the star’s gravity well. It wasn’t until the nose cleared the exclusion zone boundary that the noises settled. A projection of the no-fly zone, the calculated safe area around dangerous bodies, disappeared from the canopy’s HUD.

The glow from the star faded. Lee’s eyes began to adjust, and other pinpoints of distant systems became visible. More projections of the planetary bodies and signal sources lit up on the canopy. More importantly, the heat alarms shut off as the distance from the star allowed the hull temperature to return to normal. Unfortunately, his signal in the system would stay red hot for a while, making him an easy target. He’d just escaped pirates and preferred not to run into any others.

“Canopy critical,” COVAS announced as ship sensors indicated the cracks began affecting its integrity.

“Alright, old girl. Let’s see what we can do to patch you up.”

With an aimless course away from the inferno, he hopped up from his chair to grab his earlier find. It wouldn’t fix the canopy, but he might be able to buy some more time if he was careful enough. He took the grey spool and drew out a double-arms length strip, then ripped it off of the spool. Taking the ends of the strip in his hands, he moved up to the canopy and contorted himself to reach around the front console to access the entire crack.

“Canopy critical,” came another reminder. More sweat trickled down Lee’s brow.

Stay focused, he told himself. With careful, gentle pressure, he applied the strip to the crack until it was covered. He held his breath. If he pushed too hard, the canopy would blow out, taking him with it. His fingers went back over the strip to reinforce it onto the canopy on both sides of the split. About midway across, he lost his balance from bending around the console and pressed too hard. Cracking sounds came from the screen as he steadied himself and continued along the strip.

“Canopy critical.”

He reached the end and took a few careful steps away from the canopy. After briefly pausing to appreciate his work, he strapped back into the pilot’s seat. It was holding for now.

The duct tape reminded him of another adage from his late friend, “If it doesn’t move and should, PS-LubraSpray. If it moves and shouldn’t, duct tape.” Lee mused at the memory. He could almost hear the old man’s groans about the ship’s state. This had been Vic’s ship until that fateful day. After some rough mental math, he guessed it was almost three years ago. Someday, he’d find the one responsible and…

“Cargo scoop failed.” The COVAS snapped Lee out of his reverie.

Lee rolled his eyes. ”At least it wasn’t a critical system. Let’s see what we got left.”

The ship’s systems console reported the damage. It wasn’t pretty. He’d need significant repairs, and with duct tape keeping his canopy together, the sooner, the better. He turned his head to look at the navigation display.

Gliese 170.1 was an unremarkable system on the edge of civilized space. He found his target in the nav panel. The trip was a familiar one. He’d spent a lot of time here with Vic. Locals called it Glist, named for the glister of minerals found in the rocky and icy rings of the planets in the system.

Being on the edge of colonized space, there wasn’t much traffic out this way. Vic considered it his trade secret for mining. They logged countless hours mining the rings around each of the planets. Now, there were few other miners in the system anymore. Most of the riches had already been exploited. Glist was nothing special except to him and the memories it held for him—the good and the bad.

The system’s heart, a brilliant blue-white supergiant, bound wandering ringed gas giants amidst a couple of notable exceptions. A molten metal-rich iron ball stood out among the gaseous bodies, orbiting closest to the star. Like a halo, it had a large, narrow ring that encircled it at extreme distance from the planet’s surface. A frozen, high-metal content world crawled on the system’s farthest edge. That, of course, was where Lee needed to go. Around it circled the orbital mining outpost, Foden Dock. He locked his navigation systems and turned on the supercruise assist so he could focus on other ship systems.

“Supercruise assist failed.”

“Oh, come on! You’re doing this on purpose, you stubborn old mule. Manual it is.”

Lee figured it wouldn’t be smooth sailing after his assessment of the ship’s systems. It would take several minutes to make it to Foden Dock, so he used the time to reassess his situation. He looked over the console. Down to twenty-two percent hull integrity. His maneuver to outrun his pirate pursuers in the last system had worked, but at a cost.

The heat indicator was settled, and his ship’s heat signature was reduced to normal. He felt a lot more comfortable not being such an easy mark for any unscrupulous pilots in the system. His life over the past few years after mining with Vic was spent smuggling. It was more exciting than blasting rocks, and for him, at least, it paid better. Besides, he felt his skills were more suited to the smuggler’s life. Growing up an orphan, alone in the shadows of station alleys, he learned to hack personal datapads to steal credits. His mother abandoned him in his formative teenage years as she became consumed by a Lazurus habit. It left an indelible impression to avoid drugs unless you’re smuggling them. It was always a reliable way to earn credits. It beat the hard days of his young life spent in back alleys bouncing from station to station, scrapping for food. After losing Vic, he fell back into his old habits. It was better being alone, not relying on anyone—more freedom, less risk.

A sudden jolt rocked Lee. His body slammed hard against his harness. The ship dropped out of supercruise into normal space.

“FSD failure,” COVAS announced.

Sparks flew from all over the console, and creaking echoed throughout the ship. He held his breath to listen for more cracking in the canopy. Nothing. He let out a sigh of relief.

The bad news hit with his COVAS delivering the damage report, “Module malfunction.”

“Power plant capacity exceeded.”

“Thrusters offline.”

“Thrusters online.”

“Canopy critical.”

“Power plant capacity exceeded.”

“Thrusters offline.”

“Module malfunction…”

Sparks continued throughout the cabin. The systems panel told the story: failures were progressing from non-vital sub-systems to core modules. With no thrusters and no FSD, he was going nowhere. He had the rations to last a long while, but the fragile state of the canopy presented too much risk.

There wasn’t an escape pod to fall back on either. Lee had arrogantly decided he didn’t need it as much as he needed credits, so he stripped it out to use the space for his riskier smuggling contracts. Of course, he did have the ‘easy way out.’ He eyed the single-shot handgun in a breakable emergency case at his feet. More like the coward’s way out, he thought to himself.

Returning to troubleshooting, he thought about rebooting the main computer to reset some of the systems. That would cost him in life support reserves. With only seven minutes from the cheap life support system, it would bleed at least twenty or thirty seconds off. He’d need every second of life support if he lost the canopy. He hesitated, his hand hovering over the controls.

Committing, he tapped the control.

“Diagnostic repair sequence initiated,” COVAS responded.

“Module malfunction,” the final announcement faded before going silent. The HUD began flickering in and out, stuck on the last message. The display glitched, jittering about, followed by the whir of terminal messages scrolling on a display above him.

> Initializing integrity check…

> Integrity check success.

> Begin fault detection.

> Scanning…

> Analyzing…

Messages continued to scroll. Everything else went quiet and dark around Lee. The only sounds were the in and out of his breathing in the helmet and the eerie creaking of the ship. It set his teeth on edge. Then, the terminal stopped.

“Repair sequence failed. Unable to process.” The voice of COVAS reported back, followed by, “Hull integrity critical,” in case the repair failure hadn’t already extinguished his hope. His HUD flickered back online and showed the ship’s hull integrity down to seventeen percent.

A prominent alert flashed over the terminal: Frame Shift Online.

“Alright! There we go. That’s my girl,” he called out, his hopes renewed.

He noted the thrusters were back, too. Grinning, he primed the FSD for system cruising and reset his navigation target to Foden Dock.

“Frame shift drive charging,” the COVAS confirmed.

“Alright now, nice and easy,” Lee encouraged.

A low rumbling swelled as power built up in the drive. Once the power reached its critical threshold, the jump countdown began. The engines ramped up while the effects enveloped the craft into a slipstream corridor. Four… Three… Two… One… The tunnel became pronounced, and the ship lunged with a flash as it seemed to catch a wave pushing it from behind.

“Just hold together, old girl,” Lee continued encouraging.

The projected target showed about 3,700 light seconds from Foden Dock—still plenty of space ahead.

His intuition and experience with the Nightcrawler told him she could still make it to the dock. Pushing the drive to full throttle, there was nothing else he could do but wait out the ride.

The whole trip ended up costing far more than he wanted. Encountering pirates always has a way of doing that. At least he managed to escape with a slightly used shield generator, rebuilt and engineered for faster recharge, sitting in his hold.

The pirates were vicious. He managed to outmaneuver them thanks to the proximity of an ammonia world with a thick, murky atmosphere and Vic’s upgrades.

The Nightcrawler was over thirty years old, with more than 200 thousand hours of flight time. Most of the ship was outdated.

“Good thing Vic upgraded your thrusters, or we wouldn’t be here at all, eh girl?”

The Nightcrawler seemed to respond with some minor creaking somewhere deep in the ship.

The HUD highlighted target grew from bright star to white disc, to ice ball.

“Almost there, girl. Almost,” he encouraged, but ‘almost’ was a relative term.

While maintaining full throttle, the navigational computer began a calculated deceleration to his programmed target. The projection showed an ETA of only twelve seconds that continued to tick away.

Lee throttled back to prevent inertia from causing him to overshoot. The arrival timer slowed as the deceleration over time frames caused the arrival timer to become a lie. From Lee’s perspective, the ‘nine seconds’ to the station was at least another thirty or more as the frameshift caused time to work counterintuitively—relativity in action.

When he arrived, it would take some convincing for the repair work to say nothing of installing the shield generator. He’d have to play a game of pleasantries and banter with his insider on the maintenance team at the outpost. They’d known each other for a decade as Vic and Lee frequented Foden Dock for repairs and refueling. Being familiar with the little mining outpost, Lee had returned to Foden Dock to get help installing the custom flight assist computer. Getting the custom shield generator patched in was going to need a professional.

Mackenzie, a maintenance team leader that everyone called ‘Zee,’ was always eager to help him. Lee welcomed it. He wasn’t trying to lead her on, but he wasn’t not leading her on either. It was a necessity. He needed her expertise with Lakon birds to connect it properly. Once installed, he could handle setting up the system’s programming and integration. He thought Zee was nice enough and not too hard on the eyes. She was a settler, though, and Lee didn’t want to be tied down.

He couldn’t bring himself to get too attached to anyone. He wasn’t opposed to a fling, but he didn’t want anyone dependent on him, and he didn’t want to depend on anyone else. Flying on his own suited him. He needed that freedom. In Lee’s experience, smuggling goods to dodge tariffs was strictly a solo affair. Getting others involved invited trouble for them and trouble for him. It was best to go it alone.

The navigational systems notified him that the ship was in range of the station. Almost on automatic, Lee punched the command terminal to power down the FSD and drop to normal space. The small mining outpost burst into view, and Lee felt his harness dig into his chest. The ship rattled around him while it slowed to normal space cruising velocity. Radio chatter burst into the cockpit as the ship’s automated systems picked up local space transmissions.

Dock Control signaled him as the ship’s transponder no doubt showed up on their systems. “Lakon Sierra Oscar One One Alpha, we have you in our control space. Follow docking procedures if you wish to land at this facility.”

He opened the docking request channel. “Foden Dock, this is Commander Sollinger of the Nightcrawler, requesting permission to dock.”

“Permission granted on pad three. Welcome back, Commander.”

“Docking permission granted,” the onboard COVAS confirmed.

Lee eased the throttle forward, and the ship pushed toward the station.

“Module malfunction. Flight Assist Off.”

“Seriously? You never pulled this crap with Vic,” Lee said with sarcasm he knew the ship’s COVAS would ignore. He changed his technique, using short bursts to maintain control. Without flight assist, Lee had to handle all momentum corrections himself. He’d gotten a lot of practice with flight assist off since installing his custom module. It malfunctioned often. Something in the wiring, the systems integration, or the module itself was causing random faults. Or, maybe the ship just had it out for him. Either way, he’d gotten better at full manual flight than he’d ever wanted to be.

With the ventral thrusters, Lee positioned the Nightcrawler above the platform for landing pad three. The majority of the upward momentum he canceled with the dorsal thrusters. It took a few more taps of the thrusters to completely zero out the movement. Then he heard it, the unmistakable glass-like cracking sound of the canopy.

“Module malfunction.”

Keeping his cool, he began a left-yaw maneuver to line up parallel to the pad. Once more or less lined up, he again canceled out the inertia with short bursts. He couldn’t get the momentum canceled and over-shot. Feeling anxious, he input commands to fire the front-left lateral thrusters to readjust, but nothing happened. He fired them again and again—still nothing.

“Oh, come on! Seriously? Fine, I guess we do it the hard way, you stubborn old mule.”

After rotating the long way around, the ship was lined up behind the pad.

“There we go,” he remarked as if the Nightcrawler could hear him.

He hit the console command to lower the landing gear.

“Module malfunction.”

“Vack!” He cursed. He hit the button again.

“Module malfunction.”

A comm call rang out in the cabin. Lee ignored it. This is getting embarrassing, he thought to himself.

“Module malfunction.”

“Module malfunction.”

There was nothing to do but keep trying. More cracking noises emanated from the canopy.

“Come on, girl, we’re so close. Get me on the deck, and I’ll get you nice and fixed up,” he pressed the landing gear again. “I promise you the nicest canopy you’ve ever had.”

“Landing gear deployed.”

He didn’t hesitate. Pushing the thrusters forward with dorsal down thrust, he eased the Nightcrawler to the pad. Bit by bit, the creaking ship inched down until stopped abruptly by the magnetic clamps engaging.

Lee blew out hard, not realizing he’d been holding his breath. After taking a moment to collect himself, he unclamped his hands from the flight controls and pushed the button at his collar to retract his helmet.

“Flight Assist on.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Lee replied.

CHAPTER TWO

Lee tapped the controls, connecting to the network on Foden Dock and downloading the latest updates. With practiced fingers, he navigated the station services to request entry into the outfitting bay. The ship lurched below him with the pad drawing the Nightcrawler into the outpost. Inside the bay, the landing pad moved backward to carry the ship off of the lift mechanism. His back slammed against the seat at the abrupt stop in the bay.

Moving hurt. His encounter with pirates caught up with him. He felt every muscle burn and throb while trying to unfasten himself from the pilot’s seat. It took him pushing through his retaliating muscles when he stood and stretched. Tapping a toe on each boot, he engaged the mag locks to keep him on the deck. Small outposts on the frontier, like Foden Dock, didn’t have artificial gravity. He winced at the pain of lifting each leg against his magboots. A comm signal sounded in the cabin. Through the soreness, he leaned down to open the channel.

“Welcome back, Commander. You’re a little early, aren’t you?” The familiar, bold feminine voice burst through the comms. “I didn’t think you were due till next week?”

“Hey Zee,” Lee responded, “I ran into some, friends. Turns out, they weren’t friendly, so…”

“Yeah, I thought you might need me to fix you back up based on that landing of yours. Do we call that a landing? How bad is she?” Lee could hear her breath huffing over the comms indicating Zee was on the move.

“Oh, you know, she’s a tough bird. She’s seen worse,” Lee evaded almost as if dodging incoming fire.

“Right,” Zee’s voice sounded unconvinced. “I’ll be there in a few.” The commlink disconnected with a zip sound.

At the far end of the bay, Lee could make out someone coming through the door to the gangway. Even in an outpost this small, the shadowy figure was far enough away to appear tiny.

Coming around the lift, Zee stopped for a moment looking over the ship. Lee squinted and thought he could make out her head shaking and her hands going to her hips in disgust before she moved with a purposeful gait down the gangway around the bay.

He walked through the cabin door making his way past his bunk, the passenger cabin, and some of the cargo holds. He hit the wall button and began walking down the ramp as it lowered to the deck.

When he hit the bottom, Zee stepped off the walkway onto the deck. Her sway caused the tools and work rags about her waist to fling in an eye-catching way. As she neared, the red curls of hair that framed her pale, freckled face bounced about her brow in zero-G. The smudges of grime on her forehead and cheeks said she’d already had her hands dirty in someone else’s rig. She wore a smirk on her face as she approached him.

“Zee, look, I’ve got the money for the repairs, I swear. But I also–”

She held up a hand to stop him. “No, no, just don’t,” she interrupted. Lee stopped talking, his mouth still hanging open. She pulled a rag from her belt and wiped her hands before pulling a datapad from the side pocket of her bluish-grey jumpsuit. Tapping through her datapad, she pulled up the log the Nightcrawler delivered to the station network when it connected. “Oh, this is so not gonna be cheap,” she tsked while going over the logs. She shook her head with a half-smile that crawled over her face, “Playing ‘Bucket Billiards’ again are we?”

He couldn’t hold back his eye-roll at the mention of his first asteroid cracking escapade. Vic had finally worn down and let young Lee at the controls. It didn’t go well. “Oh come on, she’s not that bad!”

She continued her playful mocking, “I almost can’t believe anyone could land her like this.”

“At least I didn’t have to get towed this time,” he grinned, a bit bemused. “Can you slot her into the schedule?”

“Sure,” she replied, tapping at her datapad. ”Next week.”

“Oh come on, you’re killing me here. I can’t be down that long!”

“Well then, Commander, it seems you’re going to need to do me some favors if we’re going to get you back up and running.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll buy you a drink,” Lee offered, hoping to avoid anything worse.

“I think you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

“Drinks. Seriously, that’s it.” At least with drinks, he could be numb to the conversation.

“I guess my repair skills aren’t worth at least a nice dinner?”

“Okay,” he relented. “But if I’m buying dinner, I need a little extra help.”

“What kind of help?” She winked, then her face changed, “Oh, you mean you found one?”

He gave a self-satisfied smile. “I managed to find a used one at a scrap dealer outside of Stillman Camp in 60 Tauri. I don’t think the guy even knew what he had. It needs some work though.”

“Wow,” she said shortly. “That’s really great Lee. You’re on your way.” There was a hint of disappointment in her voice. “Okay, then. Let’s have a look.” She walked past him up the ramp, her face hardened. Her body language spoke volumes. They’d had many rounds of argument on this particular personal mission of his.

“Zee, I’m finally making progress,” he grabbed the rails to pull himself up the ramp with a jump to catch up with her. “On your left. Bay two,” he directed when she paused to decide where to go. Their boots made a metallic clanking sound with each step on the deck.

“I know you’ll never let it go, but it’s been three years, Lee. Have you even made any progress figuring out who, you know, who did it?” She asked amidst the clanging footfalls.

“Not much; still looks like it was a bunch of guns-for-hire, probably to make it more difficult to track down whoever was behind it. There’s got to be a contract record out there somewhere.”

“Just be careful, okay? Revenge has a way of changing you, and not for the better. Remember what Vic used to say?”

“You mean, ‘Don’t get even, get ahead’?”

She nodded.

Vic always had a quip of wisdom to share. He recalled the day he lost his sizable winnings from a round of Socchi, a card game played in niche gaming hubs across the Orion Inner Spur. A couple two-bit thieves had ganked him coming out of the gaming lounge. He tried chasing them down, but they disappeared into a side alley.

“I swear, I’ll get them. I’ll find them and make them pay!” Lee had spit out between breaths. He never was the forgiving type.

“Oh my boy,” Vic shook his head with sadness, or maybe it was regret. “…Always so angry.” Lee remembered Vic’s weathered face and thought lines that seemed to go all the way up on his bald head reminding him of the hard life lessons the old man lived and tried to pass on. Then, in that calm way he always had he told him, ”Don’t get even, get ahead.”

It was one of his more frequent and irritating pearls of wisdom. Lee needed to get ahead of whoever killed Vic, that’s what he needed to do. He needed to be ready for them. He couldn’t give up on it—couldn’t give up on Vic. The upgrade was the insurance he needed.

“This–” he gestured in the direction of the cargo bay, “this is gonna make sure I’m alive long enough to track them down.”

Lee stretched his arm in front of her to tap a sequence into the bay access panel. The hatch door slid open revealing a large object covered in a canvas canopy in the center of the otherwise empty cargo bay. The deck harness, a kind of retractable, stow-able, metal linked strap, restrained it. Lee walked over and tapped the controls to retract the harness. The harness released and folded itself into the deck beside the cargo with a series of clinking sounds. He grabbed a corner of the canvas and motioned to Zee. She went to another corner and together they pulled it off to unveil a ring-shaped machine with a bar out to one side—a used shield generator. It had some minor scoring in a few places but otherwise looked brand new.

Zee moved closer to inspect it. “Wow, it looks like it’s already in pretty great shape—and a size five. This’ll be a pretty big improvement over the mid-sized generator.” She bent down and placed an interface adapter into the shield generator diagnostic port. Pulling her datapad up to her face she began looking through the configuration. “Engineered output rated for 269 megajoules—not bad. In a generator of this size, that’s a really good find! Oh, and a custom duronic capacitance regulator! This is amazing. Where’d you say you got it?”

“Just some dealer I tracked down on CD-11e in 60 Tau,” Lee had almost a wink in his smile before his face snapped into business mode. “So hey, uhh,” he scratched at the back of his head. “Can you install it yourself?”

Her face scrunched in with disbelief, “Are you kidding me? Of course I can, what, you think I’m some sort of rookie? Or because I’m a woman?” Her expression sharpened into a scowl.

“No! I mean, can you do it personally? Not your team.” It wasn’t that he had anything against her team, but he needed to be sure it was a solid install. He knew Zee, trusted her, but others—not so much. “I just need it fitted and hooked in. I’ll handle the firmware. I don’t want too many hands on it. You know what I mean?”

“Oh, well, I mean, sure. But I guess dinner just got upgraded to dinner and dancing!”

Lee’s face dropped before he could regain his composure. “You know I don’t–”

“Tah! No, you’re not getting out of it. Not this time. I have some exciting news and I feel like celebrating tonight. Besides, you know how to fly a ship. It’s just like dancing. Flying is dancing, so you dance all the time. You want it installed by me, those are my terms, Commander.”

“Alright fine. Fine. Dancing. Great.”

“Great,” Zee smiled with smug satisfaction. The freckles on her face somehow sparkled through the grime. She bent down to pick up her diagnostic adapter. “You should go get yourself cleaned up. You can use my place. Oh, and wear something nicer than your flight suit.” She made a gesture on her datapad toward him and he pulled his own out from his arm pocket. A temporary key to her apartment popped up on the display.

“Hey, this is my best suit!”

“For flying! Not for dancing.”

“Flying is dancing!” He winked.

She smiled and put a hand on his chest then pushed him out of the bay. “You go get yourself cleaned up. I’ve got work to do.”

***

Lee picked up a few things from the Nightcrawler before heading to the crew quarters. His boots clanked louder in the narrow corridors. The dim, sporadic flickering of light revealed layers of filth on the rugged walls. A dank smell that assaulted his senses seemed to emanate from some form of unidentifiable sludgy build-up in the corners. The entire outpost was in a general state of disrepair from the years of abuse during the mining rush when the system’s resources were pristine.

He moved through the station’s shop district. There was only one on a small outpost like this, unlike the dozen or so on a Coriolis megacity station. Small as it was, it was a ghost town with many vacant storefronts, evidence of an economic downturn that forced owners to leave for more profitable pursuits. He estimated there couldn’t be more than a few hundred people left on an outpost that could handle a couple thousand. He passed by the station’s only drinking establishment, a little hole-in-the-wall place with a central wrap-around bar, and a couple of tables on each side. The nondescript holo-signage out front read: A Shot in the Dark. Here they never needed to compete for attention. Inside, a couple of patrons were hanging about.

He took a lift from the shop district to get to Zee’s place in the crew quarters. After waving the datapad in front of the door, it slid open, recognizing the valid digital key Zee had transferred to him.

Her quarters were a decent size. The low population likely contributed to larger units being available. It surprised Lee how cluttered her quarters were. Datapads large and small floated in random areas. He grabbed one floating near him and found a shield booster technical manual glowing from the display. She was always studying, especially these past couple of years. It was, in part, what made her so good at her job.

The ache in his muscles forced him to take his time getting cleaned up. Before jumping into a sonic shower, he put his flight suit through a clean cycle. Rather than the fancy dinner attire Zee requested, he decided to put his now clean flight suit back on. But, to humor her, he at least threw on a Leestian-hide jacket he picked up from the Nightcrawler.

Continuing to relax, he spent a couple hours looking over his datapad to check the latest GalNet newsfeeds. He made a habit of checking headlines often on the off chance something might give him a new lead to follow. Lee was no investigator, but he had to do it. When he’d reported everything, the authorities opened an investigation. There were rounds of inquiries. He gave the detectives everything he could remember. Then, without so much as a whisper, the investigation went quiet, as if silenced. After more than a dozen requests for progress, he got nothing.

His mind raced back, and he found himself back there—outside the Nightcrawler. His flight suit and RemLok helmet protected him from the hostile vacuum of space while tethered to the hull. A field of tumbling mountains of icy rock emerged out of the gravity-swept dust of the rings. The faint glow of the slumbering giant planet’s edges peaked above and below the thick haze. Shadowy beams spread in slow motion around him from the looming shadows thrown by a massive boulder in front of the ship. His helmet crackled with noise—something, someone was talking, no, yelling at him. But the voice was breaking in and out. It had to be from Vic inside the ship. But Lee was outside. A spacewalk. He was tethered underneath, beside the cargo hatch. What was he doing out there again?

Out of the dark, streaks appeared emerging from a distant contingent of ships in a broad line just above the rings. It seemed like almost a hundred white threads were stretching, reaching out, all heading directly toward them. He felt the tug of the tethers as the Nightcrawler maneuvered, taking its time to come up to speed.

There was no time.

The ship couldn’t move fast enough with him stuck outside. In an instant, it seemed, the streaking clouds surrounded them and one-by-one struck the field of asteroids. Then waves of more and more white vaporous streaks reflected in his visor. One tore into the rock in front of them—a silent jet of dust erupting from asteroid’s surface. He turned his head and barely caught a glimpse of another ship in the distance; a wedge-shape moved among the rings. Bigger than a Sidewinder—a Cobra?

The Nightcrawler’s main engines fired. In the distance, the other ship made a hard bank through the asteroid field, some sort of evasive maneuver before…

Silent detonations almost in sequence, one after another, surrounded them. A growing cloud of debris obscured the giant planet beyond. No place to go. No time to move. Dust and debris engulfed everything.

Another explosion ripped a chunk out of the enormous rock they were trying to escape. Chain reactions of smaller chunks smashed into other asteroids around them, breaking off more and more pieces behind them, beside them. Almost in slow motion, a large fragment slammed into an asteroid above them. Then a painful jolt ripped the handholds from his grip, but the tethers caught and jerked him back. He was violently tossed until…

He snapped himself out of the memory, stood up, and paced the apartment. Vic deserved to have the cowards that killed him brought to justice. For all that Vic gave him, he owed him that much, and more. It was up to him, whether Zee agreed with him or not.

Every time that memory surfaced, he got worked up. He needed a drink. After looking around and finding nothing in the way of spirits in Zee’s apartment, he took off, taking the lift back to the storefront level.

***

The bar was as filthy as the rest of the station. A GalNet feed played across several screens. Its volume stayed at a reasonable background level—enough to be heard if one wanted to pay attention to it. There was also a vintage digital jukebox that gave the bar its only decorative charm.

Behind the bar stood an oversized man that went by the name ‘Dex’. Wild, curly reddish-brown hair covered his head and seemed to go wherever it wanted. He had a rough face and scars down his thick neck. More notable than anything else, though, was his bionic right arm. It had a dated look, not as smooth and natural as the latest tech.

Dex turned around with an almost sixth-sense that a new customer was walking in. His arms opened wide with a big toothy smile. “Sollinger! What brings ya back this way?”

“Heya Dex. Just in for some repairs and upgrades. How ya been?”

“Upgrades, uh? Didn’t know ya could upgrade scrap heaps like the Nightcrawler!” Dex gave a devilish grin while cleaning a glass with a sonic sterilizer.

“Oh yeah, sure they will! They’ll even upgrade piles of crap like you. When you gonna get that new arm?”

“Doncha start that chyt with me again. This ‘un does me jes fine. Ya know I don’t trust those corpies an’ their spy gear.”

Lee smiled at how easy it was to rile the big guy up, and winked at him.

Dex reared back with a belly laugh, “Welcome back, Lee. What canna getcha?”

“Double bourbon, neat. I’m gonna be here awhile. I got conned into dinner with Zee.”

Dex gave a wry grin. “Ain’t no one that can con Sollinger, ‘less he wants to be conned,” he mocked Lee with a wink. His mechanical arm extended to the liquor shelf to retrieve a purplish-black bottle. Then he held a zero-G glass to the dispenser at the top of the bottle. A spray of dark golden brown globules of liquid floated into the glass. Beads of liquid collected into an undulating blob contained inside the glass by a low-energy field at the opening. With the right amount of directed energy, the liquid would flow through at the edges of the field but otherwise stayed contained.

Lee threw back the glass with enough motion to force some of the liquid into his mouth. It took a while to get the hang of it, but frequenting this establishment over the years with Vic, it was second nature to him now. He savored the slow burn. After a few more sips, the drink began to take effect, causing his attention to drift to the GalNet feed:

…told reporters that after almost five years, the investigation into the disappearance of Senator Madius Draden’s son, Sylus Draden, had reached an impasse and would be ceasing all operations. Detective Harrin, a spokesperson for the Orions Eye investigation, made the following statement, “With no new leads, this investigation can no longer make meaningful progress. In coordination with Senator Draden’s office, and with immense regret, we are closing the investigation and the campaign to raise money for search and rescue efforts.” The office of Senator Draden announced a remembrance ceremony on Alit 8 for the late Sylus Draden scheduled for next week.

Thargoid Defense Initiatives. The initiatives to support the development of a defensive infrastructure against Thargoid incursions in the Hyades Sector continue. Consular Alden Duryss renewed his mandate for all industries to participate in fortification efforts with a three-fold increase in the construction of defensive anti-xeno batteries across stations and outposts in the region. In a recent interview, Consular Duryss praised local governments that increased their investments in military and militia units, in some cases doubling according to financial reports…

“Honestly, that guy Duryss is smart to prepare. I heard the Thargoids were heading this way.” A young man’s voice came from across the bar. He had a baby face sort of look, winsome and innocent. Lee noticed the pricey high-end flight suit that he wore with an air of arrogance that seemed to match it.

“You think so?” Lee replied.

“I mean, you gotta do it, right? Seems like most people are behind him.”

Lee couldn’t resist instigating a bit if for nothing else than the pure entertainment of it. “He’s just another corporate goon. Right, Dex?”

“Now ya listen good, both uh’ya. These politicking CEO’s are worse than anything else. You stay outta their way, especially this Duryss fella.” Dex’s face held a serious glare. Lee couldn’t stifle his grin.

“Well, the ‘goids are pushing further and further this way. Gotta do something, right? I mean, I’ve done some contract work for Duryss’s people before. They seem alright to me. I got some great payouts. Just didn’t know it was setting up all this.” The young man gestured at one of the screens with the news feed.

“Nice flight suit,” Lee remarked before taking a quick sip.

“Eh, not even my best one. Yours, is nice, I guess. I like your jacket, though. What’s your gig?”

“Nothing fancy. I move goods from here to there.”

“A trader then. I’m a combat pilot—for hire, if you know anyone that needs one.”

“And,” Lee paused, waiting for him. “Who do I tell them to contact?”

“Oh, Commander Jackson Dekker. They call me ’TwoK’. I fly the Fer-de-Lance in bay two, the Para Bellum.”

Dex whistled at the mention of a Fer-de-Lance. “Nice hardware, Mr. Fancy. This guy here,” he pointed at Lee with his metal thumb, “he flies scrap heaps. See, ya gotta understand how much skill that takes,” the oversized man chortled behind the bar.

“You’re so full of chyt.” Lee winked and raised his glass to Dex with a gentle hand to keep the liquid from spraying out. Dex grinned back. Lee turned back to the younger pilot raising his glass again, “Nice to meet you, Jackson. How long you been flying for Duryss?”

“Oh, that was a while ago, a few years back. Before all this Thargoid defense stuff he’s been faffing about. Good money, though, even with the large wings. Hey, you ever wing up? Maybe you could use some cover on those trading runs.”

“I keep a low profile, and I don’t need escorts.”

“Shame. But, honestly, you want an escort to keep your cargo safe. Think of it like insurance for your shipments. I mean, if I were you, I’d be begging me to help,” Jackson smirked.

Dex turned to put his arms on the bar in front of Jackson, “Oh no, you see, this boy’s high class,” he tilted his head toward Lee. “He’s got a date with the best maintenance tech on the station, ya know. He’s got standards.”

“And I definitely don’t need a wingmate for that run.”

“I’m the best wingman you’re gonna find out here.” Jackson sat back as if he rested his case on nothing more than his own opinion. He took his drink and tipped it back to drain it. Stunned for a moment, he shook his head, reeling from the strength of the purple-tinted obsidian liquid, and shoved his glass back onto the bar forcing the remaining droplets to escape their containment. “Another,” he paused to recompose himself and take a gulp of air. “Gravity Well,” he ordered.

Without taking his eyes off of Jackson, Dex grabbed another shot glass and began preparing it. “You’re a might eager to wing up with a piece o’ work like Sollinger.”

Jackson shrugged, “Haven’t had a contract in ages. It’s the only way I got left to climb the ranks in the Pilot’s Federation.”

Looking around the bar at no one in particular, Lee responded, “Right well, I think I’ll manage somehow. Thanks for the offer.”

“I’m telling you, you want me around. A: the Para Bellum’s fully decked out. Frag cannons, pulse lasers, and a huge multi-cannon. Literally tears through everything and has a pitch rate that’ll make your cheeks pucker. And B: I can take down anything. I’ve killed three at once. Come on, give me a chance, I’ll prove it.”

Lee raised his hands at Jackson, “I get it. You’re a well-equipped pilot with some experience. If I get wind of any opportunities, you’ll be the first to know. Promise,” Lee went to grab his drink to finish it off.

“Look pal, I’ve smoked Elite pilots.”

“I’m sure you have. You’re probably rated ‘Dangerous’ about to hit ‘Elite’. It’s nothing personal, it’s just my style.”

At that moment, emergency lights flashed around them. Every holo-sign along the shopping thoroughfare flickered into a station-wide warning:

Emergency Protocol. Evacuate. Evacuate.

CHAPTER THREE

“I found him, sir,” her rough, husky voice echoed throughout the large chamber in which she stood. Grand colonnades stood near the walls like sentinels. At the back of the room sat an oversized, ornate desk centered in front of a towering arched window adorned with exquisite velvet red drapery.

“Excellent, Colonel Reeves.” A tall, thin figure of a man moved behind the desk, backlit by the teal light streaming through the window. “I expect you to deliver him here, to me, personally.”

Reeves walked from the office entrance with trepidation. The scale of the office, an homage to the Consular’s political power, evoked anxiety every time she made an appearance. Stopping in front of the desk, she summoned her resolve and responded, “I’m already assembling a squadron. We’ll take him by force, if necessary, Consular.”

The figure walked to the window to stare out across the city. “Three years searching for that man. That prodigy is the key.”

“Yes, I understand, sir.”

From the window, the Consular turned back toward her, “His research is critical to making the device work, and I will not have my investments go to someone willing to ghost me.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Finding him unlocks everything. We’ll finally be able to tip the scales and take on the Thargoids.”

“Yes, I understand, sir. It’s what I signed up for,” she said with more enthusiasm than she’d intended.

“Once we have Master Xohn, we can build a new prototype. Be careful, Colonel, we can’t afford to lose him again.”

“We won’t, sir—I won’t.”

“Very good,” he nodded and sat at the desk. “On to other matters. The bioresearch facility?”

She took a look at the datapad in her hand, “Back on schedule. The quarantine has made it challenging, but the final assets are on their way.”

“Excellent. And, the labor dispute on 48 Tau?”

“Yes,” she tapped her datapad again. “The Dynamic Industry and the Revolutionary Party of HR 1279 held a summit two days ago. The deliberations over work contracts took up most of the agenda. The report said they also raised the issue of paying for the new Thargoid defense systems on the station.”

The Consular leaned forward, perching his fingers together in front of him.

Reeves continued, “The Revolutionary Party holds the Surayev Beacon, a refinery outpost. But, they maintain Dynamic Industry is still responsible for paying for the upgraded defenses. The negotiators from Dynamic Industry argued the Revolutionary Party controls the station.”

“And they don’t believe they should be on the hook for providing defenses for all outposts in the system.”

“Yes. The Revolutionary’s rebuttal claimed Dynamic Industry’s popular control of the system requires, by Hyades Defense Statute, to provide upgrades for all outposts in systems they control–”

Before she could finish, the Consular stood up and sighed, “These petty squabbles are going to leave a lot of civilians vulnerable. It doesn’t matter who pays for the defenses; if they aren’t installed, the people will pay for it with their lives.”

“I completely agree, sir,” Reeves knew it first hand—the screams of her family echoed from the past in her mind.

He paced behind the desk, “Are there any other outposts in HR 1279 that the Revolutionary Party doesn’t control?”

Reeves tapped on her datapad and pulled up the system details. “Yes sir, a planetary outpost called Larson– Larson Hub. It’s held by a group known as The Bureau.”

“Perfect, then the same applies to them. Have my admin send our envoy… what’s her name,” he snapped his fingers, trying to recall. “Nikki, Mickey–”

“Ricci? From Interstellar Affairs?”

“Yes, that’s it. Give her instructions that she must enforce the Defense Statute for the Hyades government. Consular Duryss requires their cooperation for the good of the people, etcetera, etcetera.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you. We can’t allow any outposts to be undefended. It’s enough to have to deal with these terrorist cells; we can’t have local governments unwilling to protect their own people.”

“If I may, sir, installing these heavy battery systems to augment defenses will go a long way, but there will still be holdout systems, and there is no guarantee the AX batteries will drive them away. If the Thargoids do attack, it may be necessary to impose Martial Law on these outlying systems.”

“When they attack—because they will—it is quite likely we’ll need a lot more than Martial Law. That’s why Master Xohn is so important.”

“Consular, there is one more thing you should know about Master Xohn.”

“Oh?”

“He’s heading toward the Hyades, close to Gliese 170.1,” her dramatic emphasis on the system name elicited the intended effect.

“Intriguing. How did he end up there?”

“We got a tip on a passenger transport contract filed in HIP 22607.”

He walked up to the desk, leaned forward, spreading his arms to place his fingertips on the desktop in a slow deliberate motion. Light from a nearby lamp illuminated his thin, angular face. It highlighted the pockmarked cheeks and age lines over his brow. The silver in his pulled-back hair seemed to flash.

“So, we’ve come full circle,” he said with a wistful satisfaction. “Is the Vilant still in the system?” His head tilted with the question.

“Yes, Consular. They’re continuing their mission to search the rings of the sixth planet for the device.”

“Good. Have them dispatch a ship for reconnaissance. There’s an orbital station somewhere in system, if I recall correctly?”

“Yes, the mining outpost: Foden Dock. That’s where our sources suggest he’s headed.”

“And remind me again, who runs the station? Are they one of ours?”

“It’s Executive Marco Stephenson.”

“Ahh, yes, Mister Stephenson. He’s been generally cooperative with our efforts there. I’d like to have a conversation with him.”

She nodded, “Of course, Consular.” She looked down at her personal datapad to check the time on Foden Dock. “It looks like they’re still on daytime shift now, sir.”

“Excellent. Raise him, please.”

She moved to behind the desk to work the console. In a few taps, she called up the comm system and opened a channel. They both waited for the interstellar communication request to page the Executive.

A darker-skinned man with short, fuzzy hair appeared on the console viewscreen. Reeves made a swiping gesture moving the video from the console to the room’s central holo-projection system.

“Greetings, Consular Duryss. What can I do for you?”

“Executive Stephenson, it is good to see you again. I realize we’ve had only brief encounters in the past, for that I do apologize.”

“Think nothing of it, Mister Duryss. We’re quite happy remaining remote. The peace and quiet—the tranquility of the frontier systems is why I took this post.”

Stephenson smiled across the screen. A sizable gap between his front teeth made it difficult for Reeves to take the ‘frontiersman’ seriously. His familiar tone demonstrated a remarkable lack of respect for the authority of the Consular’s station. She already didn’t like him.

“Mister Stephenson,” Duryss also dropped the man’s title to echo his informal tone. “I need your cooperation holding an individual whom I believe has, or will arrive on your outpost. He is of great importance to our efforts to solidify our defenses against the Thargoid incursions. I expect you’ll do the right thing and hand him over?”

“Of course the Gliese 170.1 Legal Partners do not share your concern of attacks in our system. We cannot detain an individual without due cause. The law must be observed. Perhaps for the right fee the Legal Partners can identify just cause to hold this person?” Stephenson looked genuinely smug. It burned Reeves up to see a clumsy, rural nobody trying leverage them.

“I see,” Consular Duryss drummed his fingers across the desktop for a moment. “Let’s see if we can’t reach a legal understanding. Executive Stephenson, I happen to be privy to a number of open Tellurium contracts waiting to be serviced.”

“Consular, we do, in fact, refine Tellurium and would be happy to–“

“Then if you would be so kind as to host an engineer by the name of Vin Xohn as your guest it will be easier to negotiate the contracts. We can have a courier vessel on your pads in a matter of hours. A well-armed escort commanded by my associate, Colonel Reeves,” he gestured to her, “will ensure he arrives safely here on Emen. If we cannot come to an accord, I am entirely willing to seek out political alternatives that might find you and the Legal Partners legally displaced from that insignificant system of criminals and rejects of society. Are we clear, Executive Stephenson?”

Stephenson’s mouth hung open for a moment before he stammered, “I… I understand, but we won’t–”

Zip. The Consular ended the transmission. “Take your squadron and the Decimator. Bring Xohn to me, or Stephenson’s head.”

“My pleasure, Consular,” she moved around to the front of the desk and turned to face him again. She stood hesitating, expecting him to dismiss her. “Is there anything else, sir?”

The Consular pulled his reading glasses from a case in front of him to look over a tablet-sized datapad. He stopped to look up at her over his glasses, “Oh yes, Colonel– Please see that the funds sent to the campaign for Senator Draden’s missing son are diverted to our defensive investments in HIP 20935. Our installations in the system are dealing with ever-increasing attacks from that upstart group of malcontents.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll handle it.” She mentally noted the task to delegate later.

“You always do, Reeves. Thank you, that will be all.”

She nodded and turned to walk out of the enormous office. Her boots’ echoes followed her to the large, exquisitely carved wooden double-doors, which swung open at her approach.

The guards on the other side of the doors snapped to attention as she passed. She tapped her commlink, “Prep the Decimator. We have a job to do.”

Zip.

***

Space travel did not agree with Vin Xohn. Everything about it stressed him out. His cramped cabin couldn’t compare to the spacious apartment he kept on Maia. The light was dim. The decor was nowhere near the luxury he grew accustomed to living in. Much to his disappointment, all the first-class cabins were already booked. He’d have insisted on top accommodations on any other long-distance trip, but this was not a pleasure cruise. He needed to blend in, so here he was, stuck in a two-person economy cabin with no windows. He ran his hands over his smooth, bald head, rocking back and forth to take his mind off his growing anxiety.

The relentless snoring on top of the zero-G environment pushed his calm demeanor to the limit. His bunkmate was a large, grotesque man, with a smell unlike anything he’d encountered before. Xohn placed it somewhere between rotting flesh on the beach and a room full of sweaty socks. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of toes that had wriggled free from their confines within the magnetic gravity blanket. It didn’t even fit around the man’s rotund form. Thankfully, his cabin companion slept often, keeping the conversation to a minimum.

Having detected a fresh dose of ripeness emanating from across the cabin, Xohn decided it was worth the effort to head to the lounge. This being a long-range cruise ship, there was likely to be an entertainer of some sort onboard. There would no doubt be a crowd, but at least he could get a break from his current circumstances and breathe some air that didn’t taste like sweat.

Standing up was as disorienting this time as it was the first time. Although accustomed to low-gravity, he never managed to get his ‘space legs’. The magboots felt heavy and took far more effort than he thought should be necessary.

Following along the path lighting of the corridor, he came to a lift that carried him to the entertainment deck. The lounge spanned the vessel’s width, giving access to a view of the stars beyond the transparent metallic windows running the entire length of the ship. Working through random tables and chairs, Xohn found his way to an empty bar on the outskirts of the crowd near the window.

Behind the bar, a human-like android bartender anchored a glass it had been cleaning with mechanical precision and slid in front of him.

“What can I get for you, sir?” The machine tilted its head in anthropomorphic mimicry. Its synthetic voice was all but indistinguishable from a real person. Like most androids, the mass manufactured assistant was purpose built to encourage people to believe it was a sentient being. Of course, intergalactic laws prohibited sentience in commercial robots.

“Oh, yes, will you make for me a Blue Maia?”

“Please transfer 300 credits.”

“300 credits for a drink? That is outrageous!”

The android ‘stared’ back at him and shifted back to the glass.

“No, okay. 300 credits,” he pulled his datapad, hoping the drink would clear the sweat stench in his palate. The android snapped back in front of him. With a flick across the display, Xohn transferred the credits and the android went about preparing his drink.

Most of the lounge was dim, giving an excellent view of the gem-filled star-scape on one side and, on the other, a planet wrapped in a cream-colored haze. Xohn noted hints of a deep blue water-world below the creamy atmosphere, topped with a single ice cap at one of the poles. The haziness caused an almost pleasant greenish-yellow tint along the terminator dividing day and night.

Xohn turned to look at the colorfully lit stage at the back of the lounge. There stood a striking woman with flaming red hair that seemed to glow, belting out an upbeat tune. The audience appeared to be enjoying the show. A group crowded the front of the stage, moving to the beat. Although not a music enthusiast himself, the balanced rhythms and melodic symmetry appealed to his engineering mind.

The android delivered his drink, a precious few ounces of azure blue liquid, with a slight bow of its head.

Xohn took a sip, wiping the excess from his mouth. He still hadn’t mastered drinking from zero-G glasses. The drink’s effects began to relax him, and he forgot about the bartender’s lack of intelligence.

“This entertainer must have been quite costly, I presume,” he commented with a gesture at the stage out of boredom. His mind was never idle for long.

The android glanced in the direction of the stage, then turned back to him. “Tonight’s entertainment is Miss Deanna Divine of Rhea,” it said with a matter-of-fact response.

“It is a very good way to pacify the passengers. Though, I suspect it is difficult to pay just the right amount for the quality entertainers and still be protecting your profit margins,” he said before taking another sip.

The android’s solid, unblinking ‘eyes’ continued to watch him drink without response.

“Ahh, I see it now—why the drinks cost so much,” he turned the glass in his hand regarding it with a bemused smile. His incessant curiosity diverted him into a thought experiment on the delicate game of cruise line operator.

He pulled out his datapad and began modeling the entertainer costs, drink sales, and ticket prices. He stopped after calculating the cost of an entertainer near a six -or eight-percent take of ticket sales would optimize profits.

“See, this is why I am being an engineer, not a cruise line operator,” he gestured to the data model on his pad. The android appeared to look down with faux interest.

He gestured the model off his datapad and found himself looking at his itinerary to Shinrarta Dezhra. The cruise had him at halfway to completing the 400 light-year journey.

“But, that is also why I find myself in this mess of a situation, of course. I never am expecting to be galavanting across the galaxy.”

The android seemed to tilt its head like a dog eager to hear from its owner. Xohn downed his drink.

“More?” The android’s head tilted back the other direction.

Xohn shook his head, looking into the reflections of the empty glass as he turned it about in front of his face. The drink made his mind wander.

“I have to find her,” he said quiet and somber. “My Azera. She didn’t deserve this.”

He put the glass down and looked up at the android. An uncharacteristic emotional wave brought tears to his eyes. “It was all my fault. I have to find her.” He cleared his throat, wiped the excess moisture away and shoved his emotions down. “And find it,” he finished with conviction.

His self-preservation instincts cut through his inebriation to remind him eyes and ears were everywhere. The machine itself, without sentience was still sophisticated. He dare not mention anything about his prototype out loud.

Looking back at his datapad he pulled up his ongoing analysis of the last message he received from Azera before she went missing. The garbled communication took years to decipher. His notes narrowed down the possible navigation flight paths of her ship to a half-dozen systems in the Hyades Open Cluster.

His dilemma now was finding a pilot to take him to each of the remote systems. Going all the way to the Jameson Base, a large, famous station, a central hub of civilization, would mean an ample number of pilots to choose from. On the other hand, finding a pilot near the rural systems could mean someone with firsthand knowledge of the region, and as a bonus, perhaps a cheaper contract.

From what he’d heard about the type of people in the outworlds, it might be a tall order to find a reasonable pilot. His impression was that the people that settled in frontier space were desperate grifters, or vagabonds hiding from inner system authorities. They were not the calibre of individuals that someone of his station would be seen associating with. It would, however, help him hide from anyone that might be looking for him.

He mulled it over, weighing the pros and cons while watching the entertainer croon on the stage. The audience roared and pulled him from his internal debate.

His awareness of the crowd brought into mind an unpleasant reminder that he was sitting at a table, alone, in a crowded room, sleeping in a cramped two-person cabin with a smelly, snoring slob, with a lot more to go on his long-distance cruise. He hated every minute of it, but he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from finding her.

A signal in the lounge sounded, and an announcement came through the P.A. from the flight deck. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be breaking orbit to make our next jump in fifteen minutes. The next scheduled stop is Anthony de la Roche Point in HIP 22607. Thank you for choosing Oracle Cruises, where the journey is the destination.”

Emotions Vin Xohn wasn’t equipped to handle started to take over. There was hope and excitement that he was so close, countered by fear and anxiety that he wouldn’t find her, or worse, that he would. It had been three years. Could she still be alive?

His analytical mind took over again, shoving his emotions back down where they came from. Press on, or get off at the nearest starport? He did not like gambles, he liked data. If the outpost were anything like the stories he had heard, there was a slim chance at best. At the same time, the prospect of returning to his cabin and spending any more time with the foul creature cohabitating with him there was intolerable. Data or not, he had to get off this ship.

He arrived back at his cabin. His grotesque bunkmate emerged from the bathroom without magshoes of any kind, clumsily bouncing from the bulkheads toward his side of the cabin. Such a disgusting creature, Xohn thought to himself. He tried to ignore the belching after the animal collided into his bunk. He pulled his bags from the wall compartments as fast as he could manage and headed for the door.

“Hey, sorry for, you know,” a marble-mouthed gravelly voice came from behind him. “The trunnions. They do me in somethin’ terrible,” he smacked his belly that stuck out from beneath the undersized shirt while he floated over his bunk. The smack triggered a loud fart to escape. The man was pathetic looking. He could only hope the pilots available out here in the sticks were more civil. Without a word, Xohn shook his head, turned, and let the cabin door shut behind him.

He breathed a small sigh of relief even as he dragged his bags through the corridor. Emerging onto the upper level, he was mesmerized by the full-sized deck to ceiling window that made it feel as though he was walking in space. The hazy planet beyond was beginning to shrink as their cruising speed picked up. A chime sounded to warn passengers of the imminent jump.

An announcement rang out over the P.A. system: “Folks, we’re beginning our jump preparations. Please find your way to a jump harness. Follow the illuminated pathways or seek out a crew member if you need assistance.”

There were harnesses built into the wall in the corridor, and most of the other folks in the hall had already started to fasten in as the jump procedure became routine to them. Xohn grabbed the nearest harness, strapped himself up, and watched out the window. He could feel the tugging on his body. The star-field beyond the windows began to shimmer, and light particles around the ship were stretching. With a silent grace, the ship lunged, forcing him sideways in the harness. All light outside the window streaked across his vision, followed by a sudden bright flash. The jump tunnel bent the light from all over the galaxy around them in colored patterns of nebula-like gas clouds that seemed to swirl about outside the ship. In mere moments, the tunnel effect peeled back to reveal real space, and an intense glow appeared toward the bow.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve arrived in HIP 22607 and will be docking shortly. For those staying at HIP 22607 we wish you well and hope you’ve had a pleasant journey with us. We’d love to have you again on future trips by joining our frequent traveller’s program where you can earn light-years to your favorite destinations around the galaxy. And don’t forget, this ship is in the top one percent of all cruise liners out there,” the P.A. continued to drone on, but Xohn tuned it out to slip out of his harness. He fell into line to disembark from the ship, his bags continuing to float about him. He felt pulling against his body in different directions as the ship navigated to dock.

Finally, he thought when the ramp to the deck lowered and a dozen or so passengers began to file out of the ship. Vin Xohn stepped down and saw a pair of armed guards scrutinizing passengers as they stepped onto the deck. They looked up at him and locked eyes. Xohn hesitated for a moment. Did they find me? He looked around for ways to jump the line, but people behind him pushed him onward. There was nowhere else for him to go but to keep moving down the ramp. When he reached the bottom, the guards were on both sides of him, small rail rifles strapped to their backs and hard looks on their faces.

“Gentlemen, how can I be helping you?” Xohn offered with his accent reminiscent of an Arabic speaker from old Earth.

CHAPTER FOUR

The guard on his left eyed Xohn for a moment.

“Move along.”

Xohn stood on the deck, surprised.

“Come on! Move along,” the impatient guard waved him on.

He got his feet moving and looked around the bay while following the people in front of him. Now to find a way to these six systems. He exited the bay and made his way to a woman behind a terminal. “Hello,” he greeted her while pulling out his datapad. “I wish for travel to these systems. Is there a place for pilots that you are knowing?” He flung a copy of his list off of his datapad to her terminal. Without looking up, the woman pointed to a holo-sign with a directory of popular locations on the station. The Pilots Lounge was third on the list. “Ahh, perfect. Thank you,” he said with a tired smile and headed down the corridors.

The cramped two-person economy cabin on the Astrum Delphius was luxurious compared to the run-down state of the station. The systems looked ancient. The lights flickered. And there was some sort of corrosion in the bulkheads that looked like a growing infection. There was no decor for the station’s purpose-built design. It was a refinery, that was it. It was going to take the luck of the Oracle to find a pilot here in the middle of nowhere.

He arrived at the Pilots Lounge and looked around. The choices were indeed slim. His attention was first drawn to a guy who’d wrapped his arm around a handhold with the rest of him dangling out in zero-G. He seemed strung out of his mind on some sort of drugs. His first real option was an older woman with more wrinkles than the canyons of Pomeche 2c, adding to an unpleasant looking demeanor. Worse yet, were the telltale signs of significant plastic surgery that gave her facial proportions a surrealism. The only other choice was a man with long, curly, oily black hair that wore a sleeveless leather vest. His rough face, covered with pock-marks, had orangish leathery-like skin very likely due to a vitamin deficiency. He was the sort of person one imagined to be in a pirate gang. The choices were slim, indeed.

Vin approached leather-man, hoping to avoid getting caught up in a gang ritual. “Excuse me,” he spoke with a nervous, quiet voice.

With a grunt and a sneer, the man turned toward him from the bar he’d been leaning against. His nose ring twinkled as it caught the light.

“Excuse me, you… are you a pilot?”

The greasy-haired man looked incredulous. “Ya kidding me right now, are ya?” His voice was raspy. He looked to his left as if talking to someone else and muttered, “‘Am I a pilot?’ he asks in a Pilots Lounge.” Then he turned back to almost shout at Xohn, “What you expecting in ‘ere? An underwater basket weaver?”

“I’m looking for someone to hire.”

“Of course you did, why else would you come in ‘ere?”

“Yes, why indeed,” he already regretted his decision to engage this particular individual.

“So whaddya need? Cargo transfer? Data delivery?” His leathery skin seemed to shift across his bones as he leaned in to listen.

“No, no, a— Just passenger transport. Just me, for six star systems in this region to travel. A pilot that well knows the area is for whom I’m looking.”

“Eh, passenger transport. Not from around ‘ere are ya? I can tell ‘cause of that accent.” The man gave him a suspicious look that gave way to a broad, knowing smile. “That’s a good number of systems. That means expensive. It’ll cost ya.”

“Yes, it will, I expect.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really do passenger transport.”

At that, Miss Plastic Surgery Failure began creeping closer trying to listen in on the negotiations. The encroachment was enough for the pilot to change his tune.

“Right, so, I can take ya, but mind ya, my ship ain’t no cruiser, and you’ll have to sleep in a wall sleeve. Where’re ya headed?”

“Here is the list of systems I have,” he said, pulling out his datapad and offering it to the pilot. “For the trip, 720 thousand credits I can be paying you.”

The pilot’s face went completely neutral while he looked over the list. Without looking up he replied, “Nine ninety.”

“Nine ninety?” Xohn said, puzzled.

“Credits, man!”

“Ahh, yes, this is known as ‘the haggle,’ isn’t it?”

“It’s my price. Oh, and I got another shipment to make on the way.”

“Then if you are taking me on these other deliveries, seven twenty is sufficient.” He said, rather proud of his quick thinking.

The pilot’s eyes narrowed, then he shrugged. “Fine. I’ll take the offer as is, but I make my delivery before sightseeing. Keh, chamba?”

“Your terms are accepted. Mister?” Xohn left it hanging.

“Commander Jimmy Jones. Call me, Jimmy.”

“Very well, Commander Jimmy. I am Vin Xohn.”

“What kinda name is that?”

Xohn shrugged, “I am being from Kuwemaki.” He said not knowing how else to respond.

“Ugh, Kuwees. At least you’re good for the credits then.”

“What time is for leaving?” Xohn couldn’t hold back his excitement.

“Now keep yuh magshoes on.” The pilot worked his datapad to enter the agreement into the Pilots Federation database. He registered his thumbprint and DNA to certify the agreement. Then he flipped the datapad around to offer it for Xohn. After providing his print he felt the need to wipe the grease off his thumb. The pilot pocketed the datapad with an ugly smile. He gestured toward the exit, they both started out of the lounge. “We’re down in bay two.” He motioned to a corridor ahead.

Xohn followed along, bags still floating and jerking forward in zero-G with every step he took. They arrived in the bay, to a pitifully small and narrow wedge-shaped craft. Xohn wasn’t studied on the makes and models of ships to know what it was, except that it was small, especially compared to the cruise liner he arrived on. The paint was mostly stripped away. There were large dents in the hull like it was used in some game with asteroids. The tail winglets were both mangled. If it was space-worthy, its appearance did not inspire any amount of confidence. Of course, Vin wasn’t going to upset his new pilot, so he held his tongue. But, inside, his stomach lurched. He really hated space travel.

They walked up the ship’s ramp, and Jimmy turned back, “Welcome aboard the Heme. Ya can stow your bags up there.” He pointed to an overhead compartment toward the cockpit of the ship. “I don’t get many visitors, so don’t expect much.”

Xohn nodded and negotiated his bags in the small corridor. Then a distinct smell hit Xohn’s nostrils. He couldn’t quite place what it was.

“Yeah, don’t uh, don’t mind the smell. It’s the cargo; foodstuffs for a remote outpost. That’s where we’re headed first.” Jimmy opened the cockpit door, settled into his command chair, and started tapping through ship systems. The ship seemed to come alive as the sequence of systems powered up. He continued to work across panels and check different subsystems of the ship. The cramped cockpit was scarcely large enough for Xohn to stand beside Jimmy with his magshoes locked to the deck.

“Alright, let’s get this majestic beast off the deck.” The raspiness in his voice was more pronounced in the small confines of the cockpit. Xohn rolled his eyes at the pilot’s melodramatic description of his vessel. Jimmy tapped the controls to request a transfer to the surface. With a jolt, the landing pad lurched, then lifted the ship to deliver it outside the station. He felt the movements much more than on the cruise liner.

Although small, the cockpit windows afforded an expansive view of the buildings around the landing pad and stars beyond. Sounds of clamps releasing reverberated through the cockpit, and Xohn felt a sudden floating sensation. He reached for an overhead handhold to steady himself against the pilot’s movements that continued making his stomach queasy.

“Off we go.” Jimmy manipulated the controls. More mechanical sounds came from some distant part of the ship. Floating free, the ship throttled up and moved away from the station.

“Your delivery is going where?” Xohn asked.

“Glist. A tiny little outpost, one system over. It’ll be a quick stop, I promise ya that.”

“Glist? Is not a name I’ve ever heard.”

“Course not, yer not from around here. Charts all say Gliese 170.1. Everyone ‘round the Hyades calls it Glist.” He tapped into the navigation menu and plotted the jump.

“Is some sort of local name?”

“Lotsa places around here have their own names from the locals. Nobody likes using the whaddya call it names… the technical-like names: H-I-P 22607, who remembers that? There’s scores of H-I-P systems in the sector. Alright, buckle up, tourist, time to jump.”

Xohn looked around for straps, but there weren’t any. “Where do I buckle up?” He asked, nervous.

“Not actually buckle-up. Just hold on, tight-like.” The drive systems in the Heme were building up. It was a distinct sound and louder compared to the last ship he was on, he assumed because it was such a small craft. As the HUD indicated the drive near full charge, the familiar tunneling seemed to shimmer into existence around them. The screeching of the rip opening in space filled their ears, then boom. They leaped into the jump tunnel, and a few moments later, the view outside filled with the intense blinding light of an enormous blue-white star. The cockpit filters adjusted to spare their eyes permanent damage but no less diminished its power. The Heme immediately maneuvered away from the star, aiming out to what otherwise looked like nowhere. The HUD projection on the canopy highlighted Foden Dock, thousands of light-seconds away, a mere speck from this distance.

Xohn relaxed his hold on the hand-grips and settled into a more comfortable stance in the cabin. Their trajectory brought them close to the first planet in the system, and as it neared, Xohn’s mouth dropped open, stunned from the sight. It was a gleaming greyish-copper metallic sphere, wrapped by a narrow ring orbiting far from the planet’s surface. Wisps of thin vapor clouds tracked over the surface, and the copper areas of the surface shown with the diffuse reflected light of the host star. Jimmy didn’t seem at all impressed and continued to adjust their course to line up with their target at the edge of the system. Their course took them close enough that Xohn could make out a couple other ringed planets.

“Ya never been out this way before, uh?” The raspy voice broke the otherwise quiet hum and occasional beeps from the flight controls.

“No, I haven’t. I only ever once traveled, when I left my parents.”

Jimmy shook his head. “Ya, don’t say? That’s crazy. Why now then?”

“There is someone I am looking for.”

“A woman?”

Xohn nodded.

“Yeah, that’d do it. Women make ya do crazy.”

“Yes, indeed, they do.” Xohn sighed. A pang of sadness and loss struck him, reminding him why he was putting himself through it all.

“Hmm, that’s odd,” Jimmy remarked.

“What’s odd?” Xohn reacted with anxious nerves.

“Just looks like someone trailing us.” He pointed to a blip on the main scanner display moving to a position directly behind them. “Not sure why, though; I got nothing illegal in the holds.” He scratched at the stubble on his rough-hewn face as if trying to think. “Are ya a meat man, Vinny?” Jimmy asked at random.

“Sorry, a ‘meat man’?”

“Do ya like meat?”

“Uhh, yes, I suppose I do?” Xohn’s voice raised in a question, not knowing exactly why he was being asked about his dietary preferences.

“Doncha know all the crap that’s in animal meat?”

“Well, I…”

“It’s a corporate conspiracy, man! They shove all these garbage growth hormones they claim as ‘all-natural.’ It’s a scam, man! The hormones,” he lowered his rough voice to a whisper as if they were being listened to, ”They’re addictive. They hook people. They hook them while they poison ‘em for profit! Cancer only still exists cuz o’ these dirtbag corporate hacks grabbing profit. That’s what happens when ya let corporations get large enough to be governments. They decide what’s best for them, not for people. The whole system is corrupt and sick.”

“I had no idea,” nervous, Xohn looked around the cabin.

“No one does!” He smacked his leg. “That’s why I’m out here trying to save lives. I got secret special meat I’m selling at Foden Dock. People gotta get weened off meat addiction. I been vegetarian all my life. Look how healthy I look!“ Jimmy’s orange skin tone now made sense.

“How… enlightening,” his voice trailed.

“Well, that’s what they’re probably looking for. Tryin’ ta stop me. Too bad they’re too far behind. Alright, here we are.” Jimmy said, dropping the Heme from frameshift cruising to normal space.

The outpost shot into view.

Xohn looked it over as they approached. It was a tiny station of simple construction. There was a long rectangular hub-structure he suspected housed the main living quarters. There were cargo containers anchored across the surface wherever there seemed to be space. It also had a cylindrical operations center with a long-distance communications antenna array at one end. On the other end were the landing pads each with fuel tanks attached. Two smaller pads went off axis from the hub one direction, and off another axis a larger, medium-sized pad ran parallel to the main comms antenna. All in all, it wasn’t much to look at.

When they were close enough, Jimmy submitted their docking request. With immediate clearance from Dock Control, they set down on landing pad one.

“Alright,” Jimmy smacked his hands together. “Time to make some creds,” he crowed enthusiastically. His hands tapped on the controls to connect to the station services and begin the automated transfer of cargo and fuel. “Hah! Would ya look at that! Animal meat is going for 10 thousand over the galactic average! That’s way more profitable than I’d hoped! This’ll just be a bit.”

Xohn couldn’t ignore the contradiction of Jimmy’s complaints about corporate profits from meat, while he did the same. But, he decided it best to let it alone.

“Would it be alright if I step off? Some fresh air I am needing.”

“Sure, fine, let’s stretch our legs before we’re cooped up for a while,” Jimmy unstrapped himself.

Xohn grabbed his bags.

“What, ya don’t trust me?”

“I don’t mean to offend. We’ve only just met. Things very important to me are here that I must at all times keep track of.”

“Suit yerself, I don’t care if ya don’t trust me, so long as you’re paying me,” Jimmy rasped while standing up to make his way out of the cockpit. The pair walked down the ramp with Xohn awkwardly pulling his bags along with him.

There was a buzz of automechs ferrying the cargo away. The bay was cavernous for a small ship like the Heme. The busy sounds resonated in the large open space with a sort of hollowness. They stood there, watching the orchestration of the cargo transfer process.

“Ya know, I’m saving lives out here,” Jimmy crossed his arms on his leather vest. “They’re all gonna eat my completely organic, vegetable-based synthetic meat. Made it myself to taste jes’ like real meat. They’ll never know it’s even cheaper. They stay alive, I make money. I call that a win-win.”

Xohn glanced over at him but stayed silent.

“Yeah, I’m basically a hero. Only one brave enough, bold enough to do something against those corp-heads.”

The refueling finished and disconnected from the ship. Next to them, nearby doors to the bay opened, and five armed men rushed in.

Jimmy took one look and bolted back up the ramp, yelling, “Chyt! They scanned the meat! They know! I’m outta here!”

“Freeze!” The leading armed man shouted. The squad of guards drew their weapons and aimed it toward Xohn. “Do not move!”

Jimmy kept running up the ramp.

Xohn had turned to follow Jimmy up, but immediately stopped and put his arms above his head. He could hear sounds of the ship powering up. All the automated machinery stopped their work. Then the ramp to the ship raised while Xohn’s magshoe was still attached, dragging him along with it. A painful screech pierced his ears when his other magshoe scraped across the deck until the ramp pulled it upward. Everyone grabbed their ears to dampen the screeching. Finally, he managed free himself by rocking forward to release the boot.

“Hey, grab him!” The lead guard exclaimed. The small force of guards ran, wrapped their arms around his legs before the ramp pulled him up off the deck, and together pulled him back. He caught the ramp’s grip with both hands struggling to keep hold as it continued to close until it slipped from his fingers. The ramp locked into place on the Heme. Amber lights flashed alerting to the pending departure. The guards grabbed Xohn and dragged him out of the bay doors into the station. He glanced behind him to see the deck moving the ship forward to return it to the surface, and with it his hope of finding Azera.

“Wow, close one.” A husky sounding guard commented.

The lead guard took a breath to compose himself, then turned to face him. “You! You’re the engineer Vin Xohn from Maia, aren’t you?”

“Y… Yes.” He stammered trying to stifle his nerves.

“Come with us. Our orders are to take you to Ops when you arrived on station,” the serious, authoritarian voice commanded.

Xohn half raised his arms in compliance, but he said nothing. They walked along the corridor, and the lead guard spoke into his comm unit, “We’ve got him, sir. Bringing him to you now.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” A disembodied voice responded.

They boarded a lift that conveyed them to the Operations Center of the station. When the doors to the lift opened, Vin Xohn saw a large circular room with concentric rings of standing desks and displays. About a dozen operations staff were behind a desk or milling around. A tall bald figure made his way toward them.

“Greetings, Master Xohn. I’m Executive Marco Stephenson. It’s our pleasure to host you on our little outpost. I trust you’ve had a pleasant trip so far?” A tall man in a grey suit offer his hand.

Xohn pursed his lips. “It has not been without its surprises.”

The executive dropped his hand. “Ahh, yes, well, I’m sorry to have been so… insistent at my invitation. I am compelled to, for the time being, hold you here.”

“A prisoner?”

“Oh goodness, no. You’re a guest.”

“Then I can leave?”

“Uh, no. But our every hospitality on this facility is at your disposal.”

“But I can’t leave.”

“Not until your escort arrives,” Stephenson said with extra emphasis. Xohn wasn’t certain, but it seemed like Stephenson was hinting at some special meaning. “I think it best we have a conversation in my private office.”

Stephenson gestured and began walking to a glass room at the edge of the Operations Center. When they neared, two glass doors split apart and slid over the glass walls allowing them to pass into the room. When the doors closed behind them, Stephenson spoke to his terminal, “Enable privacy mode.” The glass snapped into a frosted state that obscured everything outside the room. The murmuring Ops noise went silent. Xohn presumed it also prevented those outside from hearing or seeing into the office.

“Master Xohn, let me be frank.” Stephenson picked up the conversation, “There are powers at play that want you, desperately. I’m afraid they’ll stop at nothing to get at you.”

“Yes, their efforts are something I’ve been aware of. For some time now your people have been after me. Until now, it has been quite easy to elude you. This time I am wondering what tipped them off.”

“I want to assure you I’m not a party to their efforts.” Stephenson’s voice seemed earnest.

“Now you seem to be,” he held an unwavering stare at the Executive.

Stephenson raised his arms in protest, “I know it looks that way. You’ll have to pardon the theatrics, but someone here is watching and listening. I am merely playing a part, but I promise you, I’m on your side.” He pulled his right sleeve down and revealed a curious symbol tattooed on his wrist.

“Meaning what?” he responded, unimpressed.

“It means I’m part of the Resistance.”

“What ‘Resistance?’”

“The Hyades Resistance. It’s a movement against the Duryss Administration.”

Xohn interrupted, “Politics I know nothing of! Or anything about this ‘Duryss Administration.’” He crossed his arms, unconvinced any of this was helpful for him.

“Look, the government of this region is oppressive, marginalizing the workforce to maximize the production and research of weapons. Duryss campaigned on it being part of Thargoid defense efforts to protect the sector.”

“Even if I am believing this, what does any of it have to do with me?”

“That,” he hesitated a moment, “That, I can’t say.” Stephenson leaned against one of the frosted glass walls, then turned to look out of the window decorated with distant stars. A nearby marker beacon to guide pilots for station docking approach blinked with metered regularity.

“You can’t? Or, you won’t say?” Xohn pressed.

“I can’t because I simply don’t know what they want with you.”

But, Xohn knew. It was his prototype.

The people that’d been after him must have been operatives of this Duryss Administration. He tried to recall where he’d heard the name ’Duryss’ before.

“Wait, I,” he pulled out his datapad and dug through past messages and records. He ran a general search query for ‘Duryss’ on his device. The first result surfaced the first letter he received in response to his research paper. He recalled the early days of his design work before building the prototype. He published a research paper to find investors and funding for his theoretical idea. For months after publishing the paper there was no response—not one. But, that was expected. His mentor, Professor Palin, had warned him as much. After this particular response, a sudden cascade of investment interest exploded, and he had all the money he could ever need. He called up the letter and navigated to the bottom to look for the signature:

With Respect,

Consular Alden Duryss,

CEO of Sietae Federal Corporation

“A’la, it is him!” Xohn pointed at his datapad, then put a fist to his mouth. “From the beginning it was him who’s been tracking me—Alden Duryss!”

Stephenson moved around the desk to Xohn, smacking his fist into his other hand, “Exactly! As I said, he’s been investing in research efforts for new forms of defense and weapons against Thargoids.”

“But a Thargoid weapon? My invention does nothing like that. It is a heat exchanger,” Xohn held a puzzled look.

“He must have some plan for it then. I don’t know how it ties in, but it must somehow. He wouldn’t go to these lengths for something incidental. He’s the one forcing me to hold you until his people arrive to pick you up. He wants you in a bad way, a very bad way.”

“Then what are you intending to do?”

“I intend to protect you for as long as possible. If needed, I’ll have my ship take you to a rendezvous point in the system to meet up with people I trust from my resistance cell.”

“Thank you for your help. I am grateful.” Xohn’s expression relaxed a bit. He felt convinced enough to drop his aggressive stance. Stephenson seemed like someone he could trust, but his trust had been misplaced before. Time would tell.

The commlink in Stephenson’s office trilled, and he answered, “Yes?”

“Sir, a fleet of ships just arrived in system. They appear heading our way.”

“Have you scanned for IDs?”

“It’s Colonel Reeves, sir, on the Decimator.”

Stephenson’s face went serious, “Thank you, Aric.” The commlink beeped off. “Change of plans. I’m going to stall to buy you time. You need to get down to the docking bays. Head to Bay 2.” He pointed in the general direction of the lifts. “If I can’t make it, I’ll have an aide pilot you to the rendezvous point the next system over.” Stephenson caught one of Xohn’s bags floating open and latched it closed. “We’ve got to move! Now!” He pressed at Xohn to push him out of the office.

Xohn shuffled out and looked for the lift across the Operations Center. Stephenson moved with a rapid gait to a comm station where a staff member was frantic. The relative calm in Ops was now replaced by a frenetic pace. It seemed everyone was in motion now.

“Open a commlink to the lead ship.” Stephenson ordered.

“Yes, sir.” A young woman responded. A moment later, she reported, “The link is open, sir.”

“This is Executive Stephenson, administrator of Foden Dock. Your convoy appears to be on course to arrive at our station. Please, keep in mind that we are a very small outpost. We can’t possibly accommodate all your ships.”

“Mr. Stephenson, I am Colonel Reeves. I’ve been dispatched to retrieve Mr. Vin Xohn from your custody. Prepare to transfer your guest to my ship when we arrive.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“You are aware of my orders. You will transfer him to this ship, or I will remove you from that station.”

“No, you misunderstand, Colonel. Master Xohn, is no longer aboard our station,” Stephenson lied.

“Then, Mr. Stephenson, in five minutes, you won’t be either.” Her voice was sharp and threatening.

Inside the lift, Xohn turned to see the Executive briefly look up at him from the comms station. Stephenson gave him a committed nod as if to wish them both luck.

“Aric, Emergency Protocol,” Stephenson ordered.

The young man’s voice replied with nervous energy, “Yes, sir. Emergency Protocol.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“What’s that?” Lee heard Jackson Dekker’s young voice ask with a trace of fear.

“I don’t know!” He answered, feeling flushed from the rush of blood as his pulse quickened.

“Don’t think I ever seen an Emergency Protocol here before,” Dex remarked, setting the glass back into its holder with a frown.

“You think it’s the Thargoids?” Jackson asked, his eyes darting.

“Maybe it’s a malfunction?” Dex said.

Lee told them both, “I don’t know about Thargoids or malfunctions, but something doesn’t feel right. I think I’m gonna head down to the bay and check on the Nightcrawler.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea. I’m gonna hop in my ship just in case,” Jackson agreed.

“You good, Dex?” Lee asked.

“I’ll be okay. If it’s an actual emergency, they’ll start sending out for transports. If it comes to it, I’ll take an escape pod. You guys keep yourselves safe and go.” Dex gave him a resolute nod.

“Alright Dex, take care of yourself,” Lee said while backing out of the bar.

Jackson put his glass onto the magnetic strip to secure it before following Lee down to the landing bays. He joined Lee in a lift and panted, “This is kind of nuts! But hey, maybe we’ll see some action! The Para Bellum’s ready.” A hungry eagerness apparent in his young, wide eyes.

“Oh yeah? Even for Thargoids?” Lee asked as the lift doors opened. Out of the corner of his eye, Lee saw the excitement drain from Jackson’s face.

They exited the lift into a passageway to the landing bays. The spinning alarm lights were a bit dizzying to Lee, especially as they became more pronounced in the narrower, darker corridors. Without warning, a violent shake rocked the entire outpost. Lee felt it all the way through his body since his magboots coupled him to the deck. Something hit the station. Hard.

He picked up his pace but lost track of Jackson. Although his pulse was now racing, he kept his fear in check. It was his survival mode, giving him heightened senses and faster reflexes.

He punched the bay door control, impatient to get through. When he stepped into the open doorway, another strike shook the station all the way through him. The lights in the bay and down the corridor flickered with power interruptions. His head reeled from feeling rung like a bell. When his vision stopped shaking, he saw the Nightcrawler sitting on the deck. The brand new canopy gleamed in the bay lighting. The swept angles of the ship’s arrowhead-like hexagonal body and worn edges of gunmetal paint gave it highlights that almost glowed in the bay’s dimness. He’d have stayed to admire her more if he wasn’t trying to stay alive.

Lee noticed all the automechs were parked. Looks like Zee got most of the major work done. She’s good, I’ll give her that, he thought.

He rushed to the ramp at the aft of the ship to board but came across a scrawny darker-skinned man with intricate tattoos on his bald head. The crouching man cowered behind a large tool cabinet anchored on the deck.

“You are pilot? My pilot?” The man peered up at him and spoke with an accent Lee hadn’t heard before.

“I’m not your pilot, but this is my ship. You’d better get out of here and find your ride,” Lee said.

“Bay two this is? Maybe I am somewhere making a wrong turn. But I am having no ideas on how to get there from here.” The thin-looking man stood up.

Lee punched the code to lower the ramp to the Nightcrawler. There was no way he was letting anyone else on board, but he couldn’t let him stay in the bay. Lee knew he needed to leave, now.

Under a guise of helpfulness, he said, “Alright, it’s easy. Just go back through those doors, take the passage to the lift and ask for level four. When you get off the lift, follow the corridor around and make a right to get to the outfitting deck of Bay 2.”

“Right, okay. Thank you!” With that, the man took off for the bay doors.

A massive explosion rocked the station, knocking Lee into the side of the ship. Several blooms of sparks spread like fireworks, spewing debris across the bay. Lee took cover. A low wrenching sound caught his attention. He looked up to see a structural beam blasted free from one of the corners of the outfitting bay. The explosion propelled the loose end into the entryway of the bay. It tore through the passageway, turning it into a mangled mess of metal. The motion twisted the other end from its bolts sending it in a twirl into the gangway, cutting off the exits from the bay.

Lee caught sight of the man he sent off curled into a ball, protecting his head. He was in front of the doors to the now flattened passage out of the bay. He ran over to the cowering bald man. Various bits of metal hardware floated around him, but Lee didn’t see any signs of blood. “Are you okay?” Lee yelled over distant rumbling.

“Yeah, I think so!” He emerged from his ball to see the wreck of what used to be the doors to leave the bay. “What’s happening?” The man shouted back with his thick accent.

“The station’s under attack. That was probably a fuel tank that exploded.”

“Now there’s no way for me to get to Bay 2! Please… you have to take me with you!”

Without thinking, he snapped, “No way. I don’t take passengers.”

“Please! You can’t be leaving me to die!”

“I can leave you. And, it doesn’t mean you’re going to die.” Lee returned to the foot of the ramp.

“I’ll pay! Whatever you want! Please!”

Lee stopped to consider the money before reminding himself of all the strings that went along with it. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; he couldn’t—not again. Caring about others just gives you more to lose. It would be one more thing to keep him from getting back on track to find whoever killed Vic. “Look, just kick off toward that door over there,” he yelled, pointing across the bay. “You can make it to whatever ship you’re supposed to get on.” Lee knew it was a long shot. The door was at least 100 meters to the other side of the bay near the surface lift mechanism. He figured giving this guy a little hope would help cut him loose.

“I– I can’t make that!” He yelled back in an incredulous tone.

“Sure you can!” He said, not believing his own words. “Look baldy, I’m getting off this station now. Better RemLok yourself up and get moving. I’m not gonna stay and argue. I’m leaving right now.”

Lee used a low step on the ramp to stretch up to a storage compartment at the opening and pulled an emergency RemLok unit. He gave it a gentle toss in the man’s direction, who, after some fumbling, ended up catching it.

“There you go. Put it up to your face and pull the tab below. Good luck. Have a nice life and all that.” Lee gave a mock salute before running up the ramp and shutting it behind him. He jogged to the command deck of the ship, almost leaping into his flight chair.

Another explosion rocked the station. Lee grabbed the sides of his chair to steady himself until the shaking passed.

“Alright, old girl, we gotta go and we gotta go now.” He strapped himself into the flight harness with one hand and tapped on systems to bring the Nightcrawler to life. He ran the fastest flight check ever to ensure she was flight-ready.

Zee had done a great job getting the ship put back together. A small part of Lee regretted there wasn’t time to find her. He knew he was going to owe her big time—if he ever saw her again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bald man waving at him from below. Lee used exaggerated movements to clearly suggest putting on the emergency RemLok and pointed to an exit door across the bay. The man stood there motionless.

Lee tapped on the console that brought up the station services. His finger hovered over the ‘Return to Surface’ command. He hesitated. The man on the deck wasn’t moving to the exit.

Another series of explosions shook the station. With more reaction than a conscious decision, he entered the command. After a short delay, the spinning warning lights in the bay came on. The landing pad shifted forward, carrying the Nightcrawler and the little bald man to the lift mechanism. While the lift moved, Lee watched the man fumbling with his RemLok. He finally managed to get it over his face and shortly after became engulfed in a jelly-like substance. Of course, Lee felt bad for the guy, but he knew it was better this way. Get to know someone, and you just have to deal with losing them eventually, Lee reassured himself.

The pad above opened, depressurizing the bay. The rush of atmosphere exploded from the bay, carrying the gel-encased man out into the vacuum of space. Lee watched the helpless figure, caught in a current of air escaping out of the landing bay while the lift returned the Nightcrawler to the surface. The body of the ill-fated man tumbled endlessly, hopelessly.

The canopy crested the surface, and the battle became visible. Beams of laser fire were being exchanged between the station and more than a dozen ships in spread formation within a couple of klicks.

The telltale chem-trail of a missile drew out toward the station but exploded before reaching its target. Lee mentally noted the station’s point-defense systems were still online. The sound of the explosion in the cockpit was concussive as the ship turned sensor readings into a visceral auditory experience. A shower of debris spread in all directions. Small hits sprinkled across the left-forward shields, blocking a debris cloud that would have otherwise killed the man floating behind the ship.

That’s when Lee noticed the shields weren’t at full power. Zee installed the module but Lee still needed to configure it. In this state, they could only absorb minor damage before dropping. Lee routed power into the ship’s systems to reinforce the shields. The battle ramped up his adrenaline. He felt the blood pulsing in his head and thumping in his chest. He’d been in small skirmishes before, and had the pulse-pounding experience of outrunning pirates, but never an all-out battle. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead. He tried to focus on finding a way out of the combat zone. His best path looked to be starboard, beyond the man he spaced.

Clanking sounds of the mooring clamps releasing preceded the station’s notice that the ship was free to navigate. Lee used the ventral thrusters for altitude and raised the landing gear in a smooth, practiced orchestration of motions. The free-floating man became a speck in the distance, but his emergency suit pinged the sensors with a repeating distress beacon. Unable to completely ignore him, Lee targeted his signal to keep tabs on him.

The battle continued—a couple of fighters engaged in ship-to-ship combat were orbiting each other, exchanging fire. A wing of three ships made a sweeping attack run at the station. Lee made out the signature delta of a Cobra, flanked by two Vipers. Wasting no time, he pushed the throttle to an optimal maneuvering speed to put the station between him and the assaulting force. He used the dorsal thrusters so the ship would sink down behind the landing pad he’d just disembarked from. The wing of ships passed overhead, pulse lasers and cannon rounds blistering from their hardpoints. Two of the station’s point defense cannons were firing and tracked to the right flanking Viper, converging into a crossfire. It immediately peeled away from the wing formation. Moments later, it burst apart in a puff of debris.

The distress beacon continued in the background. He checked the signal on his sensors, then looked for a hole in the firefight. The ships surrounded the station like a net. There was no racing through them to avoid a scan. His biggest concern was the attackers identifying any craft that was not part of their assault force becoming a target—his, in particular. The Nightcrawler had a complement of weapons that could take on targets the same size or smaller. But the number of ships meant it was likely he’d face multiple targets at once. For now, he needed to move. Staying parked was an invitation for trouble.

Ping. Ping. Ping. It was the distress beacon, again. The nagging reminder of his decision to abandon someone became too much to bear. Vic wouldn’t have left someone like that.

Lee sighed out loud, “I’m probably going to regret this.”

He pointed the ship away from the combat zone toward the host star. At this distance it was nothing more than a bright point of light with no apparent size. He deployed his hardpoints, then rigged the ship for silent running. It was a gamble. It meant dropping the shields and closing the heat vanes. With no place to go, the heat build-up threatened the ship from the inside. But, it would make him nigh impossible to spot, or even target. With his hardpoints deployed, he edged the throttle forward and pulled the trigger.

The trilling sound of an automated limpet drone diminished while it tracked away from the ship after its target. He’d never used one to pick up a live person outside of an escape pod before. He hoped it didn’t hurt the guy, but there wasn’t any time to go back for a proper pickup. While the limpet completed its journey, he continued to pilot away from the combat zone and watched the temperature climb. His eyes bounced across the panels trying to keep track of everything: the limpet drone, the distress signal, the heat, and the nearest ships that might try to kill him. As soon as the target was captured, the automated limpet made its way back.

“Warning: temperature critical,” the COVAS announced. The gauge was climbing faster now, and an angry klaxon added to the chaos.

Lee waited for the last possible moment to open his cargo doors to keep his ship’s signature low. Any amount of heat venting would spike his signature. With the return successful, Lee slammed the throttle to full. The Nightcrawler picked up speed along with the Cobra and Viper remaining from the three-ship wing. They trailed him, trying to get a fix.

He flipped on the ship comms to warn his new passenger, “Hey! You in the cargo hold– better get yourself strapped in quick. It’s about to get rough.” His intuition said they’d have maybe five seconds after switching from silent running before taking hits. The shields would need at least a minute to recover even with power rerouted to ship systems. Small jets of sparks came from a conduit above him. The heat was too much. He was out of time.

“Okay, here we go,” he said out loud, attempting to brace himself for what was ahead. He brought the ship out of silent running, then routed all available power to help the shields recover. Sensors showed his two tails were closing in. Then it hit. A salvo rained against the hull from behind. The ship shuddered in response. He rolled the Nightcrawler evasively and fired a round of chaff to confuse his pursuers targeting sensors. It worked, but wouldn’t last long. Not long enough for the shields to come online. Out of tricks and trapped, he was stuck between waiting for the shields or making it outside of the station’s mass lock to jump away. He gritted his teeth and braced for the next attack.

More seconds ticked by than should have, but there was no attack. Re-checking the sensors showed both ships stopped their pursuit. Another ship had entered the fray and engaged both pursuers. The Cobra disappeared off Lee’s scopes, replaced by a debris cloud—only the Viper remained.

With the sweeping power-up thrum sound of the shields coming online he reflexively let out the breath he was holding.

“We’re gonna make it, old girl!”

Targeting the Viper with his sensors showed its shields were already offline and was losing hull integrity fast. Clearly it faced a much larger, well-armed ship. Training his sensors on the blip nearest the Viper showed its attacker as a Fer-de-Lance. After a few more seconds, the Viper vanished from the sensor display.

A commlink request chirruped. Lee acknowledged the call and opened the channel.

“You see that? I got them both for you. Told you you’d want me around!” A young enthusiastic voice came through the comms.

“Jackson?”

“Yeah! I saw they were pelting you with your shields down. Thought I could help ya out. What did I tell ya about the Para Bellum?”

“That was perfect timing! Thanks for the assist,” he replied, mixed with gratitude and annoyance that he might owe someone something.

“What’s next?”

“I haven’t gotten that far, yet. Let me think,” Lee began a quick mental search of options. He felt the need to stay close. Getting back after the shooting stopped seemed the fastest way to offload his passenger, and there were others he didn’t want to see hurt. Worry for Zee and Dex crept in, but he pushed it aside to focus on figuring out where he—where they could go. A couple of nearby places in-system came to mind. There was always Glist 6. It was perfect for disappearing, but going there meant facing his most painful memory. Or, he could try the far side of–

The open commlink interrupted him mid-thought. “Okay, how about you let me know quick, ‘cause I just attracted a lot of attention.” Jackson’s voice had a worried edge to it. The sensors showed the Para Bellum’s shields taking hits.

“To the rings then. Alright, I’m sending you my transponder beacon. Follow my wake and keep the commlink open,” Lee powered up the FSD.

“Right behind you.”

He groused to himself about all the baggage piling up with his passenger, and now a wingmate. He didn’t like admitting it to himself, but having a well-armed Fer-de-Lance on his side was comforting.

The Nightcrawler engines spooled up, and leaped away into frame shift cruise, carrying Lee and his passenger to safety. With a smooth roll and pitch, Lee adjusted their course to Glist 6. The giant planet’s enormous rings glowed in the distant light of the host star.

The commlink chirped, “I’m tracking behind you. Where are we headed?” Jackson’s voice sounded much calmer.

“The rings of Glist 6.”

Lee heard clanging sounds from below, followed by the double-decker cockpit’s lower-level door opening.

“Welcome aboard the Nightcrawler,” Lee projected into the cockpit.

“Hmph,” he heard the angry tone that emanated from the lower level. Then the indignant heavy accent of the bald man came up from the landing bay. “You! What you did to me—unbelievable!” More clanging followed, but with more of a ringing sound from magboots on the ladder rungs behind him.

“Hey, you’re alive! I’d think you could be a little more grateful,” he half-turned to look behind him.

“Grateful?” the bald man huffed behind him, then paused to take a breath, obviously not accustomed to the effort of climbing a ladder with magboots. “You were making me think I was dead! Quite possibly the worst experience of my life! Who do you think you are?”

“Lee Sollinger, the guy who saved your life. Now, how about you calm yourself down and we figure out how to get you off my ship as soon as possible.”

“Phandaa chhootnaa! Fine by me.”

“And you are?” Lee craned his neck back and smelled a distinct sickeningly sweet and pungent odor fill the cabin.

“My name is,” the bald man’s face turned suspicious and eyed him, “None of your business. I am thinking I can’t trust you.”

“Look pal, I don’t really care who you are, it just makes conversation easier. I’m happy to put you back in the cargo hold.”

“By the way, a thoroughly disgusting place,” the bald man still had globs of gel from the emergency RemLok. Lee finally understood where the smell was coming from.

Lee grimaced and covered his nose, “You’re not exactly smelling like roses pal. You missed some chunks,” he pointed to a large clump of gel stuck to his passenger’s pant leg. “No, not here,” Lee sighed. “Out the door and to the left. Go get cleaned up, please.”

“Is that the planet we are going?”

“Near it. We’re going to hang out and let things cool down before I take you back so you can pick up your ride.”

“I am thinking that’s not such a good idea.”

“Oh really? You got a better idea?”

“No, it’s just–” his regretful voice trailed. “I’m the reason the station got attacked.”

“What?” Lee shouted, incredulous. “Who would want one person bad enough to attack a station?”

“I know, and I am regretting it. None of this is what I wanted!” A pained expression crossed his face.

“You regret it? Are you thick? People died in that! People I know may have died back there!”

“How was I supposed to know they were going to attack?” He almost shouted back.

Lee released his chair lock and spun around to face his passenger full on. “Who are you? Really? It can’t just be a bounty. No bounty is worth a full scale attack on a station.” The man stayed quiet. It was clear he was holding back. “I don’t need your kind of trouble. Start spilling it.”

“I– I can’t.”

“Talk. Now. I’ve got plenty more emergency RemLok packs and an airlock,” he said through clenched teeth.

The tension hung in the pungent cabin air with the hum of the Nightcrawler’s drive. The bald man remained silent, almost stoic, appearing to consider his options.

“My name is Vin Xohn. I am a theoretical engineer from Maia, and it’s not me that they are wanting exactly. They are wanting–” He stopped with another uncomfortable pause.

It was annoying Lee to no end, “Yeah? They want what?”

“My invention.”

“Your invention?”

“A prototype device I designed,” he sighed.

“What is it? Some kind of weapon?” Lee suspected that if anything was worth an all-out offensive on a station, it would be an experimental weapon.

“No! Of course not! I do not design weapons.” Xohn’s brow furrowed, offended by the accusation.

“Then what?”

“Mr. Sollinger–”

“Commander,” Lee corrected.

“Commander Sollinger, if knowing what it does is worth attacking a station, then you’ll understand why I don’t share it.”

“Okay. Fair point.”

“It is enough to know they are after me.”

“And willing to do anything to get you.” The light in the cabin changed and became much brighter. Lee spun his chair back to face forward. They were closing in on their destination. The rings of the planet ahead filled the view. The vast rings shimmered, outshining the dark rust-colored gas giant planet lurking inside them.

The pungent odor of RemLok gel hit Lee’s nose again. He turned his head back and trying to strike a friendlier tone said, “Why don’t you go finish getting cleaned up. I have an old flight suit back there you can change into if you want. I’m going to drop us into those rings so we can disappear and come up with a plan, alright?”

Xohn nodded, “Thank you.”

The trill of a comms request came through the cabin. He’d forgotten all about the wingmate following them. Lee opened the channel. “Hey there, uh– not sure if you noticed, but it looks like we got a tail.”

Lee turned to his sensor readout and scanned through the list of contacts on the scopes to find the one that appeared behind them on the sensor display. There wasn’t just one; it was a wing of three. Without coming about to face the target, the sensors could only infer the ship’s class from the transponder signal. The sensors reported a large, dangerous Anaconda.

CHAPTER SIX

Reeves stood at the center of the sweeping flight deck on the Decimator—a war vessel built for the singular purpose of combat superiority. The elongated Anaconda-class ship slipped through space, hunting after two spots of light dancing in the distance.

She stared at the light that traced across the hull’s curved edges. The battle was over, but the mission wasn’t. Not yet, at least. She wasn’t looking forward to the conversation that was coming. She hoped it could wait until they caught up with the two targets they were tracking. At least then she’d have something more positive to report.

“Sir,” a nervous crewman said from a terminal off of her right shoulder.

She turned to face him, with a stern expression. She wasn’t as upset as she projected to the room, but she had to maintain appearances. They expected it from her.

“Sir, it’s Consular Duryss on comms. He’s asking for a status update.”

Of course, he was—no point in delaying the inevitable. “Put him on, Mr. Huxley,” she snapped.

“Colonel,” Alden snapped, skipping the formal greeting as usual, “Do you have him?”

“No, Consular. He was not on the station when we boarded,” she stuck to the facts. “We’ve taken Executive Stephenson into custody. Our forces took the station, but it sustained heavy damage. All landing bays are offline. We estimate about half the station population evacuated in escape pods, but scans showed the target was not among them. We left a wing to round the pods up. I left orders to interrogate anyone from recovered escape pods for ties to the Resistance. There were at least a half-dozen ships that left the CZ. We’re currently in pursuit of a pair of ships that engaged in combat against our forces during the battle. We suspect Resistance sympathizers are helping the target.”

“Very well.” Although not audible, she felt a disappointed sigh in the brief pause. “I’ll dispatch a new admin from our staff to take control of Foden Dock. At the very least, we now have direct control of another installation in the region. All is not lost. We’re that much closer to rooting out this resistance group.” He continued his monologue as if he was speaking to the entire crew. “The sooner we can deal with this Resistance, the faster we can refocus on more important matters—upgrading station defenses in the Hyades. Continue your pursuit, Colonel.”

His voice dropped low and serious, ”You know what’s at stake. Keep me informed.” The commlink terminated.

The crew around the bridge turned to look at her while listening to the exchange. The silence left an uneasy energy lingering as they waited for her orders.

Appearances, she told herself. “Well?” her husky voice growled, “You all heard him, back to work! Ms. Asher, continue full ahead.”

“Aye, sir,” she reported, spinning back to face the bow.

“What are the sensors telling us about our targets?” Reeves directed her question to the co-pilot to her right.

“It looks like an Asp Explorer called the Nightcrawler, and a Fer-de-Lance—the Para Bellum. The Asp looks fitted for mining and transport, but the FDL is heavily armed.”

“And, ETA to interdiction range?”

“We’re trailing a couple of minutes behind. If they continue on their present heading, they’ll drop into the rings of the sixth planet ahead. It’s going to be close. They may have enough time to drop into the rings. If they make it there, they’ll disappear.”

Reeves was resolute, “We’ll stay with them Mr. Sloane. A lot can happen out here. We can still get lucky.”

Sloane shook his head, “Those rings are enormous. That’s a lot of places to hide. We’d need significant fleet support to fully sweep them.”

“If it comes to it,” Reeves countered.

“What’s so important with this guy anyways?”

“He designed a device that the Consular believes will give us an advantage against the Thargoids. He’s also the only one that knows how to find the prototype,” Reeves responded, walking to stand between the forward flight chairs. She crossed her arms and gazed at the growing giant rings in front of them. The targets, glowing specks that they were, engaged in a graceful dance around each other.

“I thought that’s why we’ve been upgrading stations—to give them a fighting chance against the bugs?” Sloane asked.

“The upgraded station defenses are only part of the strategy. The ‘goids are a superior and relentless enemy. We’re going to need every advantage at our disposal.”

“Sir, do you know what the device does?” Asher looked up at Reeves.

“No, but I have my suspicions,” she turned to walk back to the center of the bridge.

“It’s gotta be a weapon, right?” Huxley offered.

“Not necessarily,” Reeves answered the comms officer.

“Yeah but a weapon makes the most sense! That’s gotta be why the Resistance is helping him,” he implored.

“I don’t understand why the Resistance isn’t helping us. If the Thargoids attack, they’ll attack everyone. They don’t care about human allegiances,“ Asher, ordinarily quiet, piped up.

Sloane grunted, “The Resistance hates any rule of law. They’ll do anything to thwart authority. This schlub is just another convenient excuse. They’re terrorists!”

“It’s more than that though,” Asher replied. “They’re not stupid. It’s clear they’re working a strategy of some sort. Precision attacks on infrastructure, minimal casualties, well organized cells that somehow efficiently coordinate. They evacuated that industrial plant before it exploded. They’re not just terrorists.”

“Gimmie a break, it’s just another faction trying to undermine the legitimate government. Attacking infrastructure still hurts the populace, even if they’re not killing people outright,” Sloane groused.

“There’s no telling what they’ll do if they get the prototype,” Huxley chimed in.

“All the more reason the Consular wants him. Whatever it is, if we don’t get control of it, the entire region will be in jeopardy, either from the terrorists or the ‘goids.” They dare not fail. Losing her post meant losing the opportunity to lead an assault against the Thargoids. This was just another in a long line of stepping stones to make sure that happened. To make sure she got her revenge. Her thoughts drifted back to her family. Their screams reached out from her memory.

“Sir, they’re slowing down for approach,” Sloane reported, interrupting her thoughts.

She snapped herself back into the task at hand. “Steady helm, stay at full until the last possible moment.”

“Aye,” Asher responded.

“Mr. Huxley, tell the wing to hold formation, nav-lock to our signal, and ready weapons.”

The rings now filled the view. The HUD on the canopy showed the range to both targets decreasing rapidly.

“Thirty seconds until interdiction range,” Sloane announced.

“Mr. Sloane, target the Asp.”

“Aye, sir. Targeted.”

“Huxley, coordinate with the wing to focus their attack on the Fer-de-Lance. Target drives, only. We don’t want them running away again. Disable the Asp.”

Huxley nodded and dispatched the commands to the other ships.

“Fifteen seconds…”

“Alright, look alive people,” Reeves encouraged.

“Ten seconds…”

“The Consular, myself, and everyone that cares about a peaceful life in the Hyades is counting on you.”

Sloan began a countdown. “Five…Four…Three…Two…One… In range! Initializing interdiction.”

***

Lee focused on the HUD readout of their ETA to the rings. It was going to be very close.

Seven…

The rings above them separated into distinct bands.

Six…

Lee adjusted course to a wide band between two narrow ones.

Five…

The rings swept over them as they approached from below.

Four…

The bands stretched out, lost their curve, and formed a kind of racetrack to infinity.

Three…

Individual rocks resolved into view, trapped in the gravity of the gas giant lurking beyond.

Two…

Lee felt a distinct tug against the controls, and a visible tunnel enveloped the ship, shimmering ahead. An unmistakable clunking sound came from the frame shift drive, and a warning appeared on the HUD: Interdiction Detected.

“What’s that?” Lee’s passenger shouted from below.

One…

Lee disengaged the FSD, and the ship dropped into real space. The tunnel around them vanished, replaced with the sweeping expanse of millions of miniature boulder moons nestled in a haze.

“They we’re trying to pull us out of system cruise, but we dropped out in time. They probably shot right past us. It’ll take them a bit to loop back. We better not stay around too long.”

“Okay,” Xohn said, his voice quavered.

He dumped power to the engines and the ship leaped forward, throwing Lee back into his chair. Their best chance was to get out of sensor range for their wake signals to disappear off the scopes. Lee repetitively fired the thruster boost to get as much distance from their drop point as possible.

Rays of light and shadow cast by the boulders moved with Lee’s maneuvers in the Nightcrawler. The patterns of light brought back memories of Vic. He was his mentor, a surrogate father—his closest friend. Focus, Lee, he told himself.

Lee glanced at the scopes and noted their wingmate made it as well. In short order, the Para Bellum caught up and overtook the lead being a much faster vessel. Lee opened the comms, “Hey pal, we’re gonna need to go silent as soon as they drop in.”

“Got it. Don’t worry about me, I’ve done it before.”

“Right, just making sure. I don’t want to keep playing cat and mouse with an Anaconda.”

“My sister loves cats,“ Jackson said, deadpan.

Caught off guard and confused by the randomness, Lee replied, “Okay, good to know. Let’s hope this one doesn’t catch us.”

“I mean, when we’d play with the cat, you’d dangle something just in front of it–”

Annoyed at first, Lee almost dismissed it. Then an idea jolted him, “Oh, right! I think I get what you’re saying.” He switched on the pulse wave analyzer and started sending out scans. The HUD painted highlights across the asteroids.

“What are you doing?” Xohn asked from below.

“Trying to find–” He fired another pulse. “Trying to find the right rock.”

The right rock.

The familiar rings of this particular planet stirred a memory, even as he hunted, boosted, scanned, and searched. He could hear Vic’s old gravel voice in his ears, “You gonna tickle those rocks all day boy?”

“I’m scanning—looking for a good one. Are you gonna help me or not?”

“Boy, you gotta look for the right rock, not a good one.”

“I can’t tell them apart.”

“Look closer. The right rock has a different look—a different shape. Most of the nearby rocks are made of the same stuff. But the right rocks are different. They got a unique density. It gives them a more uniform shape.”

“What different shape? They all look random. I don’t see how that helps.”

“Use your eyes, boy! You send out a wave and find the glowing signals. Look for the brightest one and pay attention to the shape. Watch it carefully. If it’s got the goods it’ll be shaped more like a ball and less like a potato. That’s how you know it’s the right rock.”

Returning his attention to reality, he scanned the field around them. The skills he learned from Vic returned to him. In short order he found the right mark with exactly what he hoped for: surface deposits. Vic trained him well.

The sensor display flashed with new signals. They danced about on the edge of sensor range. Lee could only hope they had enough of a head start.

“Good thing I didn’t have time to replace the old mining equipment yet,” Lee said out loud forgetting he had another person onboard. He deployed the hardpoints and brought the old Abrasion Blaster online.

Using practiced inputs, he moved the ship to aim ahead of the spin and fired. The energy ring sailed to the rock but missed the target. Recalibrating for a new angle, Lee fired again. The shot was perfect, breaking off a chunk of the asteroid that floated away from the surface.

“Yes! One more ought to do it,” he remarked again.

“What are we doing?” Xohn asked.

“Finding some mice.”

“Some mice?”

Lee ignored the distraction, sliding around the rock ahead of the next deposit. This one was near the axis of rotation and didn’t take near as much alignment. He pulled the trigger with a perfect hit, and a second chunk drifted off the asteroid.

“Alright Jackson, go dark. I’ve got the mice in place. We need to change course and burn like there’s no tomorrow. Follow my lead, I’m heading in towards the planet,” he said into the comms.

Lee changed course, choosing an indirect angle. Then he re-routed power back to the engines, hit the thruster boost, and set the ship for silent running. The Nightcrawler and Para Bellum made fast, stealthy progress away from the decoys they left behind.

“Are we being okay?” The heavily accented voice rose from the lower deck.

“Yeah,” Lee projected his voice to ensure it carried down. “I think so.” He took a big breath and slowed his breathing to a more regular rhythm.

“So what is now the plan?”

“We lay low for a bit. Maybe we can link up with Jackson and think through our options.”

Heat built up quickly, forcing Lee to reopen the heat vanes. He wasn’t concerned. They’d already crossed twenty-four klicks, far outside the sensor range of anything but the largest ships rigged for reconnaissance. Still, they pressed on to ensure they were safely beyond any search patterns. The sensor scopes were silent, aside from the Para Bellum. Convinced they were safe, Lee pulled back on the throttle and swung the Nightcrawler around to face their unexpected ally.

“I think we’re good here,” Lee said both over the comms and to his passenger below. “Hey partner, how about we link up and run low to stay off scope.”

“Sounds good.” The Para Bellum slowly approached them, and a docking signal light went off. Lee navigated the interface to accept the docking request. The ships linked communications to coordinate the docking procedure. After minute adjustments to sync the ships’ movements, a walk-bridge extended from the Para Bellum’s airlock door.

Lee heard the familiar clinking of the docking bridge as it attached to his ship. A signal beeped, notifying him the hard-link was in place and filled with atmosphere. He turned off all but the essential systems, then locked the interface to leave the flight deck. “Alright, let’s go figure things out,” Lee called below.

Vin Xohn climbed the ladder to join Lee, and they both walked aft to meet up with Jackson. They crossed the pressurized docking bridge that ballooned outwards. Lee was always caught off guard by how thin the flexible metallic membrane was that held the atmosphere. Vin Xohn followed behind him across the bridge, and they entered the airlock of Jackson’s ship. Even in the airlock, the ship’s interior sported a much newer design. The elegant sweeping lines and minimal control surfaces gave the ship a modern feel. It was a stark contrast to the utilitarian design of a thirty-year-old rig like the Nightcrawler. Jackson stood on the other side of the airlock door. The outer door behind them closed, and Jackson opened the inner door.

“Welcome aboard the Para Bellum. Nice right?”

Lee was impressed, but he kept an even tone in reply, “Pretty fancy.”

Jackson turned to escort them through the ship, “I mean, yeah, she’s more than just a fancy flying console, she’s full of teeth. A full complement of pulse lasers, frag cannons; but the best part is the huge multi-cannon that can shell out three-and-a-half rounds a second. Did you see how easily I smoked that wing?” Jackson’s exuberance and parade of armaments grated on Lee’s nerves. He fought to keep it reigned in.

It wouldn’t serve to point out the wing focused on the Nightcrawler when he attacked, allowing him to cripple the ships before they could retaliate. Another of Vic’s pearls of wisdom rang true, “The real test of a combat pilot is an opponent that fights back,” he’d say. Lee chose not to argue, and humored Jackson, “She’s got it where it counts.”

“And then some!” Jackson gave a self-indulgent laugh.

They entered the much larger flight deck of the Para Bellum. Zorgon Peterson, the manufacturer of Fer-de-Lance models, had a flair for interior design. The well thought out overhead lighting, task consoles, even the sizable entry corridor were luxurious compared to the Nightcrawler. Above them, the eerie sight of asteroids tumbling and spinning end over end filled the sizable overhead window.

Jackson stopped just inside the entry and leaned back against the wall.

“Hey, uh, thanks again for the assist, you really saved our hides,” Lee focused on the most positive thing he could stomach saying.

“Honestly, I saw you out there and knew it was the perfect chance to show you how much you need me in your wing.”

“Sure, but I don’t plan to be in a situation like this again. Now, let’s figure out how to get out of it. Oh and this,” Lee gestured to his companion, “is Vin Xohn.” The bald man beside him gave a modest nod. “He’s something of an inventor I picked up on my way outta there.” Lee opted not to mention spacing him; or picking him up with a limpet for that matter.

Vin Xohn spoke up with his thick accent, “Thank you for your helping, Mister…?”

“Jackson. Commander Jackson Dekker. Just doing my civic duty. So what’s your story? What’re you doing out all this way?”

“There is someone and something I’m looking for. Someone I lost.” Xohn said in a wistful voice.

“Hell of a time for you to show up,” Jackson quipped.

Lee cleared his throat. “We think he’s the reason all this happened. They’re after him.”

“Poggers! They attacked a station! For him?”

Xohn stepped further forward, “Before the attack, the station administrator tried to help me escape. His ship was where I was supposed to get on, but the attack kept me from reaching it. Commander Sollinger here was– was finally willing to take me. Luckily. Thankfully.”

“So let me get this straight– You came all this way, out to nowhere, to find someone you lost. And some serious people, willing to mount a full out assault on a station, are the ones looking for you? What could possibly be worth it for them to go through that much trouble?” Jackson said in disbelief.

“A long story that is,” Xohn shook his head. His tattooed baldness reflected the nearby overhead lighting.

Lee looked around the flight deck of the ship. “We appear to have plenty of time.”

“My research project at the Palin Institute is where it begins. As a grad student Professor Palin apprenticed me. My research on waste heat focused on energy conversion. Beyond expectations, the project was being more than successful. There was a research paper I published to attract investors for funding a working prototype. If successful, then there would be startup funds for production to begin.”

Lee relaxed into a corner to listen. His mild curiosity driven by the hope of hearing something to help him find a way to dump his newfound baggage and get the target off his back.

“Silence. Months of my paper published with no responses. Academics wouldn’t touch it. Patience, Professor Palin encouraged me. He told me, ‘Once the right influencer finds it, you won’t be able to stop the flood.’ On that he was right. Eight months or so after it published, from all over the Bubble there were invitations to meet investors. It was impossible to keep up with. But then…” his voice dropped lower like someone else was listening to the conversation.

Lee found it a little theatrical, considering they were rigged for low-power.

“There were things I started noticing. Datapads with my research went missing. My assistant—my Azera… There were strange log entries in my research, she noticed. Spying-ware. Some sort of corporate espionage to try to steal my work, we both suspected.” He swallowed hard. “Is there something to drink?”

Lee watched Xohn’s lips purse in an attempt to hold his emotions in check.

“Oh, of course,” Jackson hopped up from his relaxed pose against the wall and went to a compartment underneath their legs to pull some water pouches. He pulled a straw out of one and tossed it over to Vin Xohn. He tossed the other to Lee and drew the straw on the remaining for himself.

After some sips Xohn continued. “We had precautions to take. New security protocols were installed. But everywhere there were people following us! Still, my work was all I focused on. The final tests of the prototype finished and my Azera… she confronted… In the lab, there was someone she fought off.”

“Did she win?” Jackson asked, drawn into the story.

“Whoever it was got hurt enough to run off. That was when we made decision to disappear. A new place to finish my work, that’s what we needed to find. The plan was Shinrarta Dehzra, a safe, very public place for her to be taking the prototype. I booked a tour to make it look like I took a vacation. Very nice that trip—much better than the trip out here.”

Lee tilted his head with a quizzical look.

“On the last trip, the cabin I shared was with a big fat…” Xohn spread his arms into a wide round shape, but stopped when he saw their reactions.

“Anyways, when she made it she was supposed to send me a message. With a special encoding she rigged it to make sure it would be secure. Then when the message was received, I was going to take a long route to meet her. But the message never came. For a long time now, I just stayed low.” Vin Xohn took a breath. His facial expression betrayed the sadness he felt.

“And you never heard from her?” Lee asked.

“About one and half years ago, I risked going back for getting my datapad. But with the fear of a tracking backdoor, I didn’t dare use it. Then the, how you say it? The curiosity is be killing me. I risked it and there was a message from her. A couple of days after she left, she sent it, but I was never receiving it. That’s when I went looking for her.”

“And that brought you out here.” Lee said, completing his own idea of what happened. “What did it say? The message?”

“Here, I can play it for you.” He pulled a datapad out.

“That’s not your bugged datapad is it?” Jackson threw his hands in the air and gave a wide-eyed look.

“No, no… this is new. It’s only message data I transferred, no software.” Xohn tapped away at the datapad to recall the message. It began playing with static, then pops and clicks…

“…afraid I’m n…n…not…make it babe…so…sorry…quadraaa…cap… ship called Vilant tracked mm…me…off course…to hide, but they found me…ring of…th…th…planet of…list…don’t see…can’t…see you…th…th…the other side…it’s been f…f…fun…love you, Vin…”

The message ended, and the three were silent for a few moments. Lee tried to pick it apart to understand it.

“It sounds like signal jamming.” Jackson stated the obvious, then started fidgeting, clicking a magboot on and off the deck plating.

Xohn nodded.

Lee noted Jackson shifted his body against the wall like he was struggling to find a comfortable position. Looking back to Xohn, Lee asked, “So what makes you think it’s from this system?”

“I don’t. The cruise ship to Shinrarta Dehzra I booked was how I was following her. Over the last year and a half I traced her message origin. Somewhere in the Hyades Open Cluster, I am thinking. From there handful of possible systems were narrowed down. At HIP 22607, I am hiring a very much odd pilot to take me to those systems. But, before that he had a delivery to make at that outpost and there he left me. Something about ‘secret special meat’ that he was selling.”

“Unholy biowaste, You met Meat Man?” Lee laughed.

Jackson’s eyes stopped darting around, and his face turned to confusion. “Meat man?”

Lee was still laughing. “Yeah! The guy’s on a crusade to get people to eat synthetic meat. He tries to smuggle it as real animal meat.” Lee said through his laugh. Xohn even broke out of his sadness and was smiling. Jackson joined in with mild chuckling like he knew what Lee was talking about.

“He’s the worst smuggler!” Lee continued laughing. “Everyone in the region knows about Meat Man, especially in Glist!” A connection snapped into focus in his mind… “Glist! It’s Glist!” Lee broke out of his laughter. “The message! It said ‘planet of…’ then broke up. You can make out ‘list’, but if you listen close you can hear it’s a clipped word, cut off at the beginning. It’s not ‘list’, it’s Glist! It happened in this system!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Vin Xohn looked stunned. Jackson’s expression turned more unsettled.

“That means, the prototype is somewhere here! I have to find it!” Xohn said, his eyes widening.

Lee turned to Xohn while keeping hold of the side console in the Para Bellum’s flight deck alcove. “You said she was supposed to send you an encoded message.”

“Yes, at Shinrarta Dezhra, when she made it.”

“What if she sent it with this message?” Lee gestured at the datapad.

“How could that be?” Xohn replied with skepticism.

“If you listen to the static at the beginning, it’s not normal white-noise static. It sounds more garbled. Play it again—just the beginning.”

He tapped on the datapad, and the audio began again with the garbled static noise.

“Jamming interference, right?” Xohn asked.

“I don’t think so. Jackson, can I use your ship’s terminal?” Lee asked him. He looked lost in thought. “Jackson?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Go ahead,” he said with a vague gesture.

Lee walked over to the terminal. “Can you give me access?”

“Yeah, right. Of course.” Jackson walked over and tapped at the terminal to unlock it.

Lee worked on interfacing his datapad with the terminal. “Okay, send me the audio.”

Xohn made a swipe gesture from his datapad in the direction of Lee’s. After the transfer was finished, Lee got to work.

“There’s two types of jamming: broad spectrum noise or tuned signal suppression. Spectrum noise would corrupt the signal to the point you can’t make anything out. That takes an enormous amount of power. I’m guessing signal suppression here since some of it got through. It means they had to lock on to the signal to negate the carrier wave. If she was smart enough to do the message encoding, it would be at the beginning of the message, when it had the most chance to get through.”

He began running some custom analysis programs. It had been a long time since he’d done any audio processing—not since his street days as an orphan. His datapad had some handy pattern matching algorithms that he thought might work. He trimmed the garbled static and fed it into the algorithm.

“Yeah, there’s definitely something here.” Lee said, feeling triumphant. After several analysis iterations, he found it. The garbled noise was a pattern of pulses at amplitudes that corresponded to the number values of text standard codes. “I found it! There’s a message encoded over the static.”

“What’s it say?” Xohn’s excited voice came from over his right shoulder.

“Give me a few to decode it,” Lee said, working his fingers faster over the projected keys.

“Okay, here we are.” He pulled up the message and Xohn leaned in. Jackson continued to stare off in his own world. The terminal displayed the message:

Vin, this is a prewritten message. I’m in trouble. I can’t make the rendezvous. I’ll always love you. See you on the other side. - - - Gliese 170.1 6 A-ring

“Looks like she appended her location to the end of the message. She must have added it right before she sent the message—clever.” Lee looked at Xohn, who had tears stuck to the corners of his eyes—eyes filled with pain. The zero-G environment caused his tears to form beads. “Oh man. I’m– I’m sorry.”

Xohn could only give a stiff nod.

Lee turned around to Jackson. His eyes were wide, but still somewhat distant. He looked a little pale too. “Hey, what’s going on with you, pal?”

Jackson shook his head like he was shaking out of a trance or something. “I’m– I’m okay.” He said still holding an uncertain look. “I’m just– I’m thinking how crazy it is she made it to the rings we’re floating in right now.”

“That’s what the message says. Sixth planet, A-ring.” He turned back toward Xohn, “Now wait just a light-second. This was– Xohn, when did she send this message?”

Xohn wiped tears from his eyes and sniffled a bit. “Uhm, A few years ago, in ’02.”

“What was the exact date?!” Lee had a feeling he couldn’t shake.

“January 15th, 3302. Why?”

“You said she was a pilot. Right?”

“Yea…yes. Contract work for the most part.”

“What ship? What kind did she fly?” It was beginning to line up in Lee’s mind.

“A Cobra. A Mark IV if I recall correctly. Why?” Xohn asked, his face now full of curiosity.

Lee’s memory took him back again—tethered outside the Nightcrawler. Vic was inside the ship trying to maneuver. Streaks of white missile trails covered his visor. Something caught his attention in the corner of his vision, and he turned his head. The delta shape. Definitely larger than a Sidewinder. He could see it with more clarity than ever before—a red Cobra with the modern styling of the Mark IV. Everything blew up around him—massive hunks of asteroids smashing into others in a runaway process of impacts. The haze of dust and debris grew thicker. He wanted to escape the memory here and now, but he couldn’t shake out of it.

The tether jerked him, ripping him from his handholds. A giant fragment slammed into the asteroid above them. Bullet-like projectiles shot out from the impact. The shields of the Nightcrawler took a beating. More secondary collisions surrounded them. A cascade of debris bombarding the shields. The shields failed.

He was unprotected. His adrenaline pumped, heightening every sense.He pulled himself to the hull and gripped back onto the handholds facing towards the bow.

Then it happened.

A silent hunk of rock, five times larger than the Nightcrawler, came from overhead and slammed into an asteroid ahead of their flight path. Uncountable projectiles shot out of the nearby collision.

He heard a crackle in his comms. Then Vic’s voice broke through the static, “Lee…it’s bad…always proud…resist…others…get ahead…love you…son…”

With no shields remaining, the Nightcrawler took the onslaught full on. The brunt of the damage was from above at the front of the ship. He felt a shudder through the handholds. It was something explosive. His heart skipped a beat, and there was a pressure in his throat. Over the edge of the hull, Lee saw a cloud of diamond-like glints ahead of the ship.

It was a moment frozen in time, forever burned into his mind. In the moment, his mind’s eye could see everything…

The Cobra banked evasively in the distance.

Asteroids collided all around them.

Ice and rock sprayed in every direction.

They were trapped in a chain reaction of destruction.

“No!” Lee whimpered in desperation. He pulled tighter on the grips hoping to avoid the deadly debris.

Time returned to normal.

The cloud of sparkling glints flew up the sides of the ship’s hull. Sharp transparent fragments from the canopy flew overhead. The Nightcrawler continued it’s heading, perpendicular to the plane of the rings.

“Vic!” Lee heard himself shout. “Vic! Come in old man! Vic!” He began to climb forward across the hull to the canopy. The Nightcrawler emerged from the cloud of debris.

“Vic!” He continued to shout into the comms.

Nothing.

He fought his own mind, unable to bear reliving what came next. The memory released him—reality rushed back.

The Cobra!

Lee turned to Xohn. “I saw her– the Cobra. I was there. It was red, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said in a soft, melancholy voice.

“So she was here. She must not have made it.”

“We already know that.” Xohn replied with an edge to his voice.

“Hey, look, I lost someone there too. I mean me and my– my friend, Vic. We were there mining. This squadron of ships showed up and fired a bunch of seismic charge missiles into the area we were in. They blew up the asteroids while we were in there. I remember I saw her Cobra just a few klicks out from us.”

“Flush her out…” Jackson said with a distant, hollow look.

“What?” Xohn and Lee turned back to look at Jackson.

“The tactic they used to get her out of the rings so they could capture her. I mean, that’s what it sounds like.” There was something behind the way Jackson said it—a knowing sort of way.

“Right…” Lee turned back to Xohn. “So your prototype was likely destroyed. I barely survived it, I can’t imagine both ships got that lucky.”

Xohn frowned while he considered it. “It’s the proof I need that it won’t fall into wrong hands. And for closure I need to know where she rests. This is not what either of you planned, I know. But I must try. Can you– will you help me find her? Or– or what’s left of her ship?”

Lee leaned back against the wall and rubbed at the stubble along his jawline while thinking it through. Doing favors for people was not his style, especially not with tagalongs. Up to this point he had been anxious to get rid of them, not work with them. Still, the mere possibility of finding anything new about what happened nagged at him. It might be his only chance to give him and his old friend some peace. He also admitted, at least to himself, that he might need their help.

“After three years, the rings have completely stabilized again. There’s going to be almost no evidence anything ever happened there. I’m not promising anything, but I think I can get us pretty close. Vic and I mapped that area out. At this point I may be the only one who can find it anymore,” Lee said.

“And you Mister Jackson?” Xohn asked.

“Commander Dekker,” he corrected. “Sure, why not. I can run escort for you. I mean, they’re after me now too, anyways.”

“Thank you. Thank you, both,” Xohn gave a grateful bow of his head.

“So, what’s the plan?” Jackson asked and walked down to stand beside his flight chair. Xohn looked over to Lee.

“We’re going to need to wake back into system cruise to find the right area of the rings.”

Xohn looked concerned. “But does that mean they will be able to find us? The ships that were following?”

“They could,” Lee acknowledged. “But, they dropped into the rings after we arrived. It’s probably safe to assume they’re looking for us here. We just wake out, pull a large loop, then circle back to drop in the vicinity of where it all went down. Short and sweet. No longer than we’ll be cruising, we’ll disappear again before they go looking for us in system.”

“Eh, alright, let’s have a go at it,” Jackson shrugged as if the plan barely lived up to his standards. He sat down in his flight chair and began to strap in, tapping controls in the process to bring the Para Bellum back to full power.

“You have a better idea?” Lee said, trying to keep his patience.

“Oh, I had one, but yours will probably work, and if they do find us, I get more combat rank.”

“Fine. Xohn and I will head back to the Nightcrawler. Xohn, you can help run scanners once we drop into the right area.”

“Luhttoo honah! You won’t regret it. For you I won’t be in the way. For you I’ll make it worth your while.”

All Lee really heard was ‘regret it’ and thought, yup, I probably will.

***

On the bridge of the Decimator, Reeves was burning with anger. It was intolerable for her to get so close to finding this guy only for him to slip away twice. This so-called ‘Resistance’ was now officially on her hate list. “Anything?” She asked in a grumpy mood.

“Nothing, sir,” Sloane reported.

“Not good enough people!” Her husky voice shouted back enough for it to echoe about the flight deck. Huxley stood in stunned silence by his console. The pilot, Asher, kept her head down.

Reeves heard Sloane mutter under his breath, “We just started scanning.”

“I want them found and I want them found now. No excuses.”

“Sir, the Scorpio finished its sweep of grid one. There’s no sign of anything.” Huxley reported.

“Thank you, Mr. Huxley. Keep at it.” She paced around, more anxious and irate. This time, not for appearances’ sake. “I need some coffee. Asher, you have the conn, I’ll be in my quarters.”

She walked out of the bridge slamming her magboots all the way through the corridors. Various other crew members steered clear of her warpath stomping. She put her thumb on the button to open the door to her quarters and almost walked into the door when it didn’t open immediately. She slammed her palm onto the door panel, the force of which knocked her backward off balance. After she recovered, she carefully placed her thumb on the access panel, and the door gave way.

After walking in, she went to the coffee dispenser, switched it on, and waited.

She was seething. She found herself back in the position she hated the most: knowing what needed to be done, in no position to do anything about it. It was just like the day she lost her family. Helpless to do anything at the moment. Just sitting—waiting for it to be over.

She heard their screams in her ears again. The daydream pulled her back to the nightmare, and she was a young girl again, hiding in the locker. The look on her father’s face was forever frozen in that look of panic, terror, and hopelessness. Her family ran with the other colonists to find a shelter to hide in. The raid came out of nowhere. There was no warning. No alarms. None of the military defenses mobilized in time.

Everyone ran.

Her family made it to the locker room of a fitness facility. They had nothing to defend themselves with. Before she could argue, her father pushed her into a locker and secured it from the outside. She banged on the door to get out, but her father shushed her with a deadly seriousness she heard on rare occasions.

She looked out through ventilation slits, watching her father trying to get her little brother into the locker next to her. Before he could get the door closed, there was a blood-curdling scream from behind a row of lockers at the entrance to the room. She put her hand to her mouth to hold back any sounds that might escape her mouth.

Then she saw it—the figure. A yellow-brown creature covered with a crustacean-like exoskeletal armor entered the room. She saw her mother recoil and stumbled back into the center of the locker room. Her mother stood defensively in front of her twin sisters, huddled on the floor crying. The armored creature seemed to slide across the floor on its six or so plated lower limbs. Then a second creature entered the room behind it. The new arrival snatched her mother up and held her a full meter off the floor. Its claw-like fingers dug at her arms. Her mother screamed again, and blood flowed.

Her father spun around in front of the half-open door of the locker with her brother. When the second creature picked up her mother, her father hesitated at first, then lunged. The first creature raised one of its limbs from the floor and drove it with such force it went straight through her father’s skull. The limb burst out of his neck, pushing his trachea out, then continued through into his torso. Her father’s body was eviscerated into an unrecognizable pile of bloody flesh.

Unstoppable tears welled up in her eyes, sparing her from seeing the rest of her family torn apart. By the end of it, scattered limbs and body parts lay all over the room. Blood continued to flow into the locker room drains. The creatures left the room in no particular hurry, as if on a casual stroll.

She waited inside that locker for what seemed an eternity. She slammed her hand against it…

Back in reality, Reeves swung backward, tethered by her magboots in zero-G. She actually hit the wall in her quarters.

The memory made her die inside all over again. But, she wouldn’t cry; instead, she focused on the anger and hatred she had for the Thargoids.

She walked to the foreword windows to look out at the stars. This engineer—they had to find him and force him to make his invention work. And then she could wipe the Thargoids out. That was her personal mission. The mission she would see through at any cost. At any cost, she told herself. She’d go through any Resistance that stood in her way.

She grabbed the coffee from the dispenser and took a sip. If they couldn’t find them in these blasted rings, she’d need a backup plan. She had another option, but using it would mean admitting failure at some level. At any cost, she reminded herself.

The commlink beeped. “Do you have something?”

“Yes, Colonel. The Scythe picked up some signals in grid six-two.”

“Converge on those signals. All ships. I’m on my way.”

She walked with purpose on the trip back up to the bridge. The excitement gave her energy. Best not to show it, though. Appearances, after all. She put her command face back on before stepping through the doorway.

“Sir, we’re in range of the signals. They’re on the sensors now,” Sloane reported.

She crossed the flight deck to look at the sensors. Dancing signals still too distant to resolve into definitive targets bounced about the edge of the display.

Reeves turned to her pilot, “Asher, let’s punch it.”

A smile crept across Asher’s face. “Yes, sir!”

Reeves grabbed the edge of the console to steady herself. There was loud whining build up before the explosive jolt of the engine boost knocked them all backward.

They crossed the distance in no time. The signals settled and turned into white dots on the displays next to an asteroid. The sensors resolved them into fragments of Alexandrite.

“Decoys!” Reeves screamed and smashed her fists on the console in front of her. Time for plan B, she thought to herself. She spun about to her comm officer. “Huxley!” She snapped. “Time for the big guns. Raise the Vilant. We need their long-range sensors. Now!”

***

“There!” Lee shouted. “Follow us in.”

“Right behind you,” Jackson’s voice came back over the comms.

Their two ships stayed close in the low supercruise velocity enforced by the nearby gas giant’s enormous gravity-well. Their loop maneuver almost completed, the edge of the planetary rings descended into view in front of them.

“Hey Xohn, see that hotspot on the right there?” The HUD projected a yellowish-orange spot onto the ring surface.

“Yes, I see it.”

“We need to keep it on to our starboard at a distance of twenty-five megameters. Then we can find the right ring band. I think it’s about ten to fifteen in.”

“And you remember it?”

“Ehh, roughly, yeah.”

“Roughly?”

“I’ll know it when I see it! Marking asteroids is an art form. If you do it right, things look and feel right. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“That sounds of biowaste.”

Lee laughed. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you anywhere close to cursing. You’re always so proper.”

“You are kidding me? This trip has me cursing more than ever in my life!”

“I have a feeling this trip is just getting started. Almost there now.”

As they closed in, the individual bands of the ring became discernible.

“Twenty-five megameters and…” They were close enough that Lee made out the subtle pattern shift in the rocks. At this distance, it was the only evidence left of what happened. “There it is! Alright Jackson, lock on to my signal.”

“I’ve been locked, pal.”

Lee shook off the snark. Instead he focused on counting down the distance, throttling back for more control. There was a knack to being able to drop from frameshift cruising into real-space at the right place and angle. Vic gave him tireless drills on it to make sure he learned to pull it off.

Lee disengaged the frame shift drive. His weight shifted forward in the deceleration as their frame folding field dissipated.

Countless powdery-grey tumbling boulder fragments surrounded them, blanketed by a thick haze. They weren’t the typical potato shapes from the other segment of the ring. The asteroids here were deeply fractured. There were whole chunks that looked missing—as if blasted out.

”Yeah,” Lee looked around. “This is the right place.” He said in a quiet, solemn respect. But how do we find any sign of a destroyed Cobra? He thought to himself.

“Vack!” Xohn cursed from below. “What happened here?” He asked in awe.

“They blew everything up. You can see the missing chunks, not just craters.”

The commlink stayed silent, but the Para Bellum flew nearby. They tracked together through the asteroid field for awhile.

Lee switched on the Pulse Wave Scanner and sent out some test pulses. There were no tell-tale ‘glows’ on the HUD.

“Xohn, I don’t have any ideas about how we’re gonna find evidence of your girl’s ship here.”

“That is the Pulse Wave Analyzer, yeah?”

“That’s right. It looks for compositional anomalies in asteroids.”

“Right, that is perfect. The analyzer can be modified to pick up the high density composites used in the hull. If the ship or any fragments of it are around, it will pick them up. The analyzer must be recalibrated to scan for the wave signal dampening caused by the EM absorption properties in the composites.”

“Oh no, I’m not about to let you mess with the Nightcrawler.”

“So we are to be stumbling around until we get lucky?” Xohn said, his voice dubious.

“Well, I have no idea how to do anything like that.”

He heard a sigh from below. “You have tools?”

“Sure. In the back, by the airlock, but–“

“I can handle it.”

He relented, “Eh, I guess I haven’t really used it in forever anyways. Look in the overhead compartments.” He could hear his companion stirring in the deck below. “Still, You better know what you’re doing. Don’t screw up my scanner!”

Lee switched on the commlink. “Hey Jackson, hang tight for a bit. Xohn is messing with the sensors over here. He’s gonna try to set them up to detect hull composites.”

“Oh yeah, that‘s a good idea. He should make sure its precise enough at a high-band frequency—up to like eighteen gigahertz or so.”

Lee got the distinct impression Jackson was full of biowaste. “You’ve got mining expertise too?”

“I just know a little bit about a bunch of random stuff.”

“Right.”

“I’ll be patrolling. I’ll let you know if there are any guests that need scared away.”

“Right. Thanks,” Lee said, trying to keep the irritation out of his tone.

“Sure pal. Just remember the bonus when payday comes.”

Lee closed the commlink scoffing at the ‘payday’ comment. Fat chance I’m paying that arrogant little chyt. I just want to know who killed Vic.

He brought the Nightcrawler to a stop, holding station between the asteroids, to wait for Xohn’s modifications. The scene outside the canopy made him uneasy. It was eerie to be back where he died, in the very same seat even. He really missed that old man.

The ship creaked around him. “Yeah, girl. I know. I feel it too.”

“Payday, boy!” He heard Vic’s voice in his head from their first delivery together. “This is what it looks like to earn an honest living. Oh, sure—it probably looks quiet and boring to you. But it has a special charm all its own. There’s a– a certain thrill to scoring the best profit on a haul. You’ll see.”

“You know, the old man would have been here in a heartbeat to clean up after all this happened. He always had a nose for a good opportunity.” The Nightcrawler kept quiet aside from normal indicator notes. It didn’t matter, Lee fell into habit, talking to his ship like a familiar companion.

“I could barely break a couple hundred credits a day datapad-skimming back on Cooper City. The best I got was maybe a couple thousand doing pranks for street gangs. Once, I hacked an apartment building’s environmental controls. Filled the whole building with biowaste.”

“The gangs loved that one.” He chuckled at the memory leaving a wistful smile on his face.

“That first haul with Vic though—over a million credits. I mean, that guy was my hero. You know? He took care of me more than my own mother. Did I ever tell you about her?”

The Nightcrawler responded with a chirp, catching him by surprise. Lee sat forward in his seat. A glance at the systems panel showed the Pulse Wave Analyzer going offline. He eased back and went back to his reminiscing out loud.

“Well, let’s just say she was a piece of work. I–”, he stopped to think back to her. “I barely remember how beautiful and nice she used to be. She struggled on her own—my father was gone before I was even born. No idea where in the galaxy he is.”

“It all went screb-side-up when that guy came around. What was his name? I can’t remember. I can remember his long face and ponytail—oh, and all the pockmarks. That guy was nasty. He was some super rich bloke, I guess; bought her fancy clothes, took her to lots of nice dinners, and jewelry… I remember this one color-shifting pendant he gave her. It was mesmerizing, really. And the parties–“ He shifted uncomfortably.

“Every night they’d be out at some party, and I was left at the apartment by myself. Just a kid! He got her hooked on drugs and she was gone all the time until she just didn’t come back–”

The intercom startled him out of his reverie, and Vin Xohn’s voice echoed in the cockpit, “Okay, Lee, it’s ready!”

“Great, uh, anything special I need to do?”

“No. It works the same. It is set up for the hull composite signals. I am heading back up.”

“Okay then. Let’s see what we see.” Lee switched power back to the Pulse Wave Analyzer, and it booted back up. He stared at the rocks in the haze beyond the canopy and pulled the trigger to send a pulse. Most of the boulders showed nothing but weak signals. Lee switched on the narrow-band commlink. “Hey Jackson, we’ve got the scanner online. I’m going to try a pass through the field.”

“I’ll circle back toward you now.”

Lee eased the throttle forward and began triggering wave after wave. He could hear his ship companion coming through the lower deck and getting settled in his seat. “Nothing so far. Are you sure this is working?”

“Absolutely. I checked and re-checked.”

“It just seems like there’s nothing—no hotspots whatsoever.”

“It is working, it has to be wide spectrum, so it is just short range. We are not close enough yet.”

“Alright, I’ll keep heading along this ring band.” Lee hit the engine boost to cover more distance and continued to send out the pulses. The haze thickened, and there were smaller chunks locked into the orbit of the larger ones.

A few kilometers off their port side, a sliver of a faint glow appeared in the distance. Lee banked the Nightcrawler to investigate. With another pulse, the golden highlight became brighter.

“Think we got something, Xohn?”

“Yeah, that looks promising!” His energetic voice replied.

The haze became thicker still—another pulse. The signal strengthened, turning from golden to a fire red, still partially blocked by another rock in front of it. The Nightcrawler moved into position, and the full rock came into view. It was a mountain-sized asteroid. Lee switched on the forward lights. Stark shadows appeared in the cone of light emanating from the ship. The pitted rock, scarred with deep crags, was otherwise unremarkable.

“This has to be the right one,” Xohn remarked.

Lee used the lateral thrusters to slide the ship around it. The Nightcrawler made a graceful arc, its light beams moving across the rocky surface. The lights revealed new features as they tracked the surface—more craggy valleys deeper, and then… an enormous gash.

“Well now, that’s something you don’t see everyday,” Lee commented. With the dorsal thrusters he pushed the ship down to follow the gash.

The light traced along the gash, and it opened to a deep crevice that seemed to go inside the asteroid.

Then they saw it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Buried deep into a crevice in the asteroid, they found a shipwreck. Lee saw the nose embedded into the rock, leaving only the aft visible. The smashed left main engine looked damaged beyond repair. The rear access door was gone, a result of a blow out from the hard impact.

Wedged even as it was, the angles of the hull still retained the signature delta of a Cobra. The Nightcrawler’s lights revealed the deep crimson color on the smashed underside of the hull.

The damage wasn’t from missiles, that much was clear—there weren’t enough sharp edges in the hull composites. The buckled hull plates, bent and beaten, were evidence of something massive that smashed into the ship below the left rear edge.

Lee made constant thrust adjustments to keep up with the momentum of the asteroid. It was spinning much faster than any of the other rocks nearby. Maybe residual inertia from the impact of the ship years ago?

“A’la!” Xohn exclaimed from behind. “That is the Phoenix!” He gripped onto the top rung of the ladder behind Lee’s flight chair.

Lee commented back to his companion, “Vic and I came across a few shipwrecks before, but I’ve never seen one in an asteroid. It looks like a really bad hit that took out her engines. She lost all control and the Phoenix plowed into the rock.”

Jackson’s voice came through the open commlink with a sarcastic exclamation, “Why in the seven hells would you park a ship like that in an asteroid?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You need to stow that chyt right now,” Lee was appalled.

“Such a rude and horrible person you are, Mister Jackson.” Xohn snapped.

The commlink was silent for a few beats before Jackson stammered. “I mean, just that, well, I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t have done that.”

It confirmed for Lee how little Jackson thought about others. Lee felt the opposite. He thought about others often, which is why he generally tried to avoid them.

The question now was how were they going to get to Xohn’s experimental module. A sudden, terrible realization dawned on Lee. His stomach lurched and his heart began to race. “So, correct me if I’m wrong, but unless someone’s been here before us, the prototype is still in there somewhere?”

“Yes, it should still be there. It’s installed mid-ship in module three-two.”

“So someone has to go over there and see if it survived.”

“Right.”

“Right.” Lee said deadpan.

An awkward silence that hung in the cabin

Lee broke the silence. “Right, so that means someone has to do a spacewalk.”

“No way! Spacewalk? No. Not me,” Xohn protested.

“What?” Lee half chuckled as he spoke, “I watched you float out there without a spacesuit. You did just fine!”

A frown deepened on Xohn’s face, “All I could do was float! That’s not a real ‘spacewalk.’”

Lee shrugged, “That’s kinda the gist of it.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

Lee was beginning to fill with dread. “Jackson, how are you with spacewalks?”

“I think you need a helmet and a spacesuit for that, right?”

“Oh come on man, I thought you knew everything!”

“I know a little bit about a lot of different things. That’s the little bit I know about spacewalks. I’ve done it maybe a couple of times, but there’s no way I can board a shipwreck on an asteroid spinning that crazy fast. Come on Rocky, isn’t this right up your alley!”

“No, I just can’t. I can, but I won’t.”

“Must have had a bad experience?”

“You could say that. From this– This whole place. I was here when all this went down. I was younger so I was always the space monkey. We were out here mining and were having a bunch of problems trying to find good rocks. I went out to tighten down the pulse wave scanner’s emitter array. While I’m out there, crawling across the hull, everything starts blowing up around us.”

“I guess that probably would do it. Still, it means you’re the most experienced.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Lee sighed.

Spacewalk to a wildly spinning asteroid into a sharp crevice, onto a damaged ship. What could possibly go wrong? He mused. On the other hand, there could be new evidence. Maybe even enough to get investigators to reopen Vic’s case.

It was a tempting thought, but worth risking his life over? The countless times Vic bailed him out, helped him, taught him, listened to him flashed through his mind. Fighting everything screaming in him not to do it, he relented.

“Fine. I’ll do it.” Lee moved the Nightcrawler back from the spinning asteroid and parked it a ways back. “I don’t suppose you’ve done any amount of piloting, have you Xohn?”

Xohn shrugged and shook his head.

“Right.” He grimaced. “Alright Jackson, looks like I’m going to need to make the jump from your ship.”

“Alright, just tell me what you need me to do.”

Lee sighed. “Let me grab my walk harness and some tools. Pull around behind the Nightcrawler and extend your docking bridge.” Lee moved past Vin Xohn and headed for the door into the rest of the ship. Before exiting, he turned back to Xohn. “Stay put. Go through the basic pilot guide on the right panel. I’ll keep the commlink open. If something goes south, you need to at least know the basics.”

“Okay,” Xohn nodded in response.

Lee spent the trip from the flight deck to the aft airlock with a knot in his stomach. It was the riskiest spacewalk imaginable, even with his zero-G harness. There were at least two ship-to-ship handoffs, and a distance jump onto a fast-spinning target. Things could go horribly wrong. Beyond that, he had no idea what he’d find aboard the wrecked vessel.

When he arrived at the airlock door, he pulled his gear and tools from an overhead compartment. He swung the EVA harness over his flight suit in practiced motion as he’d done hundreds of times before doing walks for Vic. It gave him hours of breathable air and a priceless mag-tether system. While entering the airlock, he loaded a plasma torch and recoil-less impact driver into the slots of the harness.

Palpable fear set in. It had been years since his last spacewalk with Vic. He tried his best not to hurl in his suit and stay focused on the next step of procedures. Pushing beyond his nerves, he tapped the airlock panel to close the door behind him. With a deep breath, he tapped the button on his suit collar to deploy his helmet, then bled the atmosphere from the airlock.

“Jackson, confirm when you’re in position,” he said over his suit comms.

“I’m here… I’m here. Deploying the bridge.”

“Bring it in close enough for docking but don’t start the docking protocol. I’ll let you know when I’m secured.”

“This sounds crazy. I mean, you’re going to hop into the bridge and I’m supposed to, what? Swing you over?”

“No, I’m gonna crawl to the nose of your ship and fire my tether to reel myself over. You got a better plan, Mister Spacewalk Expert?”

“I just don’t want to be dumb about it, but if you’re sure, then sure, I’ll do it.”

After a couple of moments, Lee felt some shaking in the airlock and heard metal-on-metal through the hull. His pulse quickened. This was not what he wanted to be doing today.

“Bridge is in place,” Jackson reported.

The dread inside hollowed him out. Summoning all the strength he could, he willed himself to push past it. He hit the large egress button for the outer airlock door.

Amber warning lights spun for a few seconds before the door split open. The ship-to-ship bridge frame stretched before him, imperfectly aligned. It hung in space a full step away from the Nightcrawler. Immense nothingness loomed beyond it.

Everything seemed to spin, his head dizzy from being sick with fear. His breathing was short and quick.

“What’s going on? Are we still doing this?” Jackson asked.

Almost holding his breath, Lee moved to the airlock opening and grabbed the handholds on either side of the door. Once he felt secure enough, he took the safety tether from his harness and stretched it to magnetically bolt onto the frame of the docking bridge.

“Yes. Transferring now.”

Lee moved his hands into position to be ready to catch the edge of the docking bridge. With a deep breath, he slid a foot just over the open edge. It took him a moment to gather his courage. He leaned out of the ship and pushed off the Nightcrawler into the docking bridge. Floating along the bridge his left hand caught the railing. He grabbed the bar and pulled himself to the Para Bellum’s outer airlock door. Blood pulsed in his ears. At the airlock, he flipped himself around and locked his magboots to the door.

“Made it. So far, so good.”

He turned to face back towards the Nightcrawler and bolted a second tether on his opposite side. “Alright Jackson, I’m secure. Retract the bridge and I’ll climb around front.”

“Copy that, recalling the bridge.”

The bridge folded itself like an accordion back into the frame around the outer airlock. When the initial tether was close enough, Lee detached the magnetic bolt and reeled it back into his harness.

“Alright, I’m making my way forward now. Standby.” He tried to keep his eyes locked on the hull, but like a magboot to the deck, he couldn’t resist stealing a glance out into the blackness.

Ah chyt, shouldn’t have done that.

His head spun. He lost himself in the directionless haze surrounded by lumbering mountains. His mind betrayed him, telling him he’d lost control; he flailed his arms for a moment then clenched his eyes and fists to regain his senses.

The adrenaline coursed through his veins and beads of sweat tickled. He bent down to grab the handholds at the bottom of the airlock door to pull himself underneath. It took several agonizing minutes to cover the distance to the bow of the ship. In position, he mag-locked his tether to the Para Bellum hull to prepare for the ride.

“Okay, Jackson,” he said taking a breath. “I’m in position and locked in. Let’s go.”

The main engines of the Para Bellum blazed in silence. During the maneuver, the maglocks kept him anchored like a utility module bolted to the ship. The spin of the planet and rings about him brought back his nausea.

Jackson came through his helmet comms, “Okay we’re just in front of the rock. What’s next?” The outpost-sized boulder lumbered before him.

“Alright, here’s the hard part. That rock has a multi-axis spin. You need to point the nose ahead of the wreck and keep the ship in a rough position around twenty-five meters. If you slip out of position more than fifty meters, I won’t make it.”

Even as he said it, his stomach jumped again. The air in his suit suddenly smelled and tasted stale. The beads of cold sweat bounced about his forehead—an especially cruel torture. He hated spacewalks.

“Alright, no problem. I got this. Hang on,” Jackson replied.

Lee watched the asteroid’s sharp outcrops as they slid by in the Para Bellum’s lights during the ship’s orbital movement. Maneuvering thrusters fired in short bursts all over the ship. Jackson struggled to keep the ship lined up.

The ship banked counterclockwise and pushed down, but the nose drifted from their target. Jackson caught it, but overcorrected. Spinning back clockwise with slight left yaw, he lined the nose up again, but again drifted too far as the rock spun away.

The HUD in Lee’s helmet displayed an aiming reticle for firing his maglock tether. An out-of-range warning blinked at him. Lee felt a bit smug at this overconfident combat jockey that couldn’t handle the real piloting miners did every day.

“Can I give you a little advice–”

Jackson cut him off, “No! I got it!”

“Okay, back off and watch the spin for a bit.”

“I got it, just gimme a minute.”

“Get a feel for its movement before you charge in. Stop trying to chase the motion.” Lee tried to be helpful. He remembered a similar lesson from Vic back in the day. It was another reminder of how much the old man gave him.

The wreck again drifted away from the spin. Jackson kept the Para Bellum stationary until the rock’s rotation brought it back into view. When the crevice crested the horizon, the ship lurched toward it. In short, tight movements, Jackson managed to match the rotational direction and velocity.

The firing control lit up green in Lee’s HUD at thirty-eight meters, but the rotation took the wreckage away faster than Jackson could react. Lee kept the firing reticle ahead of the spin to compensate, but the range grew too fast. Time was running out to make the jump. Still, he hesitated—jumping off a ship without a secure tether was something one simply did not do. It was suicidal. But, he also couldn’t trust Jackson getting any better position. Clearly, he wasn’t the pilot he thought he was.

The range continued to grow.

Forty-six meters…

Forty-seven…

Forty-eight…

Past his fear, he crouched down, magboots locked onto the hull, and worked the controls on his left arm display. The HUD went orange with an out-of-range warning again. Lee used all the force his leg muscles gave him to push off the Para Bellum. With precise timing, he switched his magboots to repulse-mode timed to his legs reaching their full extension. The coordinated movement launched him off the hull toward the edge of the asteroid with tremendous speed.

As he flew, untethered, he cursed at himself. You idiot! You’re a deadman. No one jumps without a secure tether. Pull it together, man, Xohn can just send out a limpet to get you. Yeah, yeah, that’ll work. If he knows how to use the limpets. Vack!

His heart pounded in his ears. He kept watching the crevice below until jagged points of rock that jutted from the edge of it blocked the ship. His target was gone. Then, out of the asteroid’s shadow, a smaller, jagged and deadly looking hunk of rock about five times his size became visible in the distant blue starlight.

There was nothing he could do to stop the collision. His body slammed into the rock. He felt the crunch of knife-like edges of rock smashing like glass, threatening to cut through his suit.

His trajectory and momentum changed from the impact leaving him in a disorienting spin. It took all his will to ignore his stomach.

Adrenaline surged.

Instinct took over.

Reaction replaced conscious choice.

He noted the rhythm of his spin bringing the shipwreck crevice into view.

WIth intense focus, he watched the shipwreck become visible again. The spacewalk harness aligned directly at the wreckage below. On instinct, he fired his maglock tether. It shot like a railgun to its target, connecting with a bit of wreckage near its top edge. After a short delay there was a satisfying tug that Lee felt as the recoil travelled across the tether. He tapped the control to reel himself in. It stopped his spin jerking with an immediate change of direction.

“I’m locked!” He shouted over his comms, breathing heavily. He covered the rest of the distance in seconds. Pulling against the tether he wrapped a leg around it to help align his body for a landing. His magboots connected, and he slammed the heels to lock them to the warped hull plating. “Made it,” he shouted with enthusiastic disbelief and took a moment to catch his breath.

The lights on his walk harness illuminated the cavern while he walked on top of the ship. Reaching to the ridged stone walls above him, he steadied himself. The crash landing cut grooves that looked like great claws had ripped into the asteroid. As he walked along, he turned to see the right wingtip shredded and wedged into the rock. Metal plating at the bow buckled into crumpled ripples where the force of entry pushed it back. His harness beams lit up light shafts of dust in the cavern that fell into the open cockpit of the Cobra. A protruding bulge of rock pressed at the bow—the apparent point of impact that stopped the ship.

Looking through a gaping hole in the canopy, Lee saw glints of light reflected from the thin icy frost covering everything in the cockpit. The console pushed in toward the flight chair, smashed forward and up by the prominent rock outcrop. The entire cockpit looked folded like a book.

Approaching the cockpit revealed a disturbing and grizzly scene—the pilot, or what remained of the pilot. Gloved hands still gripped the flight stick and throttle controls, arms pushed out of their sockets. Harness belts from the flight chair cut deep into the body in an ‘X’ pattern, suggesting an unimaginable, unsurvivable amount of force during impact. The helmet looked like it was freely floating in front of the body, but when Lee got close enough to pull it away to see the pilot’s face, it felt stuck.

Releasing his magboots, he pulled himself into the cockpit to get a better look. The new vantage point revealed the head had detached from the spinal column, flesh ripped apart in icy strands at the back of the neck. Her head angled forward, entombed in the helmet. The exposed neck skin, trachea, and esophagus were frozen alongside various neck musculature remnants around it that held the head in place. Solidified veins and entrails stretched to the detached base of the neck. He felt sick to his stomach again. He really hated spacewalks.

“Hey guys, uh,” he kept his voice soft and solemn. “I made it into the cockpit. The canopy is gone.”

Xohn interrupted him over the open comms, “Azera? She- She is there?” He said with a hint of desperate hope in his voice.

Lee struggled to know how to respond. He decided on the most merciful response he could think to offer. “Her body is here. I’m sorry Vin. It’s bad. You don’t want to see this. No one could have survived.” He tried to be vague to spare Xohn the gory details, hoping he could piece together how serious it was.

There was complete silence on the comms. Lee supposed Xohn was coming to terms with the reality of the news.

Lee climbed through the canopy. The scene was gruesome and disturbing. It reminded him of how he found Vic—the body also mangled beyond recognition. In Vic’s case, there wasn’t anything human enough left to hold onto.

Two horrific deaths, for what? For a piece of technology? What could possibly be that important?

It was senseless to him, but it was more than that. A deep-seated anger grew in him. Someone had to pay for this. It spurred him to continue hunting down those responsible and make them wish they’d never been born.

Somehow he needed to nail the perpetrators to it. He needed evidence. Looking around, he pulled out his datapad and started imaging the scene. The process was simple. With the datapad held out in front of him, he moved it in a sweeping motion. The sensors pulled in light, color, and measured distances along the edges it detected to model it for a three-dimensional holo image. Sweeping over Azera’s remains, he took a mental note not to share the image with Xohn unless he absolutely had to.

The scan finished when it hit him—the black box! It captured all the telemetry and sensor data of the ship. With that, he could reconstruct the entire incident. He used his datapad to locate the black box signature inside a panel at the flight console. With some effort he managed to yank it out, attaching it to his walk-harness in an open tool holster.

“Hey guys, I got the black box to bring back. I’m moving into the ship now. Xohn, I know you’re going through a lot right now, but I’m gonna need you to help me recover your prototype.”

“Yes, of course,” Xohn responded, residual anguish in his voice. “It’s installed in bay six. The monitoring equipment attached means it had to be installed in a larger bay.”

“Got it. I’m heading that way. There’s a lot of damage. It’s gonna slow me down.”

The cockpit door to the rest of the ship was already partially open from the impact. It took a couple of tries to shove one side of the door over enough to squeeze through. The impact at the rear quarter of the vehicle buckled the interior structure as well. Inside, the warped corridor twisted to the other end.

Making it to the module bay, he cranked open the access port by hand. Crawling in, he found a standard, medium-sized bay with a donut-shaped device in the center. Four arced tubes connected heavy-duty cylindrical chambers every ninety degrees along the ring. Two of the chambers on opposite sides had a complex of pipes, wiring, and circuitry on top and underneath them.

It took Lee a couple of hours to unmount and disconnect the device with Xohn’s help. When docked, the other bays would be cleared to allow moving smaller modules through them. Without an outfitting work bay, there was no way to manage it. Instead, Lee floated it into the corridor, tilting it at a forty-five-degree angle to fit through the narrow corridor. It was an effort made more complicated by the contorted twists from the ship’s structural damage. Plus, the device blocked his harness lights from giving him clear visibility. Little by little, he made it into the ramp bay with the device.

It took another hour to manually lower the ramp enough to get the device through. By the end of it, he was exhausted. Lee’s muscles ached, and the sweat in his helmet tickled no matter how much he shook his head. He really hated spacewalks.

Emerging from the ship, he saw the hazy field of boulders.

“Alright fellas, I got it. I’m ready to go. Xohn are you studied up enough that you can you bring the Nightcrawler nearby?”

“I can try. The flight manuals are useful, but the training simulations are the most helpful.”

“Alright, see you soon.”

“On my- Oops. Okay, now on my way.”

Lee couldn’t help but frown. “Try to avoid the rocks. Okay?”

Jackson piped up, “Just remember what Lee said. You don’t want to chase the motion. Watch where it’s heading and park it. Let the rock spin to you.”

It took Vin Xohn a few tries to get the ship into a position ahead of the asteroid’s multi-axis rotation. Lee counted the seconds to time each pass of the Nightcrawler. He used the jump-repulse approach to launch off the Phoenix pushing the device in front of him. They made it far enough away to clear the outcrops on the spinning asteroid.

Floating freely, Lee climbed across the device waiting for the gentle spin to aim his harness at the Nightcrawler, then fired his tether. He left the device floating and reeled the tether to pull himself on board. Within minutes he was situated back into his flight chair. He fired a limpet to collect the device into the cargo hold.

“Okay Xohn. It’s on board and all yours now.”

“Thank you for your help. It means a lot to me. Somehow, I will repay you. If there’s ever anything I can do…” Xohn started for the door off of the flight deck. “I’m going to the cargo hold to check it over.”

“Yeah, sure. Happy to help. You can fix the shield generator while you’re down there. Didn’t have time to finish the install with the quick evac from the station.”

“Okay! That I can do for you my friend,” Xohn said.

Lee winced at the word ‘friend’.

Jackson interjected through the comms. “Hey boys… I’m all the sudden picking up signals. I think someone knows we’re here.”

“No way. Not possible.” Lee was incredulous. He looked at his sensor screen, and sure enough, random signals danced at the edge of sensor range. Xohn stood, waiting for Lee. “Xohn, you might want to hurry with that shield generator. We may need it to buy time until we can disappear again.”

Xohn ran for the rear compartments. Jackson swung the Para Bellum to fly in a parallel formation with the Nightcrawler.

“What’s the play, Lee?”

“We need to find someplace new to hide.”

“Yeah, any ideas where?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Do it fast.”

“Working on it,” Lee said, pulling up the region on the navigation panel. He scanned over the list of nearby systems, looking for some place close, but out of the way.

“We got company!” Jackson shouted excitedly. “We gotta go. We gotta go now!”

“Okay, we need to low-wake out-”

“No, I’m tired of being chased in this system. I’m jumping to the next system over. See you at HIP 20935.”

“Jackson, wait, no low-wake first so they can’t-”

Lee’s HUD showed an alert for Para Bellum’s drive signature spike.

The jumbled signals solidified, still at the edge of sensor range. Curious, Lee targeted the signals. The sensors revealed a Pilot’s Federation transponder code: Vilant SDR-907, a Bowman-class mega-ship. Checking the next target displayed a now-familiar transponder code, the Decimator.

“Xohn, buckle up back there. We gotta go now!”

“Frameshift drive charging.” The Nightcrawler’s COVAS announced. Seconds later, the Nightcrawler tore into hyperspace and vanished.

CHAPTER NINE

Consular Alden Duryss sat in his pristine office, looking out across the cityscape. The pink Sietaen sunlight that streamed through the clouds gave the city a warm glow. He always found the teal hue of the daytime sky on Emen charming. It usually lifted his mood, but not today. Today he felt heavier, despite the half-standard gravity of the planet. He rubbed at his temples to assuage the pounding in his head, but there was no escaping it.

He turned to his desk and tapped a button on the console. A tone chimed with a sharp stab in his ears. A young woman’s voice replied almost immediately, “Yes Consular, what can I do for you?”

“Emilia, my dear, would you bring me some Emelixir? I’ve a headache the size of Mount Aratia and I must be clear of thought for the call.”

“Right away, Consular.” Another short tone signaled the terminated connection. Every sound was an annoyance.

He drummed his fingers along the desk. The Colonel’s inability to deliver the prototype created problems. While the plan could tolerate some delay, the longer they waited, the more it put the entire enterprise at risk. There were an incredible number of moving parts to manage. It was inevitable that someone would notice the longer it went on, and that would undermine everything he’d worked for—everything he’d given up.

His office doors opened to the young, lithe form of his office assistant walking toward his desk. The long walk usually gave him plenty of time to enjoy the side sway of her youthful figure. His headache robbed him of that simple pleasure as well. She came to a stop next to him and held up an injector device. He leaned his head over to expose his neck, and she clicked the top of the injector with her thumb. The jet-injection shot the dose of medicine directly into his bloodstream, bringing near-instant relief.

He took in a deep breath and relaxed. “Ahhh,” he let out a reflexive breath. “Thank you dear. That is sublime. Yes, much better. I think I can actually get some work accomplished. Remind me of my schedule today?”

Emilia nodded and pulled a datapad from her pant-suit pocket. His head now clear, he was able to admire her form as she carried out the task. She tapped about her datapad to pull up his schedule. Her hair was pulled back into an upward twist revealing the smooth skin of her tall neckline. He let the edges of his mouth curl with pleasure. Of course, he couldn’t pursue her. The obligations at hand required focus, but he could still enjoy beauty when the opportunity presented itself.

“You have a call in ten minutes with Senator Madius Draden’s office regarding the funds you pulled from the Find Sylus Draden Campaign. Then you’ll be meeting representatives from the Sironistula Exchange on the trade terms with Sibito Industry for Thermic Alloys. And, this evening you have the Sietaean Gala in Nahavandi City.”

“Mmm, very well. Thank you Emilia. And, have you arranged a companion for me this evening?”

“Uhh, no, sir,” she stammered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize-”

He chuckled softly. “No child, it’s quite all right, though it would make the evening more enjoyable. Perhaps you might join me this evening?”

Emilia put her hand up to her neck, her face frozen in stunned bewilderment. “Consular, I’m not- I don’t have anything to wear for a formal event like that.”

He chuckled lightly, “I assure you, a minor inconvenience, my dear. We have ample budget for these sort of things.” He smiled with quiet confidence. It was a self-assured victory, as though he had the upper hand in a business deal.

She bit at a fingernail with a soft smile. “Alright, sir. If I can find a suitable dress, I’ll join you.”

He knew her fondness for dress shopping would become an advantage someday. “Wonderful! Use the supplemental ‘Rec’ account and buy your heart’s desire. You’re already familiar with the itinerary. Meet me at the docks at nineteen-thirty.”

Emilia nodded, still smiling, before she turned and walked out of the office. She would provide an ideal diversion at the gala—the perfect antidote for the stress he was shouldering.

He turned to his desk console and noted the time. The call with the Find Sylus Draden Campaign was looming. Bemused by the name of the campaign, he half-chuckled to himself. As his father had always told him, “hide in plain sight and they’ll never see you coming.” His father was, insufferably, always correct. It grated on him.

He shook off the feelings of inadequacy. It was no matter—his legacy was now in his own hands. He was determined to show this galaxy he was every bit the statesman of his father before him.

A tone sounded, and the holofac system lit up. The projection of a well-dressed young man in his late twenties appeared in the chamber’s dim light. The translucency of the projection rippled in and out, fading at the edges of the projection cone.

“Consular Duryss, good day to you. I am Minister Kyle from the office of Senator Madius Draden.” The young man’s unmistakable Imperial tone was dripping with the expected faux formality.

“Minister Kyle,” the Consular nodded. “I’m delighted to take your call. How may I be of help to Senator Draden?”

“The Senator wishes to express his sincere gratitude for your government’s support of the Find Sylus Draden Campaign.”

“Why, of course Minister. I can’t imagine the heartache of losing a son.”

“Ehem, yes,” the Minister cleared his throat. “Yes, indeed. The Draden family is quite devastated. Given the generous donations from the Sietaen holdings of Sirius Gov, the Senator has asked to speak to you in person.”

“Minister, I am honored. We only wish that it could have helped more.”

“Of course, as have we all. To express his heartfelt gratitude, the Senator has decided to donate the remaining funds to your anti-Thargoid defense efforts in the Hyades region.”

Alden gave the young man the satisfaction of a surprised expression. “That is very generous, Minister. It is admirable that a family that has felt so deep a loss would be willing to donate such a significant sum to our corner of the galaxy.”

“The Senator has asked to speak to you directly,” the young man reminded him.

“Yes, please. I’m honored to speak with him. I presume it is a formality?” Alden adjusted in his seat, becoming slightly agitated.

“I’m sorry Consular, but I’m not privy to the Senator’s agenda in this matter.”

“Not at all, Minister. I’m sure it will be a useful discourse regardless.”

“To ensure privacy I’m transferring your call to Senator Draden’s encrypted commlink now. Please, standby.”

“Thank you, Minister Kyle. Fortune and favor to you.”

Minister Kyle nodded as his arm reached beyond the edge of the projection. The display flickered then reformed into an image of an ancient-looking man, hunched behind an ornately polished wooden desk. The designs were intricate. Undoubtedly the most exquisite details were lost over the commlink. The gleam from the desk created pinpoints of bright blinding light from the projection. An official seal of the Imperial Senate hung on the wall behind the figure.

“Alden Duryss,” the voice was powerful, regal even, even as advanced age began to dampen it. The lines of elder were worn deep into his fair skin. His wavy silver hair was still full, though wiry. It spread like a mane about his shoulders. He wore a tunic with an intricate collar of geometric designs that stuck up beyond a luxurious suit jacket. As all Imperial fashion did, it gave the man a larger-than-life persona.

“Senator Draden, it’s an incredible honor. I know your schedule must be far more demanding than mine. To what do I owe this auspicious call?”

“I am,” the man paused as a grim look set in his face. “Disappointed.” The ancient-looking man held a withering gaze.

Duryss didn’t miss the Senator’s intentional slight. Omitting his title went against the expected decorum of formal Imperial greetings.

Alden felt anger boiling up from his gut. “It could not be avoided,” he replied, keeping his tone flat, trying to maintain his control.

“This has been an embarrassment from the beginning. The schedule is tenuous at best.” The booming voice echoed in the great chamber of the Consular’s office. It was deep and resonated with decades of oration experience.

“There has been interference. It couldn’t have been predicted.”

A thin bony fist slammed onto the ornate desktop. “Your incompetence jeopardizes the entire project.”

“With all due respect Senator, I am keeping this endeavor alive in spite of these setbacks. We will have the engineer in hand shortly and with the influx of funds, we can wipe out the remaining Resistance cells.”

“I do not share your optimism, Consular. Without this technology, we have no way to move the scale of assets necessary for the operation. We cannot risk them being-”

Alden cut him off, “Senator, my most trusted military commander is hunting down the engineer and his technology as we speak. You have my word, they will be in our possession in short order. The Vilant is aiding the search now. We’ve moved our staff to an in-system facility to expedite production once we have him in custody. The plan will succeed.”

“We shall see Consular. The hunted always has more motivation than the hunter.” There was a warning edge in the Senator’s tone.

“We have the advantage.” Alden replied with his own forceful edge.

“Hmph,” the Senator gave a disgusted grunt. “You wield your advantages with all the grace of a guerantan. It costs a fortune to pay off GalNet reporters to keep your activities off of the wire. Your team’s stunt at the outpost in that insignificant system was clumsy and ill-considered. It has raised suspicions in both the Federation and the Empire. It brings with it ever more scrutiny.”

“It is an unfortunate circumstance, I’ll grant you. We’ve already taken steps to color the attack as quelling a terrorist uprising. The media has turned popular sentiment against these petty resistance groups. We’ve also taken control of the local government in the system. My team is closing in on the ships that we believe the engineer used to escape the outpost. They are now cut off. No one is coming to help them. And, if they jump we can follow them.”

“You’re naivety is appalling. Your advantages blind you. The more cornered your prey, the more desperate and random they react. You have the same brand of idiocy my son was famous for. That the hope of my Imperial legacy falls on you, Consular, terrifies me beyond all reason.”

Alden’s anger burned. “We’re in this together Senator. Our destiny is bound, like it or not.”

“You have two weeks, Consular. Two weeks to deliver the system modules. If you can’t deliver, I will ensure your destiny will be your own destruction and no one will ever remember you.”

“No matter my fate, you’ll always be remembered with the same contempt, Senator,” Alden spat.

“But I will be remembered.” A crooked smile spread across the Senator’s face. He knew he’d won the game of verbal barbs. “Good day, Consular.”

Alden grabbed the model of the planet Emen off of his desk and threw it at the projection, but the holofac faded before the projectile could strike. Owing to the low gravity, it bounced off the marble floors, made it all the way across the room, rebounded from the back wall, and came flying back at him. He didn’t budge or flinch as it came to rest just in front of his desk. He was seething. It took him several minutes to recompose himself.

There was no denying the delays put the entire plan at extreme risk. He began to run through his options. The only recourse was to make his moves earlier.

He tapped his comm system and called up the Decimator.

It took only a moment for the Decimator comms officer to put him in touch with Colonel Reeves.

“You have not delivered the engineer and his technology to me.”

“Consular, we have them cornered, but we’re unable to pinpoint them in the rings. If they jump, we can track them immediately, but they appear to be running dark.”

“I am quite done with excuses, Colonel. The Vilant was dispatched to help you find them. I expected to have Mister Xohn in hand two days ago.” His tone was threatening, but he maintained a calm composure despite the ire that still burned inside him. The Senator had been right—the schedule would not tolerate any more delays.

“Yes, I completely understand sir. We only need to flush them out.”

“The last time you flushed out our target from those very rings, we lost it entirely. That set our timetable back three years. We need that engineer. We cannot afford any more mishaps.”

“I hope I’ve proven I won’t make a mistake like that again. I understand what needs to be done.”

“I don’t think you do. We are out of time. Take whatever measures short of blowing up the system to find him.”

“Yes, Consular.”

“Colonel, let me be painfully clear: either you get this done or you will be done.” He tapped the commlink to disconnect it.

The scenario was grim, and his options were limited. If they were unsuccessful at securing the engineer, it would require a new playbook.

He turned the problem over in his head. The Senator would be shrewd and work to expose him. Any contingency plan would first and foremost need to preserve his position of power and influence as the appointed Sirius Gov Consular of the Hyades region.

An idea began to take shape, and best of all it included entrapping the Senator in his own deception. He pitched his fingers together and smiled. Even his father would be proud of such a masterful play.

***

“Huxley, raise Captain Brooks on the Vilant.” Reeves snapped, barely able to contain her fury after the call with Consular Duryss.

“Aye, sir.” Within moments the Captain was on the comm.

“Captain, I need a progress report on your long-range scans.” Reeves demanded, despite his rank at the command of a capital ship. She knew her immediate directive gave her authority from the Consular’s office, and she had no qualms using it.

“Our active scans picked up four EM signatures. We’re running the models to correlate them to recent traffic reports. There’s not a lot of traffic data for this system. I expect we’ll have an answer for you in the next few minutes.”

“Thank you Captain. Can you relay the signals?”

“Sending them now.”

The HUD lit up with signal markers plotted at various locations within the rings. She studied them briefly, noticing one marker plotted on the other side of the planet. The closest signal was to their port side, only forty klicks away.

“Ready the fleet to jump to their signal when you’ve confirmed their location. I want them surrounded.”

“Colonel, I will only bring the Vilant as close as seven klicks of those rings. I won’t risk stray fragments striking the ship.”

His uncooperativeness poked at her short temper. “I understand the precaution, but you’ll have to bring the ship as close as necessary for the fastest possible wake scans. We cannot lose them again.”

“The Vilant has a scanning range of over fifteen kilometers. That gives us a great deal of margin to stay out of the rings; away from any potential conflict.”

“Very well Captain, but I want the rest of your escort to jump with the Decimator’s signal.”

“You’d leave us completely defenseless!”

“You said it yourself that you’ll stay out of range of ’any potential conflict.’”

“But should they break through your line, we’ll be completely vulnerable. That is unacceptable. Standard operational guidelines require us to have support escorts at all times.”

“Captain Brooks, this isn’t open to debate. All ships will be in formation with the Decimator to assist in capturing the targets. I intend to overwhelm them. If they’re smart, they’ll stand down and submit. If not, they’re going to try to jump away. The Vilant will keep the wake scanners active and send the destination to all ships for a coordinated jump.”

“Very well, Colonel. But I disagree with this course of action and will note it in my report.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Consider it an official protest.”

“Duly noted.”

There was a brief pause over the comm channel. At the flight consoles, Reeves saw Asher and Sloane exchange glances.

Captain Brook’s voice broke the quiet, “Colonel, standby.” The comms remained silent for a few moments more. “We have isolated them to the signal marked 6a, forty-seven clicks from your position. Your orders? Sir?”

The signal off the port bow lit up, highlighted with the Vilant’s data.

“With them that close, we can slip into range at space-normal speeds and avoid an FSD cool down. We need to keep our drives ready to spool in case they bolt. Captain, rendezvous with us at this position, still thirty klicks out.” She added a new signal point to her system orrery chart and sent it along the comm channel. “We’ll meet there and stay in formation with the Vilant trailing us by five klicks. I assume your distance will impact how quick the scanners can resolve a jump destination.”

“Yes, it takes longer at the edge of our range. Inside of five kilometers will take less than five seconds to scan and calculate.”

“Then if we see their drives spooling the Vilant will need to close to within five klicks of the targets to optimize the wake scanners. If they’re jumping they won’t be attacking and you’ll end up being closer to your escort.”

“Acknowledged and agreed, Colonel. We’ll be at the rendezvous point in ten minutes.”

“Thank you Captain.” Reeves nodded at Huxley to cut the transmission. “Mr. Huxley, coordinate with the Scythe and Scorpio. Let them know the Vilant’s escorts will be joining the party. Helm, take us to the rendezvous coordinates.”

“Aye, sir.”

Reeves felt the deck under her move as the Decimator accelerated and changed heading for the waypoint. Out of the corner of her eye on both sides, she could see their flanking Viper escorts flying formation with them. She moved to a side console on the bridge to work up a simulation of the upcoming encounter. Their trip to the waypoint wouldn’t be long, but she’d have plenty of time to work on it waiting for Vilant’s arrival. She didn’t care for making combat models. She found them a tedious exercise, but the stakes were too high for any shortcuts.

By the time they arrived at the rendezvous point, she had a basic model adding in the Vilant’s escorts: two nimble Sidewinders and two sturdy Cobras. She programmed in three command scenarios for the fleet to disable, capture, and, if necessary, track the targets. By the time the Vilant arrived, she was putting the finishing touches on the capture sequence.

She opened a channel to the fleet and broadcast a holofac of the simulation, narrating it as it played out.

“All ships will fly to within ten klicks of the targets, then divert full power to engines and boost to engagement range. We’ll be on the edge of their scanner range, so our fastest ships need to close the distance as quickly as possible. The Vilant will trail the offensive force staying around five klicks to keep clear of the engagement, but within range for wake scans.” She highlighted the groups as she narrated and waited for the simulation to play through before continuing.

“Alpha Wing will target the Fer-de-lance. Bravo Wing is on the Asp Explorer.” The simulation depicted their ships dividing behind the two red targets.

“When their shields drop, we target and disable their drives.” Then she reiterated with emphasis, ”Disable only.”

The projection showed the Fer-de-lance and Asp Explorer escaping the same direction putting their forces behind to give chase. The targets’ drive signatures, highlighted by glowing spheres, showed both wings in a perfect position to target and disable the sub-system. Reeves changed the simulation to the jump scenario.

“If instead they manage to jump, the Vilant will close in and scan their wake signatures. They’ll then broadcast the destination to the fleet. I have a pre-programmed jump subroutine for each pilot to install that will immediately jump to the destination reported by the Vilant when your nav system receives it. After arriving in system, we continue the ‘disable’ operation. If they low-wake, the Scorpio will interdict the Fer-de-lance, the Scythe will pull the Asp Explorer.”

She advanced the simulation to the ‘capture’ scenario.

“We’ll use the Decimator’s grappling tethers to tow the ships to the Vilant to extract the occupants. Only when the occupants are aboard the Vilant, alive, will the operation be considered a success. Any questions?”

Attack simulations were tedious, but, done right, significantly increased their odds of success.

“Very well. We’re distributing the jump subroutine now. Alpha and Bravo wings, form up. When the jump routine is in place and you are in formation, signal the Decimator.”

It took a few minutes for the wings to position into formation. The last ships signaled their readiness. Reeves stood in the center of the bridge and took a moment. Taking part in the orchestration of a military force felt good. She reveled in it.

The flight crew of the Decimator turned their chairs toward her, standing with her command pose in the center. Appearances, after all. She looked to her comms officer Huxley who had the face of a scared puppy and nodded. He opened the fleet comms channel, and she gave the command they all were waiting for:

“Commence the operation.”

She gave Huxley a gesture to mute the comms channel so she could address the flight crew. “Helm, full speed to the targets.”

“Aye, sir,” Asher acknowledged.

The Decimator eased forward, accelerating to lead out its wing, including a Viper and two Sidewinders. The rest of the fleet flanked them with the Vilant lumbering behind. The offensive wings covered the distance to the targets in a matter of minutes. Reeves let the exhilaration of the operation fill her. This time she would prove to the Consular she could deliver.

A proximity alert sounded as the fleet reached the ten klick mark. Here we go, she thought while spreading her feet and holding onto a console to brace herself for the jolt. “Mr. Sloane, divert everything to the engines. Asher, punch it!”

Her magboots kept her feet planted to the deck. She noticed the rest of the flight crew slam back into their seats. Reeves watched the Scorpio, a significantly faster ship, with its main engine light ablaze. It surged far ahead, followed by the two Sidewinders in a trailing delta formation.

In seconds they were in sensor range. Reeves kept her eye on the displays. In a breath, the signals appeared. There were two contacts, a single contact and another energy signature: a wake signal. She mentally noted that one of their targets had already jumped. A moment later, the contact signal disappeared, replaced by another wake signature.

Reeves signaled the Vilant. “Captain, they jumped before we could reach them.”

“We’ve already scanned the first signal. Transmitting destination now.”

A low rumble began. The Decimator’s onboard COVAS announced:

Frameshift drive charging.

Sloane shouted above the COVAS announcements, “Destination auto-jump initiated. Course plotted to HIP 20935.”

The voice of the COVAS continued: three… two… one…

Space stretched into an eternal tunnel with a single pinpoint of light in the center. The ship lunged into the tunnel wrapped in a mesmerizing light show of colored patterns. The few seconds of transit ended with the blinding white light of the primary star.

Reeves blinked to help her eyes adjust. The ship’s sensors came online and all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER TEN

It was chaos. Before there was time to react, the shields, such as they were, failed. Lee swallowed hard.

The blackness beyond the canopy was filled with the lights of ship thrusters in the distance. They darted around like a disturbed nest of angry bees—bees with lasers. The swarm aimed their weapons at a single point. Lee couldn’t quite make out what the target was. The target’s movement caught light from the star revealing an elongated wedge shape. Lee guessed it had to be Jackson, hopelessly outnumbered.

The sensor display packed more than a dozen signals. Lee found a Fer-de-lance in the contacts panel, but before he could open a channel, he felt an impact rock the ship. It was the unmistakable impact of a plasma accelerator followed by the sound of pulse lasers that sizzled along the hull. Sparks shot out from the panels in front of him, and smoke began to fill the cabin.

“Shields offline. Thrusters offline,” the COVAS reported.

“Oh come on, baby. Hold together,” Lee coughed out through the smoke, trying to encourage the battered old ship.

Another hit rocked him, followed by some crunching metal sounds somewhere distant. The ship lurched, throwing him against the flight chair harness. They were moving, but not under the Nightcrawler’s power—something was pulling them.

“We got tethered. They’re towing us!” Lee realized, shouting to no one in particular. Xohn was still down in the hold of the ship with his invention.

With no thrusters, there was no way to escape. The cabin lights went off for a moment before flickering back on.

Lee was reminded of Vic’s first troubleshooting lesson on the Nightcrawler. The old man’s voice rang out in his mind, “Look, kid, if she ain’t working right, try turning her off and back on again.” It was, of course, the age-old solution to any technical problem. He turned to the system panel and initiated the restart sequence with a smirk.

The battle outside the canopy captured his attention while he waited for the restart sequence. Lee counted flashes of about a dozen more ships dropping into the system. Then an enormous hole opened in space some six or seven kilometers away. A mega-ship emerged. Lee guessed it must have been the Vilant, the mega-ship he’d scanned before jumping. Whoever had been hunting them had arrived to find themselves immediately under attack.

It left Lee confused. He thought whoever tethered them were the same ones going after Xohn. That no longer appeared to be the case. Another group was attacking their pursuers and reeling the Nightcrawler in at the same time. Whoever it was had a substantial force, with enough hardware and pilots to overwhelm the small fleet that had been chasing them. The Vilant and its support forces were routed and falling back.

The Nightcrawler finished its start-up sequence. Lee started to look through systems when he heard banging around behind him. Xohn came through the doorway of the bridge.

“Finally! When all the power went out, I got trapped down there. Where are we? What happened?”

“We’re getting towed, by someone.” His voice sounded ominous even to himself.

“We’re what?”

“They took out our shields, then the engines. Now they’re towing us.”

“You mean they found us?” Xohn sounded more desperate.

“I don’t think so. Seems to be someone else.”

“Who else is after us?” Xohn said, exasperated.

“I don’t know! Could be pirates. Could be a faction upset by Meat Man’s Takko Tuesday rations. I have no idea,” Lee raised his arms and went back to looking through the damaged systems. The Nightcrawler was a mess. The shields were gone. The thrusters didn’t come back. There was damage across multiple sub-systems.

“Actually, I don’t think it can be pirates,” Lee realized. “There aren’t any big pirate groups operating out in this region of the Hyades. At least none that I know of with this many ships. It has to be a faction. Maybe the Resistance?”

“The Resistance! I could talk to them! They were trying to help me at that outpost.”

“I don’t know which ship to contact. You’d have to do it over wideband. If you’re trying to lay low, that’s not the way to do it.”

“Well, what are we going to do? Sit here until they pull us in?”

Lee smacked the console in front of him in disgust. “Nothing we can do. Thrusters are offline until we get some repairs. Unless you have engineering magic up your sleeves?”

Xohn appeared thoughtful and rubbed a hand across his bald, tattooed head for a moment before answering, “It depends on the damage. I can take a look.” His voice trailed as he moved down the ladder to the lower flight station.

They continued getting dragged backward while the battle continued at a distance. Thin strips of beam lasers flashed and converged on the ships that had dropped in. Lee targeted the Anaconda. The sensors showed it had taken heavy damage. It looked like they were in retreat, beaten back by the overwhelming force. No sooner had it arrived than the Vilant made a hasty departure. Lee couldn’t help but wonder who they were and what they wanted with Xohn. But there were more pressing questions now, like who was reeling them in, what did they want, and more importantly, could they escape?

He turned his focus back to the ship’s systems. The damage was significant, and his credit balance wasn’t the healthiest. He hoped Xohn had some good news for him and climbed down the ladder to check on him.

“How’s it look?” He asked, hopeful.

Xohn shook his head. “About forty percent of the power relays are shot. No way to get power to them. A full outfitting bay is needed to…” His voice trailed off and he continued to sit in distant thought. “Wait a light-second! We could hook up the ThermARC!”

“The what?” Lee had a puzzled look and slipped in repeating his companion’s accent.

“No! The ThermARC! My experimental module.“

“I don’t care what you call it, I’m not hooking up your experimental tech to the Nightcrawler. Her systems are already experimental enough as it is. What’s a ThermARC anyways?”

“ThermoAcoustic Resonance Cogenerator. It’s a transducer that converts thermal energy into sound waves with almost no loss of energy. Then the sound waves get converted into power!” He stood up and smacked a fist into his other hand.

“Okay, wait,” Lee held up both hands. “Pretend I’m stupid. What does that mean, and how does it help us?”

Xohn’s smirk said pretending he was stupid wasn’t going to be hard. “The heat output will route into the acoustic resonance chamber when turning the power plant on. The power it generates then can be shunted back into the engines! The engines will get running again. At least power enough to maneuver, I think.”

Lee hesitated, but remembered Xohn’s Pulse Wave Analyzer modifications. “Alright, but be careful. You mess up the Nightcrawler any more than she already is and you’re going for a nice long walk.” He followed Xohn off the flight deck toward the aft of the ship.

It took half an hour to install the ThermARC. Lee got a lesson in module installation that gave him a new respect for Zee. The thought gave him another pang of guilt for not taking her with him. He wondered how she was doing, then just hoped she was still “doing”.

Step-by-step, Xohn added new connections to integrate the ThermARC. The ship’s thermal exhaust rerouted into it. If it worked, Lee admitted it would be a smuggler’s dream.

“So let me get this straight,” Lee crossed his arms, furrowing his brow. “This thing will give power to the engines generated from the heat turning to sound, and sound turned to electrical power?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“That’s amazing, Xohn! That means none of the waste heat goes to the vanes.”

“Right. The system interconnects close the heat vanes when you activate the ThermARC.”

“So you get silent running and more engine power? That’s unbelievable, Xohn! It’s a silent running turbocharger!” Lee was impressed. If it worked, and he survived this, it would make smuggling easier than ever.

Xohn nodded as if to take a slight bow. “Thank you. It is nothing but my life’s work.” Xohn ran a series of tests with each new connection point. After scores of connections into the ship, Xohn reported “Okay, we are ready for the calibration, I think. Then we can bring the system online.”

“Nice. I’ll head back up to the flight deck and leave you to it. Let me know when I can bring it online.” Lee headed back to the bridge to monitor ship systems leaving Xohn to his work.

By Lee’s guess, their trip covered at least a megameter, but he had no idea where they were headed. Scanners were in and out as Xohn’s work kept the power cycling off and on. They were in the dark, figuratively and literally.

The noise of the power ramping up and systems coming back online just to get cut off again was grating on his nerves.

He better not screw up the Nightcrawler. He breaks it, he buys it, Lee thought.

The power continued cycling. Up and down, over and over. Just as Lee was about to get up and shout at Xohn, the power stabilized, and ship systems came online, including the engines and the sensors.

The sensor display showed a cloud of ships behind them. Lee checked the contact panel and found a long list of small and mid-sized ships and a giant cargo hauler.

“Well, what do we have here,” he said to himself and scooted closer to the sensor display. He trained the scanners on the freighter for a passive scan. Its transponder responded as the Athos, a James-class bulk cargo ship. His gut told him that was where they were being towed.

Out of the corner of his eye he began to see lights from other vessels that passed by them go ing the opposite direction. The grappling tether was pulling them at the right rear corner of the ship, causing them to be dragged at an off-angle. He could see the edges of the massive ship’s forward nose come into view as they neared it. Then two habitation rings, a smaller ring followed by a slightly larger one, came into view.

A rather loud sound of metallic tightening rattled through the cabin. One of the tethers swung into view with a creaking sound. A well-worn Diamondback Scout with a rugged bumblebee shape moved in front to pull the opposite direction and slow their momentum. The cable echoed with coiled tension that could be heard throughout the ship.

“Lee!” Xohn’s voice came through the internal comms. “We’re ready to bring it online.”

“Too late, I’m afraid. Cover up your work and get up here. We don’t have time to escape. We’ll have to save it for another time. They’re moving us to a cargo ship. Try to hide the module the best you can.”

“Right, I can use some of the deck plating we pulled to mount the ThermARC.” The sound of tools clanking against the deck and bulkheads in the background indicated the degree of Xohn’s scrambling.

The small Diamondback pulled against the cable, thrusters firing in short bursts to control their momentum. Lee felt each as a recurrent tug at the ship. The line reached its full extension in front of them, causing the Nightcrawler to spin the opposite direction. The superstructure of the Athos came into full view. A half-dome connected to the four out-jutting structures at the nose. Past that, the forward habitation rings became obscured by a large, roughly hexagonal section of enormous cargo pods.

They were coming in close to the sizable main fuselage. As they closed in, Lee noticed two crane-like arms mounted on rails that ran to the cargo pods. In concert, the arms extended toward them. An extended pull from their tow-vehicle slowed the rest of their momentum. Then, with a choreographed motion, the crane arms reached out toward different points of the ship. They connected with a clunking sound on the hull. Lee felt a slight bump from the contact.

After a few moments, the ship spun to a new orientation and sped down the track toward an opening in one of the massive cargo pods. Lee realized they were being loaded.

As they transited across the rails, Xohn entered the forward cabin. “The ThermARC is dressed to look more or less like a standard module reinforcement. Well, a well-used, busted module reinforcement. Whoa,” Xohn caught sight of the massive looming structure of the cargo pods ahead.

“Nice thinking, they won’t give it a second look if they inspect the ship.” Lee remarked while watching out of the canopy. Lights blinked at the corners of the pods to help smaller ships navigate the superstructure. The massive vessel looked well-used. Lee pointed out weapon scarring and even some buckling across the hull to Xohn.

“What do you think, Lee? Who are they?”

“I don’t really know. I didn’t see any emblems. I’m guessing they repurposed an old freighter. I’ve heard of large pirate operations using them as a moving base of operations. We’ll know soon enough.”

They passed through the opening, and the stars above them were replaced with the half-lit interior of the cargo hold.

“Jackson,” Lee pointed. “They got him, too.”

Beside them sat the scarred up elongated wedge of the Para Bellum. It sat amongst several large containers and cargo modules scattered about and anchored to the deck. The lighting inside the pod seemed dim and flickered at random. The inside looked even worse than the outside with dark green tinted stains on the bulkheads.

“Do you think he’s still alive?”

Lee leaned to look over the ship before it went out of their line-of-sight. “Well, the canopy’s still there. The landing ramp’s down, too. It doesn’t look like he bailed in an escape pod, but who knows.”

They came to an abrupt stop with more metallic clanking sounds. Lee looked over at Xohn. “Mooring clamps.”

“What now?” Xohn asked, a nervous edge in his voice.

Lee shrugged. “We wait. Maybe we can talk ourselves out of this. Try to stay quiet and let me do the talking.”

Xohn nodded.

They both sat waiting, watching, and listening. Lee was anxious, anticipating them forcing their way onboard. He hoped to avoid a physical confrontation, if possible. The waiting was excruciating. Whoever it was, they were in no rush.

Outside the canopy, a sled filled with military types approached the Nightcrawler and came to a stop below. Lee motioned Xohn below, and they both climbed down the ladder to the lower level. Below them, figures in full military pressure suits and combat RemLok helmets jumped over the side of the sled with elegant zero-G flips. They landed with their magboots locked to the deck, then stomped up to the ship.

A central figure walked forward. They raised an arm and tapped on the forearm controls of their suit.

The PA system inside the cargo bay echoed with a rough, raspy, masculine voice. “You have one minute to come down your landing ramp before we start cutting through your hull. This is your only warning.”

Lee looked over at Xohn, “Probably best not to put up any resistance to meatheads.”

Xohn nodded back in agreement. “Those don’t look like pirates.”

Lee led Xohn out of the forward cabin, through the ship corridors to the ramp’s airlock.

“I know it’s not pirates. And the matched uniforms don’t look like mercenaries. But, they’re not Federation, Imperial, or Alliance colors. It must be a well-funded faction.”

When they reached the ramp bay, Lee went to a compartment. He rummaged through it for a moment and pulled out an old RemLok helmet that he tossed over to Xohn. “You’re gonna want to put that on. Just slide it inside your flight suit’s collar.”

After Xohn was set, Lee showed him the button on his flight suit’s collar and pressed it. Both of their helmets flipped up and surrounded their heads. Adrenaline was coursing through him, but he powered through it to stay in control—to survive.

Lee smacked the large triangular button on the ramp controls to lower it. The amber lights spun in the bay for a few seconds before a hissing sound turned to an all at once rush as the air left the chamber.

When the ramp neared the deck, it revealed a dozen combat-ready military waiting for them, laser rifles strapped about them and held at the ready. Lee gave Xohn a sideways glance and walked forward down the ramp before it stopped on the deck. He went slow, trying not to make any sudden movements.

“Hey, you guys look like a solid piece of gear. What can we do for you?” Lee held his arms out in a welcoming fashion.

One of the soldiers in the front made a hand gesture. Before he could react, several soldiers rushed him, grabbed his arms, bent him over, and deactivated his magboots. In an instant, he was stuck staring at the deck while getting floated somewhere, only able to catch a glimpse of where he was from the sides of his helmet. He flailed his arms and legs in a vain attempt to regain some measure of control.

“Hey guys, come on, we only jumped in the system. It’s not permit locked. What gives?” He fought enough to test how he was being subdued, hoping not to antagonize his captors. He got a rap to the helmet from the butt of a rifle for his efforts.

“Settle down,” the raspy voice said from behind him.

He got dragged across the bay and forced into the sled. Once seated, two soldiers climbed in to sit on either side of him, rifles drawn to his chest. He watched Xohn get roughly handled into the sled a row ahead of him. A few soldiers stayed behind and walked up the ramp into the Nightcrawler. It made Lee upset, confused, and annoyed at the same time. Who the screb were these people?

The sled took off and floated along the deck toward the central axis of the ship. The journey was short, and they stopped at a large room that adjoined to a curved bulkhead running the length of the bay. Their “hosts” offloaded them from the sled and floated them to a set of double-doors. A soldier worked the control pad to open the doors, and they were pushed inside. When the doors shut behind them, a short, but solid-looking soldier tapped the inside panel. The doors closed. Air rushed into the chamber. As soon as the atmosphere light turned green, they retracted their helmets.

They were in a large room filled with storage lockers and assorted bins anchored to the deck plating. The bulkhead to their right curved out toward the ceiling, connecting to the larger structure seen in the rest of the bay. An inset region of the ceiling provided soft lighting, but like everything else, a couple of segments weren’t lit, and one blinked at random. The same dark stains seen in the cargo area were in various spots in the room with a much larger concentration of stains near the doors.

Then it hit. Xohn threw up chunks that flew into the zero-G room like a fountain of tofu textured jello. Lee almost lost it too, but managed to control his stomach.

“Grottdiggit!” one of the soldiers cursed while the rest moaned in unison.

Lingering in the room was a smell so rancid it burned at Lee’s nose and eyes—an unholy mix of rotting meat and feces left to ferment for decades. The smell began to creep into Lee’s throat. He could almost taste it, and his stomach flipped. Between the smell and the floating chunks, the soldiers were collecting into mylar baggies, it took all his strength to keep from losing it. Xohn, hunched over in a ball, continued to dry heave.

“Hey,” Lee tried to console him, coughing a little and squinting his eyes. “You okay?”

Xohn nodded, but more spasms followed.

With the major chunks collected, Lee felt a hand firmly grab hold of his arm. Two other soldiers grabbed Xohn up to a mostly standing position. They were escorted through a door along the curved bulkhead and stepped onto a large transit lift. They rode the lift for what seemed to be almost a full minute before they were shoved off. Their escorts pushed them along a disheveled corridor littered with junk all over. Lee had to duck several times to avoid the large conduit tubes drooping low into the passage.

They came to a door at the end of the corridor, and both sides slid open to another lift with handholds on the “floor“ and the “ceiling”. It was a flip-lift—a lift that traveled on a different orientation. A soldier on each arm of Lee and Xohn forced them into the lift.

The raspy-voiced lead soldier spoke to the rest of them. “Head back to the barracks and clean up, then get some R&R.”

The soldiers left in the corridor flashed smiles and turned back as the doors shut. Inside the lift, the soldiers released their magboots and stepped onto the right ”wall” of the lift, pulling Lee and Xohn with them. It was disorienting. They pointed at the floating, looped handholds and Xohn awkwardly tried to hold two at once. Lee grabbed one and looked down, or right, or whatever direction his boots were now, and felt the lift start to “drop.” During the transit, Lee felt a heaviness come over him—the tug of artificially generated gravity weighed him down. It was less than 1G, but not nothing. The soldiers released their magboots, and Lee followed suit. Xohn kept both hands on the grips. The lift came to a stop, and his new weight caused Lee to bend his legs to absorb the shock. He hadn’t been in gravity for a while, but his body began to remember his station legs.

The doors of the lift opened this time floor to ceiling. The soldiers pushed him off into a somewhat cleaner corridor. The smell was much improved, at least. After a series of turns, they came to a small area with adjoining rooms.

As they passed the rooms, Lee spotted Jackson strapped in a chair under a single dim light looking drugged out of his mind. Blood caked on the side of his head. His head drooped to his chest. A tray full of instruments sat beside him.

Lee’s mind put it all together. “Oh, hey, guys,” he said, a desperation coming over him. “Seriously, come on. Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

The soldiers shoved Xohn into one of the small rooms before Lee felt a hand on the back of his head push him into a room of his own. The door slid shut, and he heard the ka-chunk sound of locks engaging. A single dim light burned overhead. Then flickered as if to mock him.

“Well, great,” Lee sighed. “Torture. That’s something to look forward to.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Where am I? His mind swirled in a soup of dreams. Were they dreams? No. They were flashes of before. Memories. He couldn’t hold on to them. Recognizable faces morphed into other faces from his past. He was lost, adrift in a storm of fragmented images.

“Who are you?”An unfamiliar voice came from outside his mind.

The images that danced about seemed to fall together into a cohesive scene. He was in a classroom. Someone was talking—something about preflight checklists.

“…before you approach the pad, your landing gear must be fully extended.” The balding instructor with tufts of unkempt hair growing from the sides of his head monotonously intoned.

He heard sniggers around him.

He remembered leaning to someone next to him and remarking, “I swear, if you can’t remember to lower your landing gear, you got no business being a pilot.”

The scene jumped and swirled back into a cloud of flashing images and faces.

“Who are you?”

Who am I? He couldn’t remember.

A face he recognized swung out of the cloud of images and landed on a body. A new scene unfolded before him. The man’s blond hair and tall face were instantly recognizable: ‘Crater’ from flight school. He earned his callsign from slamming his first landing so hard his gear put three craters into the pad. It took weeks for maintenance to replace the landing plates.

A brief moment of reality smacked him. Ouch! Shooting pain. His head, his chest, his wrists.

“Two-K,” came a voice outside of himself.

He tried to move, but couldn’t. He was bound in a chair in a room somewhere.

“Who are you working for, Commander?” The accented voice was harsh and insistent.

“I- I’m,” his lips could barely move. His tongue felt heavy. There was a rough edge of skin catching on his blistered lips. His jaw hurt. He’d been beaten.

“Yes?” The voice said expectantly.

His vision blurred and fell back into the hurricane of fleeting imagery from his memories—another scene formed around him. He was in the familiar cockpit of the Goblin, his trusty Vulture. The Goblin trailed a cargo ship on approach to a well-hidden compound on some reddish moon with deep valleys.

“I hate these escort missions. I need a challenge!” He heard himself say.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” A familiar voice replied over comms.

“Eh, I hate that phrase. I’m no beggar.”

“You’re a rookie mercenary. You go where the contracts take you.”

“Yeah, but I can’t get the good contracts because I’m still ’harmless.’ How am I supposed to get my rank up if I don’t see any combat?”

“You could always try resource patrol.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s dangerous!”

He heard a big belly laugh on the other end of the connection. “Risk is part of the job, nimrod.”

“Risk is, but dying isn’t,” he replied. Can’t be a great combat pilot if you’re dead, he remembered thinking.

“Trust me, kid, you’re gonna have to take some risks. Make sure they’re the right ones for the right reasons. Hey, our bird is down safely.”

Jackson looked down to see the cargo vessel they escorted had finished its landing and shut off its engines. “Go find a landing spot outside the compound, and we can go collect.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to” Jackson said with frustration. “I swear, I can’t find any land-able zones on this rock.”

“Oh come on, this can’t be your first planetary landing. Is it?”

“Pfft, no. Why?”

“This ain’t no space station kid. No helpful landing prompts. You musta forgot something.”

He felt heat rush into his face. He had forgotten. He tapped the controls. His COVAS acknowledged, “Landing gear deployed.”

Still in his cockpit, the moon and its distant mountains dissolved into deep red-hued nebula-like clouds. Memories flashed through the swirling veil. His ship shot forward through the clouds into space. A backdrop of gem-like stars appeared.

He pulled back on the flight stick, making a sharp pitch upward, then looped for another attack run. His wingman flew an Adder in formation with him to join the attack. It was the memory of his first mercenary mission.

“Behind you!” A shout came over the comms. Just as the large, sluggish Type-9 cargo vessel came into view, he felt the ship shudder around him. His shields drained, absorbing the laser fire. He rolled the Goblin to evade the incoming fire and dropped chaff to avoid the worst of the damage.

His wingman peeled off to give chase to his attacker. He stayed focused on bringing down the Type-9 shields.

“Thanks, Bulldog!” He shouted and let loose on both burst lasers while flying full throttle towards the lumbering vessel. He waited until the last possible moment before he peeled off the attack.

Checking on his wingmate he saw a Sidewinder attacking. Bulldog was losing shields quickly. Before Jackson completed his loop to start another attack run, he spotted two more Sidewinders bearing down on Bulldog.

He banked the Goblin hard to adjust, heading for the incoming Sidewinders. Instead of attacking Bulldog, both ships turned their attack on him. In seconds his shields were stripped to almost nothing. He reacted, putting full power into the system capacitors. The Sidewinders shot past him, turned about, and continued the joust, attacking him head-on. He hit the boosters to cover the distance in the hopes of shooting past and getting behind them.

Before they passed, he hit the maneuvering thrusters rotating the ship to position for a rear flank attack. Instead, as he flipped the ship around, a Sidewinder slammed into the Goblin from above. It deflected off with an uncontrolled spin and a trajectory that collided with the other Sidewinder causing it to erupt into a fireball. The Goblin’s shields had nothing left, and the hull took the damage straight on. All at once, every system went down. His RemLok helmet deployed. His heart raced. There was a hull breach somewhere near the point of impact, causing the ship to vent atmosphere.

He watched, helpless, as the other two Sidewinders attacked his wingmate. Bulldog was outgunned, but his piloting was better. He outmaneuvered both remaining Sidewinders, taking them out while avoiding any damage.

“TwoK, you still out there?” His comms crackled.

“Still here! You see that!” He shouted, elated and laughing. “I took out one of the Sidewinders without firing a shot and weakened the other, so it was easy for you to finish him off.”

“Yeah,” Bulldog sounded unimpressed. “I saw it. Lucky. How’s the Goblin?”

“Dead stick. It’s gonna cost me the entire contract to pay for the damage.”

“Well, the escorts are gone, but the target’s still up. Try running diagnostics, and let’s finish this out.”

The diagnostics got the Goblin back up and running—limping but functional. They regrouped and flanked the Type-9 from both sides. Explosions in sequence erupted across the massive vessel. He felt immense satisfaction watching it rupture into a fireball that shot out debris.

Again he found himself surrounded by the impressions that surfaced and disappeared back into the roiling clouds.

“Commander Dekker, who are you working for?”

The room surrounded him again. A dim light from above illuminated his legs. He felt his head heavy and slumped over. Pain stabbed at him from all over. Drugged, his mind flitted with emotion. Fear and confusion smothered him. Anger took hold, and he shook in the restraints. A pair of hands reached over and held his shoulders from behind. In reflex, he jerked again at the restraints.

“Now, now, Commander. All I need is name,” came the voice with a heavy accent.

The skin that had ripped on his bottom lip from an earlier beating was glued to his upper lip from the blood that had dried and caked. He tried to speak, but the tension at the center kept his lips shut until the tension gave way, ripping the skin from his lip in a painful tear. A whimper escaped his throat.

“Name, Commander.”

“No-” he whimpered. “No one.”

“Have you ever worked for Consular Duryss on Sietae?”

“Duryss?” His head fell to the side then. After a moment of quiet, more emotion overwhelmed him, and he sobbed. Hearing that name filled him with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

“Commander, I need your thumb scan,” a woman’s low insistent voice prodded.

“Huh?” He replied in confusion.

“Your thumbprint.” A datapad shook in front of him, held by a handsome woman with a short-crop hairstyle. She wore a dark grey, almost black, military-style suit. It was a style he couldn’t recall seeing before. It had the fine look of high-importance.

“Right, yes, of course.” He depressed his thumb on the screen as if on autopilot.

“Thank you, Commander,” she looked down at her datapad to confirm his name. “Commander Dekker. Report to me aboard the Decimator for a pre-flight briefing in 90 minutes. If you do well, we may have other contracts for you.”

“You won’t be disappointed,” he heard himself say.

Everything evaporated and reformed into some vaguely familiar room, crowded and noisy. It was a briefing room far too small for the number of pilots chatting amongst themselves.

Looking around the room, he made an offhand comment to the pilot sitting beside him, “Expensive operation they got going on here, don’cha think? All these pilots?”

The middle-aged pilot leaned over, and his dark hair flopped across at the movement, “I heard they’re moving something important. Any guesses what it might be?”

“Nah, I don’t much care. I hate escort missions, but the pay for it was too good to pass up,” he responded.

The short-haired officer in the dark military suit from his previous memory walked to the podium and put down her datapad. She looked down to study it a moment, then looked up and snapped, “Attention! Attention people!”

Half the room began to quiet while the rest continued in a murmur. She smacked a flat palm against the metal bulkhead beside her and shouted, “Eyes up here and shut your word holes.”

The room went so silent, even his breathing felt loud.

“Thank you. Let’s get this briefing started.” She paced behind the podium. “I’m Colonel Reeves. I run the private military units of Sietae Federal Corp. Your mission is convoy escort. This is a large scale operation with seven cargo vessels, each carrying critical parts and equipment bound for stations across the Hyades. You’ll be in a three-ship escort wing that will provide protection for an assigned cargo ship. All ships will depart the station in three hours, and mass jump along this route.”

One of her hands made a quick gesture at something on her datapad and tossed it into the air. A holographic projection zoomed into existence beside her in the form of a floating astrogation map of the Hyades open star cluster. A brilliant orange line extended from an origin star—presumably Sietae, where they were—and bounced to two other stars. Then it spread into multiple thin lines towards other systems.

“Once the fleet arrives in 60 Tauri, each wing will take individual routes to their target destinations. Any questions?”

A voice from behind him spoke out, asking the question on most of their minds, “A force of this size has gotta mean you’re moving a mad lot of high-value cargo. Are you expecting problems?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Recon shows a build-up of Nu Tauri Mob assets in the region. They don’t know our route, or our break-off point, but you can bet they’ll quickly coordinate if they spot the convoy.”

Jackson remembered realizing why the pay was so good—it was hazard pay.

“Any other questions?”

“Yeah, darlin’,” an older looking pilot down the row cleared his throat and sat up. “D’ya have any clue how well equipped the Nu Tauri Mob is? They got the numbers and lotsa hardware, missy!”

“As well as I know that you won’t have functioning hands to grab your flight stick if you call me ‘darlin’ or ‘missy’ ever again.” The pilot she dressed down seemed to shrink back into his seat.

Jackson had swallowed hard. It wasn’t just a boring escort mission. He couldn’t help but be curious about the cargo they were protecting. What was the Mob after?

The Colonel’s face melted into the cockpit of his Vulture. Outside his canopy, he spotted the cargo ships—his escort targets. It was the biggest convoy he’d ever taken part in. The cargo vessels were accompanied by three escorts: a mix of Cobras, Vipers, and Vultures.

“Hey Dogbreath,” he heard himself say on narrowband-comms. “Any clue what we’re moving here?”

“I mighta heard some things.” He could have asked his other wingmate, but Nonechuck wasn’t the socially friendly type. Dogbreath was a soft-spoken, keep-to-yourself kind of guy. Jackson knew you could always count on the quiet ones to know something.

“Really? Spill it, man!”

“Well, I sort of eavesdropped around the autoloader operator’s break room and heard them chattering.”

“Oh come on man, what’d they say?”

“I heard them mention something about CMM components. And enormous mounting plates giving their loaders a challenge, and,” Dogbreath’s voice dropped low as if afraid someone would overhear on the scrambled narrow-band link. “Radiation baffles.”

“Huge mounting plates, so something big.”

“Probably large-scale weapons. Radiation baffles also mean big guns. Really big guns. Big enough guns you gotta have protection or ya fry.”

“Like for capital ships,” Jackson guessed out loud.

“I don’t know. I didn’t think there were many capital ships stationed in the Hyades. It’s not that important.”

“Yeah, it’s all rural industrial colonies and refinement outposts. Alright, thanks for the heads up, bud.”

“Yeah. Watch your six out there.”

“My thoughts, exactly.”

A squadron communication flashed across his terminal.

> Convoy in position, prep for jump point Bravo.

Jackson pulled up the mission specs on his console to target jump point Bravo: 60 Tauri. A few moments later, his terminal received the coordinated jump command.

> Engage Frameshift.

“See you on the other side, partner,” he said through the comms and tapped the control to start the jump process.

He could hear the build-up from the engine capacitors dumping energy into the drive system. The COVAS countdown began, decorated by flashes from the mass jump of ships disappearing into hyperspace. The Goblin followed, vaulting into a tunnel of its own.

Jackson felt the harness dig into his shoulders from the deceleration out of the inter-system jump. A large white star filled his field of view and seethed with a faint hint of blue at the edges. The sensors came back online, and he pulled the flight stick to maneuver into cruising formation.

With no warning, the Goblin auto-dropped to normal space. His aft shields registered hits, and the view outside the canopy filled with ships in disarray.

With a trained reaction, he targeted the first ship that didn’t register as part of his squadron. He dumped the capacitors into the engines and flipped the Goblin around to point the nose at the target. Of course, he already knew who they were. It was a Nu Tauri Mob ship. They were waiting in ambush. Apparently, they did know the break-off point. The radio was a mess of noisy shouts…

“…freighter Nuria, need immediate assistance…”

“…vack, the Mob is here…”

“…just too many fighters!”

The Goblin’s COVAS added to the chaos, “Taking damage. Shields offline.”

The cannon rounds hitting the hull plating sounded like metal raining behind him. The console sparked leaving smoke in the cabin.

“I got you 2K,” the all-business voice of Nonechuck came over the open wing comms. “Anyone have eyes on the Kerberon?”

Jackson tried to scan his contact list for a Type-7 squawking the right ident codes. Before he could respond, Dogbreath broke over the channel, “Yeah, I got her.”

Nonechuck’s Vulture passed in front of the Goblin, its sturdy arrowhead body in full view outside Jackson’s canopy. Angry flashes blasted from the dual rail guns mounted at the front. The enemy Eagle was no match under the assault. It began an uncontrolled multi-axis roll before blowing apart.

Looking down at his instruments to assess the damage, Jackson found most of the systems still intact. But, the hull integrity readout was down to 57%. The Goblin had taken a severe beating.

“Alright, boys,” Nonechuck shouted. “On me. Focus on my targets. Let’s make sure the Kerberon can make it out.”

“She’s on the run,” Dogbreath pointed out. The Kerberon was making an escape attempt out of the area eight kilometers away but was taking fire from a couple of bandits behind it.

“I see it. Looks like a couple of Cobras. Alright, let’s take ‘em out. Target the one on the right.”

“I’m on it,” Jackson responded, rerouting power to his engines and boosting. The Goblin shot out ahead of the wing and quickly closed the distance. As soon as the first Cobra came into range, he pulled the trigger.

Nonechuck barked, “No, wait for us to-”

“Too late!” Jackson called back. His twin gimbaled pulse-lasers were quickly chipping away at the Cobra’s shields. His target peeled off its attack from the Kerberon and came about directly toward him. The other Cobra continued to lay into the Kerberon, but its shields were still holding.

Jackson’s shields had come back online in time for the Cobra’s multi-cannon strike to bring them back down. The Goblin and the Cobra were in a joust, racing toward each other. Tracer fire from the oncoming Cobra shot past Jackson’s cockpit, like shooting stars. Each impact required minor course corrections.

He watched the forward flank attacks from Dogbreath and Nonechuck. They forced the Cobra to break off its offensive to evade the incoming fire.

Jackson glanced right to see the Kerberon still taking fire. He aimed the Goblin toward the Cobra running away now that it was severely outgunned. His mind was torn. Take out the overpowered Cobra, or pull the other off of the Kerberon.

As if his hesitation was noticed, Nonechuck piped up, “Alright, stay on it! Let’s splat this one quickly and get back to the Kerb.”

But Jackson couldn’t help it; he targeted the Kerberon to check its status. Shields were failing. Routing energy back into the engines, he burned his boost thrusters for rapid maneuvering toward the Kerberon’s attacker.

“Jackson, no! I just said to stay on it!” Nonechuck shouted.

“The Kerberon’s about to lose her shields!” The Goblin closed into range. Rerouting power back into the weapons, Jackson let loose.

The Cobra continued to press its attack, lashing at the shields of the Kerberon.

The attack wasn’t enough to get the Mob pilot’s attention. He dove the Goblin between the attacker and the Kerberon. Deftly managing the controls, he pitched upward while flying along the same trajectory to keep his weapons on target. A flash burst from the Cobra, and two missiles let loose toward the Kerberon. The Goblin slid into their flight path. Jackson felt the impact and was swallowed in a blinding explosion.

He found himself floating in his flight chair in empty space—his RemLock auto-deployed. The console before him, the cockpit, his ship—it was all was gone. The ejection sequence put him into an uncontrolled spin. He pulled the emergency pod control, and a mylar-like canopy ballooned around him.

Everything went dark.

A dim light appeared above him. Looking up to see the source, he realized he was back in that ‘other’ reality. A figure slid close.

“So, there we are.” The accented voice spoke near his right ear.

“Wha?” Jackson could barely speak. His mouth hung open with a line of drool falling from his lips. It took effort to fight against the heaviness of his eyelids. He could just make out colored shapes around the room.

“You are agent of Consular Alden Duryss.”

“No,” he whimpered. “I just-” he could barely form the words. “…for hire.” His head throbbed in pain either from brutality earlier or after-effects of the drugs.

“Yes, it all comes out now, Commander Dekker.” He heard the voice and movement of the figure pace around him, finally coming to a stop in front of him.

“What else?” The accented voice asked.

“No, no, no,” it was all he could say and just kept saying it.

“What else, Commander?”

“No,” he cried.

He could hear the air rush out of the way as a flat hand made contact with the side of his face. Searing-hot pain that turned icy cold raced up his left arm. Again he was swallowed up by memories as the drugs, like a tether, pulled him back down into semi-consciousness. The images raced by him. No longer a swirl, but a blinding rush as if he was in a frameshift tunnel through his history. A dim star centered in his vision, though distant, it rapidly grew into a blinding light that at once flashed into a brilliant blue-white star.

He found himself in a much larger ship with a huge sweeping console spread before him. He was on the Para Bellum. The sensors were dancing with signals.

In front of him spread a field of icy boulders. The half dome of a rusty colored gas giant rose above the expansive plane of ice rings. He looked left out of the canopy and saw a long row of more than twelve or so ships. To the right were a dozen more ships, including an Anaconda. From their vantage point, they could see a ship in the distance weaving between the rocks. Two fighters gave chase.

The familiar voice of Colonel Reeves came across the squadron comms channel, “Scorpio, Scythe: this is getting us nowhere. Break off pursuit and fall back to join the fleet.”

Jackson caught the movement of the two ships arc out above the plane of ice.

“Fleet, prepare special ordinance Gamma. Target the area in grid two-two-one. Time to flush her out.”

Complying, Jackson went through the motions. He switched hardpoint configurations and a new targeting reticle appeared. Touching the flight stick with his finger tips, he made minute adjustments. A nice sized rock lined up in his target indicator. He placed his finger at the trigger and waited.

Focused on his target, he kept a steady gaze. The amber reticle glowed back at his eyes.

Reeves’s voice gave the final command over the comm channel, “All ships, cleared hot. Fire.”

With an automatic response, Jackson pulled the trigger.

Streams of missiles painted the darkness with bright white trails that grew toward the chunks of ice. It was an incredible sight to behold. The scale of the assault was mesmerizing. He watched the trail of his missile as it neared its target. Something had emerged near it. A ship! It appeared from behind another chunk of ice. It was bigger than the Cobra they were trying to capture. An innocent civilian—probably there mining—now caught up in the middle of their assault. The slow ship made a desperate, futile attempt to escape.

He watched his missile disappear. Moments later, the field of ice erupted into an expanding cloud of icy, rocky chunks of debris. Both ships were caught in the growing debris cloud.

Neither came out.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Vin Xohn sat alone in a dark room. A dim light above his head lit up a meter or so around him. Beyond that, everything remained hidden in darkness. The air reeked of unpleasant body odors. On the floor in front of him, he could make out dark splatter stains on the deck. Xohn took them as indications that something awful had happened in this room.

Fear set in. What might they do to him? Were they to hurt him? Would they hand him over to the agents chasing him? He wished he was back in the cell with Lee. Together they might figure a way out of this situation.

Xohn took Lee to be an odd contradiction. He turned out to be somewhat nicer than someone willing to ditch a person in space. He’d helped him find Azera and his prototype—his life’s love and his life’s work.

Deep down, he knew she hadn’t made it. He knew it was a fool’s hope, but he had hoped it all the same. His heart ached all over again. The anguish took over, and tears formed at the bottom of his eyes.

There was a clinking from outside the room, followed by a heavy metal door sliding open with a scraping metal-on-metal sound. The light outside the room wasn’t too bright, but it might as well have been. His eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough. He could only make out a backlit shadowy figure entering the room with magboot footfalls against the deck plating.

The door slid shut, and darkness swallowed the room again. The figure stopped in front of him, still outside the light. Only his magboots were visible.

After a moment, a harsh voice came from the figure in front of him, “You are Vin Xohn, the engineer?”

“Yes,” Xohn answered.

“You’re some kind of inventor.”

“Yes. Where are we? Who are you?”

The harsh voice interrupted him, “I ask the questions. You answer.”

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Are you working for Duryss Administration?”

“No, I-”

“You working with Commander Dekker?”

“Well, we travel together, but-”

“So, you working with him.”

Xohn took a breath before answering. “There was an attack on Foden Dock that we escaped in Glist. Jackson saved us! We’ve been trying to get away from people chasing us. He’s been helping.”

The figure leaned toward him. The dim light revealed a man wearing a military beret. Xohn gasped at the grotesque folds of scarred skin that caught the light and shadow on the left half of his face. It looked as if the left half of the man’s face had been melted.

He pointed at Xohn, “We know everything. Jackson spilled his guts. You are inventor of prototype heat exchanger, and received investments. Records show one of your principal backers being Consular Alden Duryss who invested millions. Our intercepts show small fleet from Duryss Administration in Sietae were dispatched to pick you up on Foden Dock.”

“No!” Xohn slammed his hands on the arms of the chair. “I arranged transport to this region to find my fiancé! It had nothing to do with-”

The man shoved his face in front of Xohn’s. “Commander Dekker already confessed he was under contract with Duryss Administration! You admitted to flying with him!”

“Until I spoke to Mr. Stephenson on Foden Dock, I knew nothing of the Duryss Administration. I’m not working for them. You have to believe me!” Xohn’s voice quavered.

The man backed off but stayed visible in the light. “You were supposed to meet Executive Stephenson on his shuttle, but you never showed up. Instead, you went with Dekker and this drifter Sollinger. By implication, it means-”

“Implication? There was no choice! I was trapped in the wrong bay. I tried to get to Stephenson’s shuttle. I did! The station was damaged, and I was left behind. Sollinger left me!”

An eyebrow on the man’s good side raised at that. “What you mean he ‘left you’? You were on his ship when you were brought here.”

“I mean, he left the station in his ship but left me behind with an emergency RemLok unit.”

“Bwaah!” The man snorted. Then he began a devious sort of chuckle. “Sollinger space you with a gel suit?”

“Yeah! Actually, it smelled quite bad. Out of the bay I just floated away for awhile. Then like a piece of cargo I get grabbed up by a limpet drone.”

“Boohhe!” The man laughed with a chortle. “He pick you up with a limpet?”

“Right!” Xohn half-laughed with him.

The man’s laughter died down, and he snapped back to his serious tone. “What else do you know about Lee Sollinger?”

Xohn’s face dropped, and he sat quietly, thinking about how to respond. “He is a solitary man. He’s sharp. A good pilot. Resourceful. And he’s got a lot of experience in space. A few years back he used to mine this area with an older gentleman. I don’t know what he does now. Some sort of trader, I guess.”

“Is he friendly to Duryss Administration?”

“I don’t think so. But I don’t think he’s particularly friendly with anyone,” Xohn answered wryly.

“What about you? Stephenson went to much trouble to protect you. Will you help us? Help us bring Duryss down?”

“Who is ‘us’?” Xohn turned his head up toward the man standing above him.

“We’re Hyades Resistance, Master Xohn. I’m Tarrek Zyevsky. I’m part of HIP 20935 Resistance cell. I was asked to find out what you know and what side you play on.”

“I don’t play on a side. I’m an engineer, not a freedom fighter.”

“Everyone picks a side.”

“I’m not going to invent weapons. If that’s what you’re after.”

Tarrek shrugged, “That’s not up to me. I’m sure we find ways to use your expertise. Will you help us?”

“I will help how I can,” he said quietly. Then he quickly added, ”But no weapons!”

Tarrek nodded. “I’ll let General Warrick know and arrange quarters for you. A guard will escort you while I bring Sollinger in here for a chat.”

Xohn looked down and nodded. “And Jackson?”

“Oh, he cooperating fully now.”

“But he’s really working for Duryss?”

“It would seem, yes. He spilled everything. We learned about your invention. Attack at Glist 6 rings to get it. Hunt for you. Attack on Foden Dock. All of it.”

“He was behind the attack in Glist 6! You’re certain of it?” The realization dawned on him. Jackson helped kill Azera! His mind struggled to fully work that thought out.

“He was at least a part of it. Duryss was behind it all, I promise you that.” Tarrek backed into the darkness and rapped on the door.

Xohn felt a mix of emotions well up inside himself. He roiled with anger, disgust, and disappointment. He was furious, and yet he knew Jackson to be a nice enough person. He saved them from the fighters at Foden Dock. He helped recover the ThermARC. Was it all a ploy? A cover?

The heavy door scraped metal against metal as it opened. Tarrek said something to one of the guards outside the door.

Xohn stood up slowly. The mix of gravity and this new realization weighed on him. Jackson betrayed them.

***

They pulled Lee into a dark room, shoving him onto a chair below a solitary dim light. A heavy door slid shut, sealing off the compartment with a heavy scraping sound. The feeling of artificial gravity made his bones ache and his stomach queasy. He was still trying to readjust to the Coriolis pseudo-gravity.

How did he end up in this situation? All he wanted to do was install his new shields, score some good hauls to buy better weapons, and hunt down the scum that killed Vic. The black box from the Phoenix was supposed to put him that much closer to figuring out who was behind it all. But, again he found himself waiting to get justice for Vic. If only he could figure out how to get out of here.

He’d been locked up before. Back in Cooper City, he escaped lockup countless times. Credit skimming on a high-security station like Cooper City meant he ran up against law enforcement often. Back then, he was smaller and able to fit through atmospheric vents. That wasn’t going to work now.

He tried to scan the room, but there was nothing to see. The dim cone of light above him left the rest of the room in total darkness.

The heavy door scraped open again, and a looming, backlit figure took heavy magboot steps inside. Lee noticed the lack of maglock sounds; deck locking wasn’t necessary in the low gravity environment. Whoever it was stayed concealed in the darkness.

“Commander Sollinger.” The figure spoke with an old ruskin-like accent common among descendants of the ancient Russians of Earth. “You are bit of mystery man.”

“Who me?” Lee said.

“Hah. You thinking you funny guy.”

“Eh, looks aren’t everything.”

“Hah. Tell me about it.” The man leaned forward, and Lee recoiled from the sight.

“Ew, gross!” Lee recoiled. ”What the screb happened?”

“This what happens when you don’t cooperate,” the man said with a threatening tone. “Look, we spoke to your friends, Dekker and Xohn. We have good picture of what happened. All we need to know is where you stand with Duryss Administration. Who’s side are you on?”

“Oh, I try to avoid politics whenever possible, especially before whiskey.”

The disfigured man pressed impatiently, “Are you ally or enemy?”

“Neither. I’m on my own side.” Lee said.

“Oh, come now, Commander, you work Hyades region for long time now. You must have opinion.”

“Look, to each their own. They stay out of my business, I stay out of theirs.”

“Your friend Dekker work for them. What about you?”

“No, I told you, I work for me. Look, this is fun and all, but I really gotta get back to-”

The disfigured man shook his head, “That’s not how this works. You answer my questions. If we like answers, we let you go, if not,” he smiled an ugly-looking smile. “Then playtime for me.” He pulled the nearby cart with a tray of instruments into the light.

Lee flinched a bit before he could steel his nerves, “Kinky—but no. I don’t do politics, I don’t pick sides, and I only work for myself. So I couldn’t care less about Duryss or whatever he does.”

“But you work with Dekker. He work for Duryss.”

“Like I said, I couldn’t care less. Why would ‘who Dekker works for’ matter to me?”

“You know nothing about what Duryss Administration is doing out here?” The man sounded incredulous.

“I hear the GalNet reports. He’s trying to shore up some anti-Thargoid defenses or something. He’s just a politician trying to score points with people to hang on to power. That’s what politicians do. Big surprise.”

“Oh, tovarisch, this take all day.” The man took the beret off his head and rubbed his hand through the thick, dark hair on the right side of his head. The left side was more mangled flesh all the way up into his hairline.

Lee was revolted by the sparse hair growth out of the folds of discolored skin on the left side of his head. “Whoa, I can see why you wear the hat,” he remarked without thinking.

The ugly man twisted back away from Lee then drilled a right hook into the side of his face near his temple. A flash, then ephemeral stars danced in his vision before blackness took him.

When he came to, his mangled interrogator said softly, “That was for my brother—this his hat. I don’t wear it to cover up. I’m not embarrassed by my looks. I wear it to honor him.”

The headache clawed into him with a relentless grip, pain shooting from the side of his face. He could barely move his head, so he followed the figure of the man walking around him with his eyes.

“Who are you?” Lee managed to say. “What do you want?” He coughed, then winced from the pain that shot through his head.

“We are the Resistance.”

“Yeah, I heard about you guys.” It still took effort to move his jaw against the pain. ”Hyades Resistance. Militant terrorists, right?”

“Militant yes, but not terrorists. We’re not terrorizing people. Duryss is,” he spat.

“That’s,” Lee had to clear his throat. “Not how the news tells it.”

“Bah, reporters in this region are his pawns. Really tovarisch, you have no idea what’s going on out here, do you?”

Lee shrugged.

The man paced slowly in front of him.

“You want to know how I look like this?” He raised his mangled hand and thrust it in front of Lee’s face.

Lee couldn’t help but flinch back—a mix of reaction to being hit and recoiling from the disgust of the man’s twisted, melted skin.

“I tell you the story. Then you know why I fight against Duryss—why I fight with the Resistance.”

Lee rubbed at the side of his face and felt the swelling. “Guess I don’t have much choice. Mind getting me some ice while I sit here and listen?”

“You need learn to take a hit, tovarisch.” He grabbed a pack from the cart and crumpled it with his fingers, working it until it began to solidify. He quickly forced it to flatten back out and handed it over. Lee gently placed the pack up to his face.

The man paced around him, and his voice came out of the darkness from behind.

“Me and my priyatel,” he began softly in his stilted Ruskin-accent. “You would say, ’buddy’—served together in Sirius Navy. Part of their elite unit, Sirius Navy Wolf Pack. The Wolf Pack trained to be the best fighting force in the galaxy. We survived many battles together. On the battlefield, we became brothers. He saved,” his voice stopped abruptly. “He saved me more times than I can count. Then four years ago-”

“Oh come on tough guy, don’t get all weepy on me. I didn’t realize terrorists used sob stories to torture people,” Lee quipped.

The man spat, reared back his arm as if to strike, but held back, glaring at Lee. “You need to keep mouth shut and you might learn something.”

Lee held his smirk. At least he knew he was getting under the guy’s ugly skin.

The man dropped his arm and continued, “Four years ago, after Wolf pack discharge, we joined security force. We worked lots of guard jobs: VIP protection, courier guard—you name it. This job,” he wagged a finger while walking around Lee. “We hired by Duryss Administration and sent to GPT lab in 69 Up-Tau.”

“Like I know or care what a GPT lab is,” Lee mumbled.

“GPT—General Pharmaceutical Technologies in 69 Upsilon Tauri system, a biological research installation, one of Duryss’s secret assets. While intimidating these grazhdanin geneticists to get their job done, an experimental airborne pathogenic agent leaked out of quarantine. All we knew was it some sort of designer virus, death sentence if infected. I survived by grabbing a suit and spacing myself. I put the suit on while the nearby star fried this half my body. My priyatel didn’t make it.”

He pulled the beret back off of his head. Squeezing it tight in his hand, he held it up to Lee. “This all I have left of him. Duryss called it the ‘cost of security’. I vowed revenge against him and joined Resistance. So I ask you again,” he stood in front of Lee, looking him straight in the eye. “Are you ally or enemy?”

“I told you, neither. I just want left alone. None of it involves me, I don’t care what the guy does,” Lee shifted in the restraints.

“That’s not what I hear.”

Lee cocked his head, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I hear you lost a brother too.”

“Yeah, and I’d like to get back figuring out who was involved.”

“What if I told you I know someone involved?”

“How could you know?”

The man leaned over the cart of instruments; a knowing grin grew on one side. “Take wild guess.”

Lee scoffed and shook his head, “Torture. You’re a sick man.“

“The Resistance requires us to be resourceful. Whatever it takes.”

“Oh come on, torture?”

“When used correctly, it can be– useful tool. That’s how we found out about Duryss’s involvement in the operation that pulverized the ring in Glist 6 three years ago.”

Lee sat up straighter, his brow furrowing, “How do you know that? Where did you hear that?”

“A mutual friend.”

“What friend? Tell me!” He started to get up from the chair.

The man pulled him by the collar, forcing him back into his seat, then leaned close to his ear, “Oh, wait, that’s right, you go alone.” The man walked around in front of Lee, adjusting the beret, ”Well, maybe it’s time you had new friends to help you. You help us, we help you. What’s the score?”

“It’s an old story. A friend of mine was killed. I’d like to see justice served. Simple as that.”

“So, you do have friends. See, you and I are the same. You lost a friend, I lost a brother. Same, yes? Now we can be friends.”

“Look, friend, I don’t know you and–“

“Name’s Tarrek. Tarrek Zyevsky,” he interrupted.

Lee ignored him, “And I don’t really care to. Just tell me who it is and let us go. You can all have a great time going after Duryss, and–”

The man shook his head, chuckling to himself. “You don’t get it. Your friends joined us. Xohn volunteered. Dekker took some, let’s say convincing, to switch sides, but now they both with the Resistance.”

“You tortured him? What do you mean ‘switch sides’?”

“Oh, you didn’t know?”

“Know what?” Lee was at the limit of his patience. He knew he was being toyed with.

The man crossed his arms with a smug look on the side of his face that could look smug.

“Dekker worked for Duryss.”

“Yeah, I got that the first couple times you said that.”

“Sure, sure,” the man admitted. “But I didn’t tell you what he did for them.”

“Well, by all means don’t keep me hanging.”

“He worked escort for delivery of first anti-xeno defensive batteries installed on largest stations in region,”

“Wow, really? Who cares–”

“Then he joined operation to recover Xohn’s prototype.”

“What?” Lee snapped his head around to look at him.

Tarrek gave a single nod.

“You mean in Glist?” His mind tried to process it.

“Yes. He was part of the operation that pulverized the ring in Glist 6 three years ago.”

“Jackson Dekker? Jackson Dekker was at Glist 6?” He shot up from the chair.

That’s why Jackson had been so quiet when he brought up what happened to Vic and Azera! That distant stare. He was there! He already knew.

“That sack of biowaste listened to me, to Xohn knowing what happened, and didn’t say a word. That spineless coward!” Lee shouted.

“And Consular Duryss financed the operation.”

Lee gritted his teeth. His face turned to a vengeful snarl, cheeks twitching. The muscles in his neck tightened to the point his head began to quiver. Dekker and Duryss, it was right there all along, right in front of him.

He shot an arm out, pointing out toward the hall. Then, with a deadly gaze and a low voice of simmering rage, he uttered, “I want five minutes in a room with Jackson Dekker. Just five minutes. Give that to me. You do that—I’ll help the Resistance take down Duryss.”

Tarrek folded his arms with a slight smile visible in the dim light, and said, “Whatever it takes.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

His new hosts allowed Lee time to get some of his personal effects from the Nightcrawler. He grabbed his flight jacket and his personal datapad. While there, he also took the opportunity to make sure the Resistance goons didn’t mess around with his ship. Everything was as they left it. Even the redressed ThermARC, made to look like a battered module reinforcement, was still there.

After he’d dropped his things off in the bedroom, he paced the long window of the quarters he shared with Vin Xohn aboard the Athos. He and Xohn had their own bedrooms adjoining a common room. Although the quarters were spacious, they weren’t especially luxurious. The furnishings were functional, with little in the way of adornments.

His pacing picked up as his mood became more agitated knowing Vic’s murderer was so close. More maddening was being unable to do anything about it, so he paced about trying to work out a way to get Jackson.

Deep down, he knew he wasn’t going to get to confront him alone. The Resistance needed to protect their new informant. Besides, Tarrek undoubtedly knew what a man with a vendetta looked and sounded like. He admitted to himself that if he was in their shoes, he wouldn’t allow it either.

Still, Lee knew there had to be some way for him to see justice done. He wanted to witness Jackson suffering; to figure out whatever Jackson most cared about and rip it away from him. It was only fair.

A bright light, most likely from a distant ship, flashed in the jeweled blackness and caught his attention. It blinked in a way that reminded him of the twinkle in Vic’s eyes. It was the wink he’d give Lee after they pulled in a major haul, or made an especially large profit, or when Lee did something right.

The door of their quarters opened. Vin Xohn walked in with a nod toward Lee. “Are you okay, my friend?”

Lee nodded back but said nothing. Then he turned to stare back into the void.

“You know, Jackson is very sorry.” Xohn sat at the edge of one of the couches with his typical rigid posture. The light above him illuminated the tattoos across his bald head.

“You talked to him?”

Xohn gave a quick nod back.

“Doesn’t matter. He needs to pay.”

“He is paying.”

“How?” Lee threw his hand up with a sharp gesture. “By helping this Resistance?”

“He helped us. The people working for Duryss would have captured us if we hadn’t followed Jackson into this system.”

Lee scoffed.

“Back at the dock, he fought off those two ships. He also helped us with the ThermARC to retrieve it.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s paying for anything. Where’s the justice for the death of Vic, or Azera?” He paused to let it linger a bit more in Xohn’s mind, then added, “He needs to suffer.”

Xohn folded his hands behind him gazing out of the window. “He is doing these things to make up for his part in it. Atonement.” He looked back toward Lee. “It wasn’t just him. Twenty or thirty other pilots were part of it too, from the sound of it.”

“I don’t understand why you’re giving him a pass. How can you forgive him so easily?”

“Oh,” he sounded almost sad, “It is not easy. Not at all. But it is right.”

“Hmph,” Lee grunted back. “Now you sound like Vic.”

Xohn tilted his head with a curious look.

“He used to say things like that.” He gestured a hand toward Xohn and walked to sit at the companion couch. The seat was a little low, leaving his knees pushed at an awkward upward angle.

Staring out of the window, his hands at his knees, he continued, “He was always reminding me about doing the right thing. But you know what? He never really got around to helping me figure out how to know what that is.”

Lee paused, reflective. “He’d always tell me I ‘already knew it’ in my heart or some cryptic thing like that.”

Xohn gave a wan smile.

“It’s not fair, though. Life is a game without any rules. It happens to us no matter what we choose.”

Xohn’s face turned serious, and he spoke in a quiet voice that uncannily sounded like Vic, with a different accent. “You’re right, Lee. It is possible to do all the right things and still, bad things happen. That’s life.”

Lee looked down at the floor, and could hear Vic’s voice again. “Yeah, he’d tell me that too.” He did his best impression of Vic’s accent, “Life isn’t fair, kid. You change what you can to make some good in this universe and deal with everything else like the rest of us.”

Xohn pointed, “Yes, that is it exactly. That is how you know you’re doing the right thing. When you make the universe a better place.”

“Is that what Jackson was doing when he blew up Vic and Azera?”

Xohn sighed. “No, of course not. He made a terrible mistake. He’s young and just wants to make his mark in the galaxy. It was an honest mistake.”

“An honest mistake? It cost innocent lives. There’s nothing honest about that.”

“And now he lives with it.”

“And he needs to suffer with it.”

“He is suffering!”

A noise at the door panel indicated a visitor outside their quarters. He and Xohn both turned to look at the doorway and stood up.

“We’ll have to pick this up later,” Lee said as he headed for the door.

He pressed a button on the panel. The door opened to reveal the deformed face of Tarrek accompanied by an older man in a decorated uniform with a familiar look. It had the look of Sirius Navy but with alterations and different adornments.

“I’m sorry for intrusion. May we come in?” Tarrek greeted them.

“Sure, why not? It’s your place,” Lee gestured them in. They entered to stand just inside the door.

“Commander Sollinger, Master Vin Xohn,” Tarrek addressed them with a formal tone. Then he turned to the rather scraggly looking uniformed man beside him. His hair was white, wrapping from his crown around a sizable bald spot at the top of his head all the way down to his bushy beard. “I’d like you to meet General Ty Warrick.”

“Warrick, the Warlock?” Lee’s eyes bulged a bit. Everyone in the Hyades knew the tale.

“Or Warlord,” Warrick interrupted, his voice had an almost bellowing growl to it, “depending on what wanker you talk to and which vackin’ story they tell.”

“Is it true that–” Lee started.

Warrick interrupted, “Yessir, about vackin’ all of it’s true. I trust you’ve been settling well?”

Xohn came toward the door, “Yes, thank you for your hospitality, General.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks for the upgrade to a better cell,” Lee remarked sarcastically.

“It wasn’t my hospitality or my cell. That was the Captain’s doings. But, I can easily arrange the cells again.”

“Or, how about you let me leave?”

“I don’t give a flying ship if you leave now or later. But you understand what’s happening out here, doncha Commander? What Duryss is really doing out here? What we’re trying to accomplish?”

“I get the gist. You want to bring Duryss down, and you’re willing to torture people who don’t think your way. No thanks.”

“Look, son, we’re in a fight for the freedom of trillions of citizens living in the Hyades.”

“Wonderful General, leave me out of it. I have my own fight with a particular pilot you’re holding.”

“Yes, and as I understand it, you want a few minutes with our ‘pilot’ to sort some biowaste out.”

“Five.”

“Huh?”

“I said I want five minutes alone with him.”

“Alright, five. If,” he held up a finger. “If afterward, you sit down with the Captain and me to hear what’s at stake out here.”

“Alone?”

“Now ya know we can’t allow that. We gotta keep things calm, so no one gets out of hand.”

“Look, Warlock,” the General’s face hardened at the familiar tone, “General Warlock,” Lee corrected himself. “Look, you don’t need the guards. I’m not a fighter. You can watch us and send the guards in if things go south.”

“At least two guards will stay with Commander Dekker.”

Lee started to protest further, but the General held up a hand, “Two guards. Take it, or leave it. If you want any kind of confrontation with Dekker, you’ll have to accept it. Otherwise, you might as well get back on your ship and take off now.”

“Lee, I think you should accept it,” Xohn interjected.

Lee shot a glare at Xohn. Then the argument on his face shifted to disappointment. “Fine,” he backed down.

“Very well. Tarrek,” the General turned toward the soldier standing alert beside him. “Make the arrangements. After that’s all settled, we’ll meet in the briefing room at 2200.”

“Yes, General,” Tarrek acknowledged and headed out of the quarters.

Warrick made his way toward the door at a slow pace. “Play well with Dekker, Commander. Decent pilots are hard to find out here. It’s better for everyone if we all make this work.”

Lee kept his face neutral. “I’m not making any promises.”

***

He paced back and forth in the conference room, waiting for them to drag Jackson in. He wanted justice. Blood for blood—it was only fair.

The soft echo of Vic reminded him, Don’t get even, get ahead. He promptly tried to shove the thought aside. Jackson would pay for his part. What does ‘get ahead’ even mean? How do you get ahead of a murderer?

Vic left his little quips without much explanation most of the time. Lee supposed it was Vic’s way of giving him the space to work them out on his own. It annoyed him every time.

Then, as if to remind himself what he was here for, he remembered the sight of finding Vic, mangled and lifeless in the upper cockpit. The sliced open forward canopy evidence of the asteroid chunks that eviscerated him. The right side of his body more mangled than the left, flash-frozen in the vacuum of space. But, the sight he never forgot was the freeze-dried blood that streaked from his eyes like tears.

He heard clanking noises outside the room. Magboots—they were close. He drew a long breath to prepare, but it didn’t help his agitation.

The door to the room slid open. Jackson stood with two others behind him. He stepped inside the threshold of the room with his head downcast. The two guards pushed past him and took up posts in the corners of the room. They let Lee have his five minutes in the ring with Jackson, but only under guard. Jackson, turned traitor to Duryss, was now an asset to the Resistance. The fact that anyone was willing to protect scum like him disgusted Lee in the pit of his gut.

The doors closed behind them. Lee could make out crisscrossing cuts on Jackson’s face. He felt robbed of taking part in that justice too.

Jackson turned to walk to the other end of the room to put the long conference table between them. He stopped and turned to face Lee, his head still held downward. Jackson stood there quietly, as he’d done on the Para Bellum.

Lee’s anger seethed.

Since he made it his mission to hunt Vic’s murderer down, he waited and worked for this moment. It took all his personal savings to refit the Nightcrawler into a working ship again. It took even more to upgrade it for a confrontation he’d hoped to have in the black, ship-to-ship. Standing here, staring in the face someone who was there, who was part of the attack, was something he didn’t think he could have hoped for.

Jackson stammered, “Lee, I’m– Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to–”

“Don’t,” Lee said in quiet anger. “You don’t get to be sorry.”

“I mean, I am, though. I know–”

“You don’t! You don’t know!” It burst out of him. Jackson’s stuttering enraged Lee all the more. ”You don’t know the lives you took—the lives you ruined.”

“None of us knew…” Jackson’s voice trailed off in thought.

“Knew you were murdering innocent people?”

“It was a contract! It was a job!”

“Vack! You really are all sorts of stupid, aren’t you?”

Jackson stayed silent.

“Contracts have warnings and disclaimers. The Pilot’s Federation requires it. You know, the part that says ‘these actions might be considered illegal in some jurisdictions.’ That part? You take contracts without reading them?”

“Come off it, Lee, no one ever reads the whole thing. We’re pilots, not lawyers.”

Lee put his arms out and leaned on the conference table in front of him. He kept his eyes on the tabletop, “And I suppose you zoned out during the mission briefing too?” He raised his head to look at Jackson.

“No!”

“Then you knew what you were getting into.”

“Well, we knew we were getting special ordinance, but they said we wouldn’t use it unless we needed to.”

“Let me get this straight, you loaded unknown ordinance onto your ship?”

“We all did,” he shrugged.

“You what?” Lee reeled backward and half-laughed in disbelief.

“We were told they were some special kind of rock-busting missiles, that’s all. Literally, it was required by the contract.”

“You didn’t even question it,” Lee glared.

“For the record, the contract was signed,” Jackson shrugged. “Breaking a contract risks your reputation. Honestly, you know that.”

“Yeah, we can’t have that now, can we,” Lee muttered.

“Well, if I’m perfectly honest, not one from Sietae! Not from Duryss.”

Lee scoffed. The room was silent. The guards stayed motionless in their stationary readiness stances. Jackson stood behind the table.

“You have blood on your hands that can’t be washed clean by hiding behind Duryss!” He spat.

“Okay. But, I mean, what can I do about that now?” Jackson’s eyes narrowed.

All Lee could think about was the trails of missiles, and his anger grew. Remembering the explosions, his rage burned. His mind saw the rocky debris cutting everything; the Nightcrawler canopy split in half. But, it was the thought of the crimson tears that ran from Vic’s dead eyes that pushed him over the edge. His fury overtook him. He gripped one of the chairs in front of him, standing there frozen. Before he could think it, before anyone in the room could react, in a single fluid motion, he pulled the chair out from the table and launched it at Jackson.

With a late reaction, the guards both sprang to intercept the flying metal-framed missile. Jackson instinctively moved to dodge. In the commotion, Lee leaped over the table and lunged at Jackson.

The chair finished its journey completely missing the intended target. Instead of hitting Jackson, it seemed to float upward to hit the wall above, close to the ceiling. The Coriolis-effect gravity affected its trajectory relative to the room’s motion. The nearly straight-line course of the chair stayed above head height owing to the spin of the habitat rings.

His lunge went differently. He didn’t have near enough force and landed on the guards as they tried to intercept his projectile chair. He tried to fight through them, desperate to reach Jackson. He grunted with effort but made no progress. He cried out, using every bit of his strength to cut through the guards.

“Murderer!” He spat with hatred in his breath and spittle flying from his mouth. “You worthless excuse for a pilot… for a human being!” His cursing turned to crying, “He was a simple rock-dog! He never hurt anyone!”

The guards pulled him back across the table even as he fought. They threw him back to his feet and returned to Jackson, making hand signals as they went.

“I’ll… I’ll make it up to you, somehow, Lee… Okay? I will!” Jackson shouted back as the guards grabbed his arms and took him from the room.

Lee slumped back against the wall before sliding down to the floor into his anguish. For the first time since he’d lost Vic, he grieved for his old friend.

***

A few hours later, Lee found himself in another room with a conference table. At least this room had a view. There was a window with the gem strewn Milky Way that hung like a painting. At the other end was a holo display. Xohn and Lee sat waiting for others to make their way in. The chairs were more comfortable—softer, more padding. Not worth throwing at someone if you happened to be so inclined, Lee noted.

Tarrek was there and stood behind a seat, his hands holding the back of it. The door opened to a woman in the same altered Sirius Navy uniform for the Resistance. General Warrick followed her in with a couple of guards and Jackson Dekker. Lee shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Warrick began to speak as he approached a chair, “Commander Sollinger, did you work out your chyt?”

The others took positions behind chairs at the table. Jackson made sure to place himself as far away from Lee as possible.

Lee said between gritted teeth, “Almost.”

“What’s this I hear about a flying chair?”

“Well, you know, General, some people just need a high five… to the face; with a chair.” He gave a glance at Jackson, who tilted his head as if in agreement.

“Ahh,” Warrick cocked his head. “Well, how about we give you a new battlefield for all that angst of yours.”

“Doubtful, General. You gave me five minutes. I’ll give you the same before I launch myself away from all this.”

Warrick nodded, “Fair. But before we begin, I’d like you to meet Captain Kya Becke. She commands the Athos.”

“Oh, so you’re not actually in charge around here!” Lee commented mockingly.

Warrick gave a wry grin through his bushy silver beard. “I’m General of the HIP 20935 Resistance cell. We are one of many cells operating across systems in the Hyades. I handle our strategic campaigns, she handles the tactical affairs commanding the Athos and the local fleet.”

“Thanks for the quarters, Captain. And, not blowing us up when we arrived,” Lee gave her a playful wink.

“Of course, Commander. Our mission is to save people,” she said with a firm, authoritative voice.

Lee felt his eyes roll, “Yeah, alright.” He made a quick gesture with his hand, “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Please try to keep an open mind, Commander. We only want you to see the truth of what’s really going on out here,” Captain Becke responded.

“He doesn’t follow politics,” Tarrek offered.

Lee frowned. “Politics is for biowaste nuggets.”

“Right, well, let’s get down to it,” the General replied. “Approximately four or five years ago, Alden Duryss shows up out of nowhere, appointed by Li Yong-Rui as CEO of the Sietae Federal Corp., making him governor of the Hyades region for Sirius Gov.”

Lee gave a quick nod in acknowledgment.

“Since his arrival, he shoved his anti-xeno politics against any opposition. Worked too. It gave him political traction.”

“Anti-Thargoid, you mean? I thought we all hated or at least feared the Thargoids?”

Captain Becke chimed in, “Those of us that have encountered them know to be wary and give them a wide berth.”

The General continued, “His anti-xeno politics turned into a campaign. He lead a massive effort to add new defensive capabilities to stations and installations throughout the Hyades.”

Lee looked dubious. “Right, so defending our populations against alien attack seems like a good thing. Am I missing something?”

“We’re getting to that, Commander,” Tarrek jumped in, looking slightly annoyed. Although, perhaps it was his normal face since half of it was stuck in a drooping scowl.

“Hey, guys. Clock’s ticking—where are the crimes against humanity?”

“You want vackin’ crimes, Commander?” General Warrick adjusted his shoulders. “Crimes in office are what a vacktard does. Duryss is smarter than that—he hides his actions behind good intentions. He built his campaign for new defenses and vowed to bring in the best and brightest to design the new defensive systems. It brought a flood of migrants to the region, particularly Imperials.”

“Well, that’s who I’d call, General, they have the cutting edge research and moral ambiguity,” Lee remarked with casual indifference.

“Indeed, and answer the call they did, son. There are more Imperials in this region than ever before. Almost two-to-one today compared to any others out here.”

Warrick poured himself a glass of water from a carafe on the table and continued. “It started with R&D contracts handed to Imperial companies. He was desperate for breakthroughs—desperate enough to go after technology illegally. You gotta admire the man’s testicular fortitude. He outright killed to get his hands on Master Xohn’s tech.”

Lee shot a glance across the table at Jackson, who acknowledged it with a nod. Although he wouldn’t admit it out loud, hearing how Duryss’s political maneuverings lead to Vic’s death made him reconsider Jackson’s guilt. Jackson’s pathetically dumb stare helped too.

Lee and Warrick both knew five minutes had come and gone. He poured himself some water, then gestured to General Warrick, “Okay, I’m listening.”

Warrick cleared his throat, but the growling voice was still there. “Eighteen months ago, the game changed, and it turned to massive investment in producing all the new station-mounted AX defensive turrets. Economies in the region boomed. Duryss took the credit, but all the while, the timetables, the pressure to deliver, forced mandatory overtime across the manufacturing industry. Workers that took time off, or that got sick were replaced by…”

“More Imperials,” Tarrek spat.

“More Imperials,” Warrick repeated, finishing his thought. “We even have evidence of Imperials receiving government subsidies to relocate. Hell, they get larger unemployment payments than any other citizen in the region. And then they started replacing the workforce. We heard story after story of people losing their jobs. All the while, businesses were more profitable than ever, and Duryss… He rakes in all the taxes and who knows what under the table money. He’s at fancy dinner parties wining and dining for the next contract. And the average citizen and families suffer.”

Captain Becke jumped in, “You see Commander, there is a real humanitarian crisis happening. A subtle immigrant takeover funded by the government. Regular folks that want to work but can’t because of Duryss’s policies. Families and lives are being destroyed.”

“What about the worker’s unions? Aren’t they supposed to be fighting for their workforce?” Lee asked.

She answered, “Duryss wouldn’t negotiate. Anyone standing against him he painted as a xeno-lover. Or, he made them out to the press as caring more about money than about saving lives.”

Warrick’s growl somehow became even lower, “He built a perfect political shield to keep his agenda moving forward.”

Becke continued. “When negotiations weren’t possible, the people turned to protests. That’s when it turned ugly. Demonstrations, protests, then riots. Then the blowback—he used private militia to put down any demonstrations.”

“What?” Lee scoffed in disbelief. “None of this has been on GalNet.”

“Exactly,” Warrick groused. “And that’s the game. And he owns it. He owns the industry. He owns the media. He owns the people.”

Lee thought about it a moment before shaking his head. “Look, I don’t like any of it. He’s obviously a bastard. But what do you want somebody like me for? I mean, really. Why go to these lengths to convince me?”

“Lee, look, can I call you Lee?” Warrick quickly asked.

Lee shrugged and nodded.

“Lee, you have skill, and you have a good ship, and you have an advantage that no one else has. The Resistance needs you, and needs that advantage.”

It took him a moment to realize what the General was inferring. Lee looked over at Xohn. “Aw, man, you told them about the thing?”

Xohn leaned forward, “Duryss must be fought. The goons trailing me for the last three years of my life were sent by him. Azera is dead because of him. All of it must stop. He must be stopped.”

“Lee,” Xohn looked him straight in the eyes. “Everyone on Foden Dock was arrested by Duryss private military. The media painted the entire attack as a terrorist take over of the outpost that Duryss liberated. We have to fight back.”

“We need you to fight back,” Warrick added.

The realization hit him that Zee and Dex were jailed for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A feeling that had been tucked away in the back of his mind rose to the forefront. It was guilt—the guilt of leaving Dex and Zee behind. It gnawed at him. He tried to rationalize it away—tried to remind himself that he wasn’t responsible for them, but the guilt still remained. As much as he protested that none of this involved him, he couldn’t avoid it.

He hated getting entangled with others, but he hated the injustice more. That was the score he set out to settle for Vic after all. Maybe if he played his cards right he could use the Resistance. If he could convince them to fix up and finish the upgrades to his ship…

That could work out nicely, he thought to himself, if they believe I’m really on their side. It just took the right amount of “selling it” to get them to believe he bought into their movement.

“Vack!” Lee shouted and smacked the table hard enough, Jackson and Xohn both jumped. Then he downed his glass of water and looked across the table at the General, Captain Becke, and Tarrek. With a tone of relented defeat, he slumped back in his chair, “Alright, fine. I’m in.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Alden Duryss threw his napkin at the table in front of him. “You know, Mr. Ardevol, I was just beginning to enjoy your company. As lovely as this dining experience has been, you know that’s not good enough.”

The lanky, gray-haired man across the table sat up and squared his shoulders. “Then we will need to find a compromise, Consular. The workers cannot maintain this pace. The Union is threatening to strike. We’ve already raised overtime wages to the limit of what our board will allow.” His voice had grown loud enough that heads of other diners turned in the direction of their private booth. He stressed in a quieter voice, “We must maintain profitability.”

Duryss remained unfazed. He looked around, taking in the tasteful decor of the restaurant in which they dined. It had a boorishly upscale ambiance that looked much like any other high-end restaurant of this backwater Hyades region. It lacked the opulent creature comforts he enjoyed in Imperial restaurants. The Imperials knew upscale interior design like no one else. “If Energy Interstellar cannot meet the demand, I know of a dozen Imperial manufacturers that can supply the composites. They have access to a workforce that can deliver sufficient quantity,” Duryss paused. Then added, “…and on time.”

“Well, of course, they have a slave labor force.” Ardevol sounded exasperated.

“Indentured servants,” Duryss corrected patiently.

“Whatever you call them, we have no hope of competing against that.”

Duryss took the glass of dark violet Caelian Whiskey in front him, then swirled it below his nose to sample the nutty aroma. It was potent. There was, however, a delightful hint of vanilla. After a small sip, he placed the glass back on the table and interlaced his fingers.

“Mister Ardevol, I brought this deal to Energy Interstellar in the hopes of keeping economic growth here, in the Hyades. It is still my preference. But, if you cannot meet the demand, I’m forced to look elsewhere. We cannot risk any delays to the AX defense program due to component shortfalls. You’ll either get your workers to work, or find new workers that will.” Duryss watched Keto Ardevol shift uncomfortably in his seat.

“You’re asking us to take a loss.”

“I’m asking for you to grow a backbone and force your workers’ union to the table. Make a deal.”

Ardevol shook his head in disbelief. “The Union reps have made it clear they will fight any production rate increases in formal grievance proceedings.”

“Then it’s a simple misunderstanding.” Duryss smiled. “Quite easy to resolve.”

The thin framed man perked an eyebrow at the comment. “What would you have us do?”

“It’s a simple matter of helping them understand the stakes. More hours to meet the new production rate targets, or they lose their jobs.”

Adervol gasped at the insinuation. “Consular! I cannot believe you would suggest… It’s… That’s entirely improper! We will not break Sirius Law. We would be liable for–”

“My dear Keto, I’m not suggesting you terminate employees who refuse more hours.” Duryss calmly picked up his glass of whiskey and swirled it in front of him. “I know your market position. If your company loses this contract, Energy Interstellar files bankruptcy and closes the doors. Everyone loses—you, the union, the workers, their families… The citizens.” The open mouth gape of his counterpart confirmed his suspicion. He took a large sip and savored it—the delicious taste of victory. “You don’t want that. I don’t want that.”

A look of resignation fell across Ardevol’s wrinkled face. He’d been outmaneuvered, and he knew it. Duryss could see it all over him. “We’ll increase the production rate and honor the terms of the contract. Somehow I’ll make the union understand.”

Duryss nodded in appreciation and stood to make his way out. “Fabulous! I knew we could arrive at an understanding.” He extended his hand to the scrawny Energy Interstellar representative. Keto Ardevol stood up and shook it in the old art of an honorary deal.

“This has turned into a delightful evening indeed. I particularly enjoyed the roasted kurrin.” He picked up his drink and downed the remaining Caelian Whiskey.

“It is a revered delicacy here in Chelum. Boswell Hub has the best in the system.” Keto said, still looking and sounding stunned from the agreement he entered. He walked with Duryss to the front of the restaurant with aides beside each of them. “I will convince our people that it’s in all our best interests to deliver on schedule. Consular, thank you for making the trip. I do hope you can visit us again.”

It sounded anything but sincere to Duryss, but he ignored it. He got what he came for. “As do I,” he replied. “It is a wonderful installation you have here. I’d hate to see the Thargoids lay waste to it. Once Boswell Hub is outfitted with new AX turrets, you’ll have safeguarded the investments your people have made here. I’d love to return for a longer stay. Please give my thanks to your staff for their exemplary hospitality. Sadly, there is no time on this trip for sightseeing. I wish you well. For now, I must return to business on Sietae.”

“Of course, Consular,” Ardevol bowed his head.

With his entourage gathering beside him, Duryss made his way to the exit. The guards led the way out of the low-lit atmosphere of the restaurant into the bright upper-class neighborhood of the habitat ring. The light of the red star in the distance came through the enormous transparent metal covering of the habitation ring.

There was a large group of people gathered outside. It was a mix of supporters and small pockets of protestors outside the restaurant. At the front of the crowd, several reporters were angling to try to intercept them.

His guards pushed through the crowd, creating space for him to move through. A reporter on his left shoved a datapad at him and shouted, “Consular Duryss, can we get a comment about the Thargoid incursions closing into Hyades?” The young woman was pushing against others, trying to get her datapad positioned to record a quote.

Her tenacity caught his attention, and the question gave him a perfect opportunity to address the crowd at large. “Yes. The reports are accurate, and they have pushed closer and closer. That’s why my defense initiatives are vital. I want every citizen to know their government is doing everything it can to protect our way of life against Thargoid incursions.”

A mix of cheers and boos erupted from the crowd.

“Thank you, Consular. And what do you say to opponents that believe you’re only using the crisis to boost corporate profits?”

“I say: look at their arguments. They admit to the crisis, then spin the story to profits. It can’t be all about profit. Look at my record. Yes, in the past three years, my administration has turned a sleepy economy into a boom; a boom the likes of which hasn’t been seen here since the mining rush at the end of the last millennium. And it is the people, the workers, that enjoy higher wages, more development, more business. At the same time, we’ve been able to outfit a third of the largest stations in this region with new defensive capabilities. We’ve seen the damage the Thargoids are capable of inflicting on installations. We’re protecting our investments in this region to have a safer society that is resilient to attack from any aggressor. Thank you for your questions, that’s all the time I have for now.”

“Consular! Consular! Please, one more question. Just one more…”

He stopped to wait for it, in case it was something he could use.

“What do you make of Hyades Resistance attacks in the region?”

“They are terrorists hell-bent on tearing down all the work and investment that our citizens and I are building together.”

“What about their allegations that your administration is partnering with Imperial corporations to undermine the independent workforce in the Hyades?” The reporter shoved the datapad out.

His temperature and blood pressure rose. His mind raced to find a way to spin her question. “You want me to comment on the accusations of terrorists? Look, we’re working for a better, safer future. I’ll take any partner that will help with that goal.” The reporter had a dubious, unbelieving look about her.

“Trust me,” he continued, smiling at finding the word path out of her cornering question. ”I prefer to work with local industry for construction and fabrication whenever possible. I came from a meeting where I rescued a contract that was going to Imperials, and these terrorists want to accuse me? Do us all a favor, stop listening to terrorists, and report the facts, Miss… ?”

“So, you deny playing favorites to Imperials?” She didn’t take his bait to give up her name as he’d hoped. She was sharp.

He decided a play to the people would be the most effective way to shut down her line of questioning. “We govern a mix of Federal, Imperial and independent citizens in the Hyades. My administration maintains corporate governance with strict adherence to the Sirius Conventions. Our mission is the prosperity of all citizens, regardless of their loyalties.”

“Then how do you explain the record-breaking earnings of Imperial companies? Quarterly statements show independent and Federal corporations are nowhere near the same levels.”

“It’s no secret. Smarter management, cheaper labor, and better facilities in most cases.”

The look of frustration on her face was quite satisfying.

Then an aide leaned in to whisper into his ear, “Consular, we must make it to the ship to stay on schedule.”

“Fine, but I want someone on this reporter. Find out who she is, who she’s been talking to, and what she’s been reporting on.”

The aide nodded and moved back into the rest of the group.

“Thank you, folks. Together we will keep Hyades safe and prospering!”

Duryss pointed to his guards with a gesture toward the transit center. His big bodied guards pushed through the crowd making space for Duryss and his entourage. Although they encountered mixed groups of supporters and protesters, there were no other interruptions along the walkway.

At the transit center, they picked up a monorail shuttle to the docks. Duryss immediately went to his office aboard a gleaming white Dolphin cruiser. Purchased from an Imperial shipyard, it was outfitted with every amenity. The decor had the telltale ostentatiousness of the Empire. No sooner had he settled in and turned on his desk console when the door chime chirped.

He sighed, “Come!”

The door opened to reveal one of his aides. A mature woman with hair dyed a deep purple color.

“Ahh, Melinda. Come in, come in.”

She entered with a purposeful step, carrying a datapad.

“You have something for me?”

“Yes, sir,” she handed him the datapad.

He put on his glasses and scanned the screen. It was a profile of the reporter he met on the street.

“Well, well. Trisha Hinsley. She has been a little busybody, hasn’t she?”

“So it would seem,” Melinda replied. “You’ll find the most interesting topics in the GalNet Reporting section.”

“Yes, indeed,” his mood turned sour. “She’s been sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

The notes showed GalNet database queries for the disappearance of Senator Draden’s missing son, Sylus.

“She’s been looking into your communication with Senator Draden’s office.” There was concern in Melinda’s voice, no doubt afraid the news would upset him.

“Yes, I see.” He drew a breath. “She’ll need to be dealt with. Who do we have that can pick her up?”

“I can file a mission for a merc.”

“No, I don’t want this on the books.”

“Ahh, well, if that’s the case, then I think Colonel Reeves is the obvious choice.”

“Mmm… yes. Though there is the matter of her string of failures.”

Melinda shrugged. “Our other assets are all tied up in operations against the Resistance.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” He adjusted in his seat and considered the matter. Reeves had been a source of much disappointment of late. So much so that he was forced to put her on temporary leave. “Very well. Get me Colonel Reeves. She is out of chances. Perhaps this opportunity will properly motivate her to deliver.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll put in the call.”

“Thank you, dear. That’ll be all.”

Dismissed, she left the office, leaving Duryss to consider his tenuous position. He knew it wouldn’t do to dwell on worry. The situation required decisive action.

He picked the datapad back up and stared at the reporter’s photo. Her long auburn hair framed a youthful face with striking amber eyes. The more he studied the image, the more it gave him a nostalgic reaction.

The photo reminded him of someone he once spent time with. What was her name? He couldn’t remember.

She was a sad story of a once beautiful creature that destroyed herself. He had used his easy-to-acquire drug stock on unsuspecting dates. It became an addiction that destroyed her beauty and her entire personality. Used up, he dumped her for fresh pursuits.

Whatever happened to her? He wondered. Her and her boy. Try as he might he couldn’t remember their names. It must have been the drugs, but that was from another lifetime of partying.

A departure tone sounded in the ship. After a short delay it jolted around him. The landing pad moved them into position for launch. He strapped himself in, readying himself for the loss of gravity.

A second tone sounded before the distant thunking of the mooring clamps released. The ship departed the station, Viper escort in tow. Duryss glanced back at the datapad, looking again at the photo of the reporter and saw the memory of the woman staring back at him. A moment later he caught a flash outside his peripheral marking their jump into hyperspace.

A tone indicated a call coming through. He tapped the console in front of him, and a holofac visage of Colonel Reeves appeared.

“Consular Duryss,” Colonel Reeves had a tentative, uncertain greeting for him.

“Colonel, I have an opportunity to redeem yourself,” he held up the datapad. “That is, if you’re interested in reinstatement.”

”Of course, sir!” She appeared to straighten a bit more at the news.

“Now, understand Colonel—this is it. No more chances. If you fail me in this, I will ensure you never work again.”

“I understand,” she responded, an earnest, committed look on her face. “What’s the mission, sir?”

“The problem is a junior GalNet reporter nosing into my business where she shouldn’t.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need her taken off the board, quietly. I’m sending you her bio now. We just departed HIP 21280. You’ll find her on Boswell Hub.”

“With lethal force?”

“No. I want her interrogated. Find a charge you can stick to her and bury her in a penal facility.”

“It would be helpful if I can make use of the Decimator again.”

“Yes, of course. Use whatever resources you deem necessary. Just get it done. I expect to hear from you when I arrive on Emen.”

“It will take at least a day to get the Decimator crew assembled and the ship ready for launch.”

“I’m aware. You need to make every moment count. The longer she is out there, the higher the risk for her to undermine our work and empower the Resistance.”

“I’ll get it done, sir. I swear it.”

“I certainly hope so. It is beyond me why I should trust my most important work to someone who continues to fail me. The fact that you’ve been my most trusted military advisor these past few years is the only reason you have this chance.”

“I understand. Thank you, sir. I will complete the mission and earn back your faith and trust, Consular.”

He nodded. “That will be a welcome change, Colonel. Assemble your crew. Good hunting.” He tapped the console to sever the connection. The glowing amber image of Reeves in a salute faded from the holofac display.

The game was underway. He could expect the Senator to begin making his moves soon. He needed that reporter. It wasn’t just to stop her investigation, but as a possible pawn to play against the Senator.

The meeting on Boswell Hub put his plan against the Senator into motion. Energy Interstellar would provide the needed raw components in enough quantity that his team could siphon a small enough amount off of each delivery. As long as they took less than the regular compliance failure rate, no one would be the wiser.

The schematics taken from the engineer’s own databanks on Maia meant they could begin building their own version of the prototype. Only the formulas were missing. His teams had been working on that piece of the puzzle for some time. They had already achieved a partial success. All he needed was enough to provide a convincing enough demonstration to the Senator.

He tapped his console to place a call to the project’s lead engineer. The wait for an answer took an excessive amount of time, testing his already short patience.

“Consular? What- what can I do for you?” It looked as if the man had been in a deep sleep and was still trying to get his wits about him.

“Chief Larenz, I need an update on the prototype conversion models.”

“Conversion models? Oh yes, the thermoelectric models- yes, sir. I can pull them up.”

“I just need to know how long the current models show our fabrications can maintain operation.”

“Right.” The glowing amber display shifted with the apparent movement of the man rising from his bed. “Let me walk into the study and read the latest reports for you.”

The display wavered and distorted as the man’s torso moved about. It finally settled, and the man added a pair of spectacles to his face. He squinted while presumably looking at a terminal screen. The holofac display only showed his disembodied head and shoulders floating above the display projector on the desktop.

“It appears our last tests show 7.8 minutes. We’re running new algorithms to search for other possible parameters. There is a strong belief we can deliver up to twenty-five minutes before heat buildup and degradation of power.”

“Twenty-five minutes would be exemplary, Chief. Can you guarantee that number?”

“It’s only theoretical, Consular.“

“What will it take to get it to twenty minutes?” Duryss pressed for a more doable figure.

The Chief moved his glasses and rubbed at his eyes as if still trying to get the sleep out while thinking about the question. “It’s a matter of permutations. We’re running the search algorithms as fast as we can. Even with machine learning models, we’ve got to eliminate millions of possible parameter combinations.” He moved his glasses back into proper position on his face. “We’d need to bring more labs online. We need more processing power.”

“I see. I’ll dispatch the Vilant. You can use the extra processing and assistants on board to spread the workload.”

“Yes, sir, that should do nicely. Thank you for the extra resources.”

“In the meantime, we’re nearing the last hour. I need this done without a moment to spare. Perhaps you should be working instead of sleeping.”

“Sir, it’s 0250 here, I’ve been– we’ve been putting in all-nighters for the past week. We all need…”

Duryss slammed a fist on his desktop, “You all need to get the work done! Rest when it’s over.”

The Chief looked stunned. “Yes, Consular. I’ll– I’ll wake the staff.”

“Thank you, Chief. Good day.”

He disconnected the call with a tap on the console then smacked his hands together in excitement. Twenty minutes was more than enough to provide an effective demonstration. The prototype was the pivotal piece in the game for both sides.

The Senator wouldn’t make his move until his fleets were outfitted with the device. Delivering a partially working module was the perfect countermove. The emboldened Senator would hastily move his fleet only to have the modules fail while the fleets are deep into the wrong territory. His fleets exposed, Duryss could use the new regional defenses and militia to bring down the Senator’s fleet.

The possibility of becoming a hero by the Hyades people, perhaps even by Li Yong-Rui himself, enthralled him. The Senator, ruined by his own plan, would find himself disgraced—his Patrons forced to abandon him. Ultimately history would remember Senator Draden as a failure.

With his arms on his desk and his hands folded below his chin, a smile took over his face. Beating an Imperial Senator at his own game was a triumph to celebrate. He watched the colors swirl outside the window as they continued hopping from system to system.

Reveling in his plans, he muttered under his breath to himself, “May the best man win.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lee was relieved. A brief trip to the little boy’s vac-tube helped immensely. It must have been all that water. Listening to Resistance leaders pissed off about Duryss made him thirsty. Or, maybe it was the worry in the back of his mind that they’d see through him.

He arrived back at the briefing room to an argument between General Warrick and Tarrek.

“What are we vackin’ doing out here?” Warrick shouted at Tarrek.

“Bringing Duryss down,” Tarrek snarled back.

Warrick put his arms on the table forcefully. “Exactly! We can’t wage a front-on assault, even if we bring every cell together. If the other cells happen to be as well equipped as we are—and I doubt it—there’s no way to go up against a fleet of trained Sirius Navy military and survive. We have to be smarter. Strategic.”

Lee took a seat and jumped into the conversation, “Wait, you guys don’t know what the other Resistance cells have?”

“Of course not. Each Resistance cell is isolated to protect the movement,” Captain Becke explained to Lee. “If every group knew the strength and organization of the entire Resistance, we would have been wiped out by now.”

“Wow. You really are like terrorists,” Lee said without thinking.

“We are not terrorists!” Tarrek snapped. “We’re a citizen militia. Didn’t you say, ’you’re in’?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a terrorist now, too, I guess.”

Tarrek sighed and shook his head.

“The question is, how is Duryss stopped for good?” Xohn asked, trying to bring the conversation back on topic.

“Our strategy so far, has been skirmishes throughout the region. It keeps Duryss busy and drains his resources. But we’ve known that’s a losing strategy long-term. It’s meant to help us find the right weakness to exploit. So far it’s turned up nothing,” Warrick explained.

Lee decided to ask the obvious question nagging at him. “Why not go to the Empire, the Feds, or Sirius Corp with all your claims against the guy?”

“No one gives a screb about these people because this whole region is the sticks. It’s farmers and miners and plant workers. No big shot corporations, or high tech fancy firms,” Warrick spat.

Captain Becke added, “The Sirius Corporation investigated Duryss early last year and found nothing substantive. They’re bound by convention to protect him. The Feds couldn’t care less about this region. It’s mostly resource-poor, not worth the cost of a fleet, and already under Sirius Corporation jurisdiction.”

“And Duryss encourages Imperial involvement that isn’t helping situation,” Tarrek finished.

“Then the Sirius Corporation needs seeing what is happening under their noses,” Xohn offered.

Warrick shook his head, “No, we need to find key infrastructure that’s keeping his resource engine running. We can attack it and cripple him.”

Tarrek argued back, “I say find his itinerary, send a fleet in silent running, and vack him.”

Jackson raised his hand to speak. Lee saw it, but the rest of the room ignored him.

“Look, I’m all for vacking him for good,” Warrick replied. “But you’re naive if you think we’re going to take him out with a single direct assault. He’ll see us coming long before we can get enough forces into play to take out his escorts.”

Lee saw Jackson still holding his arm up. “What is it, man? It’s not the academy. Just spit it out.”

Jackson looked at Lee, put his arm down, and said, “Honestly, I think we need more information.”

“What did you have in mind, Commander Dekker?”

Encouraged, Jackson continued, “I mean, we launched a fair number of missions from the Vilant.”

“The science vessel?” Warrick sounded incredulous.

“Yes, but that’s not what they really use it for. It’s been retrofitted for reconnaissance. It’s a giant spy vessel hiding in plain sight. They used it to find and track ships. They have long-range sensors for sweeping enormous sections of space, and they fed the data to our ships during our ops.”

“Hmm,” General Warrick appeared to be considering it. He looked up to the ceiling with an absent-mindedness while he pulled at the beard hair on his chin.

“General?” Tarrek looked hopeful. “You have plan?”

“I’m starting to.”

“Please, tell me blowing things up is involved,” Tarrek half grinned—or rather, he grinned with the half of his face that could move.

“No, that’s not where I was vacking headed. Gyah, everything’s explosions with you.”

Tarrek shrugged, “Eh, gets job done.”

“Wow, see?” Lee gestured to Tarrek. “Terrorists.”

Tarrek rolled his eyes.

“We’re gonna need a little more vackin’ subtlety for this mission,” Warrick said to Tarrek. Then he turned to Lee, “Your ship. You’ve got the equipment that’s going to make this possible.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve spacewalks,” Lee muttered under his breath.

Warrick raised an eyebrow.

“No, I’m serious. No vacking spacewalks.“

“If Commander Dekker is right,” Warrick began, ignoring him. “If the Vilant is being used for recon, then it’s likely to hold sensitive operations data. With luck, enough data to convince Li Yong-Rui that he’s got a rogue governor operating right under his nose.”

Captain Becke jumped in, “I think I see where you’re headed, General. You want to use the Nightcrawler’s stealth capabilities to get close enough to the Vilant to hack one of their data transmitters.”

“Exactly right. In the meantime, we work to establish a channel to the top of Sirius Corporation. Then, pass the data over to convince Li Yong-Rui to prosecute and remove Consular Duryss.”

“So, just to be clear: no spacewalks?”

Captain Becke said, straight-faced, “You only need to get close enough for your ship’s data link scanner. Then, attach a pre-programmed recon limpet to the transmitter.”

Xohn had a concerned expression, “General, in theory it will work, but the ThermARC on the Nightcrawler, it hasn’t been tested.”

Warrick gave a short nod of acknowledgment. “You’re sure you can get it working?”

“Haan,” he nodded. “At least functional, but how long it will run, who can say?”

Becke answered him, “Then let’s set up the test.”

Xohn put his hand to his chin, “But maneuvering close enough means the ship will be visible if someone is at a window looking out. Silent running won’t be enough.”

Jackson spoke up, this time without raising a hand. “Then, we need a diversion.”

“Agreed, and an escort for the way back,” Warrick added.

“Count me in for that,” Jackson offered.

Lee reacted, “No way! Not him—anybody but him.”

Jackson, Xohn, Lee, and Tarrek all started talking over each other.

“Alright, alright,” Warrick tried to quiet them, but the arguing continued. “Hey! Shut your screb holes!” He boomed over them. The room went silent. After a moment, Warrick gestured to Jackson to allow him to speak.

“Look, I have to do this. It’s the best way for me to make up for what I took part in.”

“It doesn’t even scratch the surface, and I don’t trust you to have my back. I don’t trust you at all,” Lee’s anger burst out of him.

“Honestly, I get it. Apparently, I’ll be making up for this for the rest of my life. But I swear to you– I swear to you all, I will. Just let me have the chance.”

“No, you look, kid, I don’t want you around me; the farther away, the better. You’re not the pilot you think you are. I’d rather have experienced Resistance pilots.”

Tarrek added in, “But, his ship. It’s most heavily armed we have.”

Lee had his arms crossed over his chest. He kept shaking his head, and muttered, “No way. No. No way.”

Warrick waded in, “Tarrek has a point, Lee. You’re going to want the firepower in case things get dicey.”

“Then put an experienced pilot in his ship,” Lee suggested.

“I go with him,” Tarrek offered. “He knows his ship best; we need him there. I can keep an eye on him.”

Lee sighed, “Make sure it’s your good eye.”

Tarrek held a half-grimace.

“Satisfied?” Warrick asked.

“Not really,” Lee answered. “Seems I have no choice but to deal with it.”

“We’ll send a couple of our own escorts with them,” Becke added. “It’ll make the distraction more effective, and will ensure Commander Dekker doesn’t go rogue.”

Jackson sighed at the distrust in the room.

“Lee I will go with you. The ThermARC needs to be kept performing.”

Lee nodded to Xohn.

Warrick cleared his throat, “Contingencies.”

Becke nodded, “What if they don’t go for the diversion?”

Tarrek answered, “We make them. We go attack the recon ship first, then draw their forces away while Lee and Xohn get into position for the hack.”

“I like it.” Warrick agreed. “Anything else?”

“If they split forces, you’ll need to coordinate the wing,” Becke said to Tarrek.

“I can be tactical coordinator. I’ll be in co-pilot’s chair.”

“What if the uplink has nothing?” Lee asked.

“Very unlikely,” Becke responded. “They still have to follow Pilots Federation protocol. It’s required for all capital class ships.”

“Alright, so what if the hack fails and sets off the intrusion alarms? That’s an instant bounty. Or what if they have feedback countermeasures?”

“Then you’ll need to use street hack experience,” Tarrek said.

“Right, so I guess the mission comes down to the ThermARC working, a convincing diversion, and a perfect hack. What could go wrong?” He made his sarcasm clear to everyone in the room.

“Impro, ada, over.” Captain Becke said.

“Impro what?” Lee looked at her quizzically.

“Impro, ada, over, Commander Sollinger. It’s a kind of motto for the Resistance. It comes from an ancient Earth-saying. It’s shorthand for ‘improvise, adapt, overcome.’”

“That explains a lot about the Athos. No offense, Captain.”

“None taken. She won’t win any beauty contests, but she’s a scary enough monster when she needs to be.”

Warrick stood up, and the rest around the table got to their feet. “Alright, people, let’s run simulations to prepare. We also need to run a test of the device. We’ll make sure you’re ready for this, Commanders.”

Tarrek turned to Captain Becke, “I’ll go set up the test with the crew.”

She nodded, “I’m needed back on the bridge. I’ll inform the deck chief to oversee the repair of your ships and provide any armor enhancements we can spare.” She turned and left the room, followed by Tarrek.

General Warrick stood by the doorway and pointed to the guards beside Jackson. “Take him to the simulation room. Run him through combat drills.”

The guards nodded and led Jackson out of the briefing room.

“You two,” Warrick spoke to Lee and Xohn. “There’s a lot riding on this—riding on you two. If we don’t get the intel, we can’t make a case, or know other weaknesses to exploit.”

“Get our ship ready, General. We’ll get the job done.” Lee answered. But for all the conviction in his words, he didn’t feel it.

Xohn nodded in agreement beside him.

All the while, Lee thought to himself, This is either going to be the most impressive hack I’ve ever pulled off or the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Maybe both.

***

“Alright, now pay attention,” Tarrek snapped.

“I am!” Jackson’s hands worked the flight controls.

They rocked from the cannon fire directed at them from the small, fast Imperial Eagle making an attack run at them. The shields, drained by the first two Eagle’s he managed to finish off, were picked away by the last one in the wing until they failed.

“He’s gonna do it again, unless…” Tarrek said for only the fifth time today.

The ship shot past them with an unmistakable boost maneuver.

“And… there he goes. Now you’re in a joust. Again.” The impatience from Tarrek set him off.

Jackson actually growled. “I know, I know! I see it Tarrek! Ahh, scrat!” He cursed. They’d been at it for three days, and he still couldn’t keep behind his target without getting into the same situation.

“You know what you need to do. You have much more powerful ship. Control battle, change game.”

“Right,” Jackson said. He fired chaff, hit the engine boost, and rerouted power from weapons to regenerate the shields. The maneuver pushed him back in his seat as the sleek, wedge-shaped Para Bellum launched away. It put distance between them and their attacker, making the rain of multi-cannon shells all but stop.

“Perfect, now quickly come about,” Tarrek continued to coach.

He pulled back on the throttle and the flight stick at the same time, making a tight loop for an attack run. As the ship lined up in his firing reticle, he pulled the trigger. The pulse cannons began to land and drained the shields until the pulses slowed. The enemy closed into range and opened up again. His ship’s hull integrity went critical in no time.

Tarrek sighed, “You forgot to reroute power back to weapons.”

“Aggghhh!” He smacked at the controls in frustration. He always forgot power management.

Tarrek punched a button on the console, “Alright, shut it down. Reset. Run it again.” He sat back in the flight chair and turned to Jackson. “Look, these are just a few Eagles. You’re going to have much harder targets, armed to the teeth and heavily armored. You can’t miss details. A ship like this requires much power management. You must be visualizing the battle a few steps ahead of your target. Predict their movement and have your counter-attack ready to execute.”

The lights in the simulator cockpit flashed amber before restoring to regular lighting. The projection outside the fake canopy showed them back in formation with the Athos.

“Okay, plot the jump, try it again,” Tarrek instructed. “You have the advantage. Plan it out before you arrive.”

Jackson drew a breath and went into the initial routine again. Setting the course, with power management to full weapons, the Para Bellum boosted into range. As soon as the targets engaged him, he dropped chaff. When the first target came into range, he opened with pulse lasers to chew through the Eagle’s flimsy shields. With its defenses almost gone and the target within 1.5 klicks, he opened up with the huge multi-cannon. The shields dropped, and the hull was chewed up by the onslaught. This time he anticipated the boost escape. Before the Eagle shot past, he opened up with a direct hit from the flak cannons. The target exploded around him.

He efficiently moved power back to systems to reinforce shield recovery and set up his next target.

“Very nice, keep going!” Tarrek was encouraged.

He rolled into position pitching toward the next target. Already close, he unloaded the pulse lasers and aimed the flak cannons, then remembered to route power again. Routing full power to the weapons, he unloaded all at once. In seconds the shields were gone, and the ship’s integrity dropped to 60%. It boosted away to avoid getting destroyed. This round, he was lucky, and the third Eagle flew right into his field of view. He switched targets and mounted a new assault, again draining shields. A couple more beatings and the target shields failed. He anticipated the maneuver correctly and was able to place his nose right in line with the flight path of his shieldless target. He pulled the trigger, and the second Eagle blew apart.

The third Eagle was using an orbiting strike to follow around him and fire from a distance. As soon as he trained his weapons on it, it boosted past him, and he found himself in a joust. He boosted away from the target, cycled power for shield recovery, and pitched about for his attack run. The target was a good 4 klicks away. He pushed the throttle to full, cycled full power to weapons, and the rest to engines. When the Eagle made it in weapons range, he opened fire with pulse lasers, followed by the multi-cannon and, before it shot past him, a round of flak cannons. He ripped through the shields and pummeled it to critical hull integrity.

He pitched around, relieved, and finished it off.

He looked over to Tarrek, who was all grins. “Yah! You did it!”

Jackson was beaming. It was starting to click. Tarrek gave him a high five right before hitting the console button, “Now, run it again.”

Jackson’s smile dropped to a scowl.

Tarrek raised his arms in his chair, “Single victory isn’t meaning you’re better pilot. We run it until you do it on instinct. You got me?” He turned to the console, “Reset, but this time with new targets.” Then he leaned to Jackson and repeated, “Again.”

***

Lee walked to the central transit lift of the Athos. The week aboard flew by. The ship was beginning to feel like a third home beside the Nightcrawler and Foden Dock.

Foden Dock.

His mind wandered back to his narrow escape from the outpost. The news that Foden was taken over by Duryss goons unsettled him. What happened to Dex and Zee? So much had happened since he last saw them. Guilt gnawed at him—both for leaving them behind and for stringing Zee along. He should have properly dated her—taken it seriously. Now there was only regret. It pained him to realize he might never get the chance.

He arrived at the cargo bay and hopped off the transit lift. His magboots engaged, he walked with more labored effort than the low gravity environment of the habitat rings. Trudging over the deck plates, he made his way to the Nightcrawler. She sat with the bay lighting gleaming off of her distinctive angles.

The maintenance crew from the Athos repaired the hull punctures from their grappling tethers and gave her a new paint job. The glossy black made her look new despite her age.

He went up the ramp where he found Xohn already working. His bald partner for the mission was in a maintenance suit hunched inside the compartment that housed the ThermARC. Lee assumed he was working on some last-minute fine-tuning.

The Athos maintenance crews had added structural reinforcements to help with any potential beating they might take on the upcoming mission. An enhanced recon limpet controller was added to accomplish the data hack. More than anything else Lee was excited they completed the install of the new shield generator he picked up on 60 Tau. Xohn’s engineering acumen helped them tune it for higher capacity and a faster recharge rate.

He’d become rather fond of having Xohn around. He was skillful, of course, but also had a quiet compassion and naive willingness to help others that he couldn’t help but admire. It was a funny thing given his predilection for going it alone that he’d find himself enjoying being around anyone this long. Maybe it was because he found Xohn had a kindness that reminded him of Vic. It seemed he had stumbled into a new kind of family.

“You’re up early,” Lee shouted over the noise coming from Xohn’s tools.

Xohn backed out of the maintenance access passage, with big black goggles adorning his face and tools in both hands. It gave him a sort of mad scientist look that made Lee chuckle.

Xohn pushed the goggles off his eyes and squinted at the bright lights of the corridor. “Oh, Lee, yes! Good morning! I’ve been working on better integrating the ThermARC into Nightcrawler’s systems. It’s a good thing we never turned it on! It would have melted the main induction coil of the power distributor!” Xohn smiled with amusement, his eyes bright as if he’d told a joke.

“Yeah, lucky us.” Lee scratched the back of his head. “So, are you about finished so we can start the test? They want us to launch in like 20 minutes.”

“Uhhh,” he sounded nervous. “I’ll try. This ship is… finicky.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s difficult to get a clean integration. There are so many jury-rigged connections and cross-wired systems. It’s a wonder how she works at all. With the ThermARC installed though, it’s overloading the power distributor.”

“Well, can you do anything about it?”

“That’s what I’ve been working on. I think we are down to two options. I can either reduce the efficiency of the ThermARC, or downcycle the compute core of that new limpet controller.”

Lee weighed it for a moment. “I think the priority is staying in silent running. That buys us the time we need for the hack to complete. Right?”

Xohn held a distant look as if running calculations in his mind, then nodded. “It is a tricky balance. The longer it takes the riskier it is. Maybe they discover us. Also the longer Jackson and Tarrek are distracting the patrols.”

“Better that than the power distributor going up in flames though, right?”

Xohn stared at him, then gave him a half shrug and nodded. “Right, yes. Okay. Give me about ten minutes to make the adjustment on the limpet controller.”

“Alright. I’m heading up to the command deck. Come up when you’re done.”

Xohn gave a quick nod, pulled his work goggles back on and slid himself back into the access path in the chamber.

Lee made his way through the ship and settled into his flight chair. Tapping on the systems panel, he brought the ship to full power to prep for launch.

“Alright, baby, let’s see what you can do,” he said in a low voice.

He could hear systems coming online throughout the ship behind him. The sounds of the power-up sequence was subtly different. It was almost as if she was a new ship. Though he rarely did it, he decided to run the Nightcrawler through a series of pre-flight checks, followed by some manual review of the latest enhancements.

A chirp indicated a comm request from the Athos. He opened the channel and acknowledged, “Sollinger.”

“Lakon Sierra Oscar One One Alpha,” an unfamiliar voice said, “this is Athos Control. We’re ready for your cold-run test.”

“Understood, Control. We’re finalizing some details down here. I’ll signal when we’re ready.”

Lee noted the noise of another system online and checked his systems panel. It was the ThermARC.

“Your flight plan is to clear the mass-lock zone, enable silent running, then return to the Athos at an exact velocity of 100 meters per second. Do not deviate from the test plan.”

He heard the clanking of magboots nearing the command deck; Xohn was on his way. “Acknowledged. Clear mass-lock, go cold, return at 100 meters a second.”

“That’s affirmative. Control out.”

The door to the lower command deck opened. “Okay, Lee, we’re as ready as I can make it. I can’t say for sure what it will do.”

“Way to make me nervous, Xohn. We’re not gonna blow up, are we?”

“No, nothing like that, but,” he hesitated, “it is good we are testing to find out.”

“Comforting. So, we’re ready?”

“Ready.”

“Alright, Xohn, strap in.” Lee opened the comm channel. “Control, this is Nightcrawler. Requesting departure.”

“Roger, Nightcrawler. Stand by.”

A loud clank sound and mild shudder signaled the deck clamps releasing. The ship was lifted from the deck by the large crane armature that had towed them into the makeshift hangar of the cargo bay pod. Amber lights spun inside the pod to alert folks of imminent exposure to space. The arm rotated them to face the outer door of the bay while they were towed down the track. It slowed to a stop while the wedge of the large bay door opened.

After they cleared the door, another clunk gave Lee a new free-floating feeling.

“Nightcrawler, you’re free to navigate.”

“Thank you, Control. Initiating flight test.”

Lee grabbed the controls and adjusted their heading, pointing the Nightcrawler to face roughly 90 degrees from the Athos. He pushed to full throttle, leaving the makeshift carrier behind them. After some cruising, the mass-lock indicator blipped off and Lee let off the throttle to bring the ship to station-keeping.

“Alright, Athos Control. We’re just outside of mass-lock at around 9 clicks,” he reported over the comm channel.

“Copy. We have you. We’re recording sensor readings now. Proceed with the test when you’re ready.”

Lee hesitated. A feeling of doubt came over him. Xohn was good, but with all the jury-rigging Vic had done to the ship over the years, he worried about about overloads starting a fire. Among the dangers of space travel that most quickly lead to death, fire was near the top of the list.

Xohn’s voice came over the ship intercom, “Everything is ready here.”

“Right,” Lee stalled. “Right. Let’s see your magic, Xohn. Going cold.” Lee flipped the switch for silent running mode. Lee’s eyes locked on the system temperature and watched heat level steadily rise.

“ThermARC enabled,” Xohn announced.

The temperature immediately jumped. Sparks flew over the control panels in front of Lee. The cabin lights went off, and the holo-displays flickered in and out.

“Temperature critical,” COVAS reported.

“Wait… wait, I got it,” Xohn shouted.

“Temperature critical.”

The systems and lights came back on. The temperature began to drop. More impressive, the engines showed more power available.

“Hah! It works, Xohn!”

“Cheeyoo!” Xohn’s uncharacteristic exclamation exploded over the intercom. “It is working!” Lee could almost hear his smile.

The temperature read ‘zero’ and ice began to form on the inside at the edges of the canopy.

“Nightcrawler, you’re off our scopes. We’re continuing to record high-resolution sensor data. Begin your transit back.”

Lee eased the throttle up for the few minutes of flight time back to the Athos.

“Roger, Athos. On our way,” he grinned. “But you’ll have to take my word for it.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lee took a sip of coffee while he reviewed their final mission preparations on his datapad. He wasn’t a regular coffee drinker, but this morning he needed the jolt.

He heard magboot steps from behind him on the command deck. Tarrek approached with a half-business face. Lee tried to avoid staring at the other half. “Morning,” Lee said with a little more enthusiasm than he’d intended. Must be the coffee, he thought.

“Morning, Lee. Intel says they found Vilant’s position.”

“So, where are we headed?” He took another sip.

“We got reports from other cells that she’s holding station near an advanced research facility called Wagner Park, in the Syev system.”

“Syev? Huh, that’s remote.”

Tarrek nodded back, “Seems a nice tucked away corner for Duryss to keep his secrets.”

“Nothing there but pockets of colonists and terraformers.” He took another sip and thought for a moment. “Well, on the plus side, that’ll make it easier for us to go unnoticed.”

“It’s low security. We won’t have any problems, but still need plan our route. It’s short enough for direct jump in, but we don’t want traces back to our cell on return trip.”

“Right, so we need to come back through another system.” Lee swung his chair back to the nav panel and pulled up the astrogation chart to take a look. A holofac projection of nearby systems leapt off the display. He plotted a route to Syev, or rather, to HR 1385 as it was listed on the charts. He motioned Tarrek to take a closer look and pointed to a yellow star off the direct path. “Ain?”

“Not familiar with it. What’s there?”

“Nothing. No one. It’s uninhabited.”

Tarrek shook his head, “Too easy to trace us back here. Our wake signal will stand out like a neutron star.”

“Hmm,” Lee scanned the display. He scanned the area local to Syev and stopped near twin blue stars. “What about Kap Tau?”

“I like it. Lots of traffic. Easy for our jump signatures to get lost in noise. When we return, we can route through Ain and Kap Tau. Throw off anyone following.”

“Paranoid?”

“Protective. Send nav plan to Becke and Warrick.” Tarrek reached back to pull his datapad out, “Oh, and I’ve got hack program to upload in your ship’s recon controller.”

Tarrek handed him a datapad.

“Ahh, let me take a look.” He examined the data pulled up on the datapad’s display. The number of intrusion tools showed how sophisticated it was. “Someone paid a lot for military-grade intrusion tech. Multi-threaded parasite routines, EXer, and Fractal Hemorrhage viruses. Looks like a Federal Intelligence kit. How fast is it?”

“Not very, but is,” he seemed to pause to find the right word. “Reliable. It has enough intrusion tools to break most systems. You’ll be sitting out there awhile. Good thing you got stealth-tech with turbo. If it gets hot, you just gotta run.”

Lee nodded, “Or use my own programs.”

“This isn’t datapad hacking.”

“No, but I’ve done some data running before. I can handle it.”

Tarrek scowled, “Don’t be cocky about it. Don’t take unnecessary chances.”

“What happened to ‘whatever it takes’?” Lee gave him a smug grin.

The corner of the right side of Tarrek’s face pulled back to a bit of a smirk. Lee thought it looked like he was trying to scowl a bit, too, though it was difficult to differentiate from his usual facial scowl.

“Look, I’ll get the job done,” Lee placed the datapad on his console and swiped over it toward the system panel. The display showed the progress of uploading the hacking toolkit.

“Hey gompchta, we all counting on you. A lot riding on this. Success of Resistance, better life for Hyades people…”

Lee waved him off and turned back to his console, “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I don’t need any extra pressure.”

Tarrek grabbed his seat and turned him back around to look him in the eyes. “You promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”

“Hey, what’s with you, man?” Lee became annoyed at his insistence.

“You know what this means—what it means to me.”

Lee met his stare, “To us, both! We both lost brothers, remember?”

Tarrek seemed to ease a little. “Right.”

“Besides, you’re the one that needs to be careful.”

Tarrek had a questioning look on his face.

“Watch your back with Dekker, alright? Don’t trust him for a second.” Lee gestured with his head in the direction of the Para Bellum parked beside them in the cargo pod.

Tarrek adjusted the beret on his head. “I don’t trust anyone,” he said and walked out of the command deck.

“Works for me.” Lee turned back to the nav panel to finish the flight plan.

***

The deck of the cargo pod on the Athos was abuzz with activity. Maintenance crews were running, and autoloaders were skittering about. They were all focused on getting the Para Bellum and Nightcrawler stocked with supplies. Lee watched one of the maintenance technicians banging a tool against the deck in apparent frustration. It reminded him of how thrown together the Resistance fleet was. They were scrappy and determined. He liked it. Being part of it made him feel more content somehow—more complete.

Xohn walked into the upper command level, donning a black and grey flight suit. It seemed a strange, but somehow fitting look for him. “Everything down below is ready,” he said, then shivered.

“Are you cold?”

“No, no. Just,” he paused and seemed reluctant to say it. “Nerves, I guess. Terminals and workbenches are where I work. I don’t do missions.”

“Hey, that’s all you need to do, right? You stick to the terminals and workbenches. We’ll be fine. Keep the ship alive, I’ll keep you alive. Deal?”

He heard Xohn swallow hard. “That I can do.” He nodded before heading down the ladder to the lower deck.

“Alright partner, then, what do you say we get this little adventure started?” It was a strange phrase for him to say. When did he begin to think of Xohn as a partner?

Lee tapped at his controls and threw his flight chair straps loosely over his shoulders. In rapid, practiced fashion, he navigated his system panel to start the full pre-flight systems check. It was tedious but necessary. After verifying all the flight controls responded correctly, he opened a channel.

“Athos Control, this is Nightcrawler, ready to depart.”

“Acknowledged Nightcrawler. Standby for the tow-arm.”

Moments later, the Nightcrawler shook around them. The arm hauled them outside the cargo pod releasing them to the vacuum of space. Undocking a cargo-ship-turned-fleet-carrier was a surprisingly smooth affair, all things considered.

Lee maneuvered them a safe distance away to wait for the Para Bellum to join them. He spent the time checking the configuration of the Nightcrawler’s hardpoint fire control and power management. There were some utility modules power cycling on and off. The COVAS hadn’t announced a problem with the main power generator, so Lee assumed it was something else.

“Hey, Xohn?” he called on the intercom to the deck below. “Any idea what’s going on with the port shield booster and pulse wave analyzer? They keep losing power and…”

“It’s probably the ThermARC integration.” Lee could hear the sigh under his breath. “The bypass route into main power overloads the primary systems power distribution to the utility subsystem, I think.”

“Right, I know it’s a power issue. Is it an easy fix you can do en route, or are we stuck here?”

“Hmm, I’ll have to head back down to the power distributor to take a look.” There was another sigh. Lee could hear his exasperation. “And my tea I just sat down with. You know the Nightcrawler is an ancient, cobbled together, barely functional relic.”

“Hey! She’s got it where it counts,” Lee shot back. “She can still keep up with the Para Bellum. You said it’s your ThermARC causing the problem.”

“No, it is the bypass I had to invent on the fly to tie it into your cross-wired mess. A regurgitated dog’s dinner is what what I have to dig through down there!”

“Just get down there and make it work, will ya?”

Lee heard the movement below and Xohn’s resignation as he responded, “Yeah, I’m on my way.”

A flashing signal on the sensor display showed the Para Bellum closing in. Lee pulled up the astrogation chart to load their flight plan. Off to the starboard, the Para Bellum arrived flying in formation beside them. He opened an encrypted tight-band channel to them, “Hey guys, heads up, we’re doing some last-minute, uh, fine-tuning on the prototype. Keeping open comms. I’ll let you know when we’re ready.”

Jackson’s voice responded over the comm system, “Got it, Lee.”

“Hey, you daft vacking guffstain, ship names only from here on out.”

“Whatever! Right, just settle down. Acknowledged, Nightcrawler.”

A flashing indicator on the system panel got Lee’s attention, followed by the COVAS announcing, “Power plant capacity exceeded.” The sudden electrical chunking sound of the shields going offline startled him. It was followed by a low-pitched wind-down of a total system shutdown.

“Well, this is fun,” Lee commented to himself.

With the systems off, the running-lights of other ships glided through the star-strewn backdrop. In the silence with nothing but his breath, he stopped to admire the beauty of the rusty backlit clouds from the galactic core.

A stab of worry about the mission hit him all at once.

He closed his eyes, and Vic’s assuring words came to his mind. “Keep your head out there. You’ll be okay, partner.”

Power restored, and the restart sequence clicked away across the terminal, but Lee was captivated by the stars. He could almost feel Vic’s spirit with him. The ship came back alive around him.

A comm request beeped. He opened the channel and heard Tarrek’s voice, “Hey, you guys okay over there?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. You guys ready?” He muted the channel and opened the ship intercom to Xohn, “What’s going on down there, are we good to go?”

“We’re good, I think” There was still uncertainty in his voice.

“You think?” Lee slipped into mimicking Xohn’s accent.

“Ready over here, Nightcrawler,” came an edgy reply from Jackson over the comms.

“What do you mean ‘you think?’” Lee asked back over the intercom.

“A rudimentary surge relay I wired up will dump the extra power into the capacitors, I think.”

“What, how? I had no idea that’s possible. Xohn you’re incredible! Wait, why do you only ‘think’ we’re good to go?”

“It is hard to know if it will always work. As I said, it’s quite crude, but it should work enough for the mission.”

“What happens if it doesn’t work?”

“Ehh,” Xohn cleared his throat. “Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.”

“Alright, good enough for me, I guess.” Lee unmuted the comms, “Para Bellum, time to leave. Warm up your engines.” Then he spoke to the intercom channel, “Xohn, strap in.”

The sound of the power build-up rattled the ship.

While the jump drive charged, Lee gazed back into the deep. He could feel the nervous excitement of what they were attempting to accomplish. It was the same sort of nerves as any of his most dangerous smuggling contracts, except this time it wasn’t for himself. This was for the entire Resistance, for everyone who lived in Hyades under Duryss and his underhanded actions—to strike back at the one who orchestrated the events that lead to the death of his friend and mentor.

As the jump tunnel stretched before him, he thought back to his old friend. This is for you, Vic.

***

They emerged from hyperspace to the soft white glow of the Syev star. While maneuvering away from the star, Lee worked on locating their target in the nav panel and called Xohn over the intercom. “Alright, partner, let’s see what you can do.”

“Bringing it online.” He heard Xohn through the intercom, followed by quiet, nervous whispering, “hold together, please hold together-”

“Are we good?” Lee’s voice betrayed his concern.

“We’ll see. Switch on silent running.”

“Going cold,” he said over the open comms and intercom at the same time.

Lee switched the ship to silent running.

The ship’s temperature decreased, and the heat signature flatlined. Much to his delight, no side-effects, no malfunctions.

Tarrek’s voice crackled over the encrypted comms channel, “We’re en route. We’ll go make noise. Wait for our signal for dropping.”

“Heading that way now. Good luck and good hunting Para Bellum,” Lee answered back. As he set the Nightcrawler’s nav target, he heard the movement in the lower command deck. Xohn had returned to his seat.

“We’re a couple minutes out from Wagner Park. Strap back in, just in case.”

“Will do, Lee.”

“The ThermARC is working perfectly. No heat signature, and the temp is still dropping.” Lee said, noting the frost appearing around the canopy’s structural frame.

“It is a very good result I will admit.” He could hear the pride through his accented reply.

“Once they give us the signal, we’re going to drop as close as we can get to 30 klicks. We need to make sure our wake signature is well out of their sensor range. Then we’ll have to cruise for a few minutes to get in close. If the Para Bellum does their job right, they’ll peel off any patrols so we can slip in undetected.”

“Yes, from the briefing I remember. The ThermARC performance and power I’ll be keeping under constant monitor.”

“When we get in there, I’ll also need you to keep an eye on sensors while I’m focused on hacking the transmitter.”

“H’oke.”

“Is that an ‘okay?’”

“Yes, it is ‘okay.’”

“Okay, I need to be sure we’re on the same page here,” Lee held the throttle.

Their system transit was smooth. After a minute or so, the wing beacon for the Para Bellum disappeared off of sensors; Jackson and Tarrek started to engage patrols.

The Nightcrawler’s approach brought them close to a small rocky moon. An even smaller satellite orbited the moon, both locked around an unremarkable ringed gas giant. A single, but substantial, ring adorned the world and gleamed with reflected starlight. Lee decelerated to ensure they didn’t overshoot the target as they neared the effects of the substantial gravity well. The planet disappeared behind them, replaced by the sandy-colored rock of the larger moon. Only a sliver of its tagalong grey, rocky companion was visible.

Lee centered the projection of Wagner Park’s position in front of them. He managed the throttle to stretch out the timing of their approach to give Jackson and Tarrek enough time to draw all the patrols’ attention. Nearing to within a light-second, Lee throttled down to a quarter power. He felt the inertia pull his body into his flight chair straps from the quick change in velocity.

Their approach slowed, but the residual speed continued to tick down the distance. Lee was starting to get concerned for Jackson and Tarrek. They were rapidly nearing the drop zone, but there was still no signal from the Para Bellum. Just when he was about to risk raising them, their signal beacon appeared on his display.

Lee felt his heart rate rise. He shouted at Xohn, “This is it!”

“Ready!” Xohn shouted back. “Ready partner!”

Lee smirked, then dropped the Nightcrawler out of supercruise some thirty-six kilometers from Wagner Park’s signal. At max speed, with the extra power of the ThermARC, they were still about a minute of cruising time away. Like watching water come to a boil, the final leg of the transit seemed to take far longer than reasonable.

Space—there always seemed to be more of it than expected. Lee mused to himself.

Lights that didn’t move with the starfield became obvious beacons of some kind of man-made structure. A cluster of out-of-range-signals appeared on the port-side of the sensor display, with two steady signals ahead of them.

As they closed in, the objects grew large enough, Lee began to distinguish the shape of a long mega-ship and a longer, even larger structure beyond. He did a quick double-check that they were still running cold. The displays confirmed they were—no heat signature; and an insignificant temperature reading. If it wasn’t for the frost at the edges of the canopy, he wouldn’t have believed it.

They drew in ever closer to the mega-ship, the Vilant, with the research installation behind it and the sandy-colored moon beyond. Within a couple of kilometers, he could make out more of the details. He engaged the Nightcrawler’s data link scanner to map out the exterior of the immense vessel.

The angle of approach to the Vilant put them off of the starboard side and behind it. An enormous single-engine, larger than the Nightcrawler itself, put off a blinding blue-white light. The cylindrical main drive fuselage connected to the vessel’s superstructure through a cluster of narrow struts. A series of other cylindrical segments made up the rest of it, only broken at the mid-section by a matrix of storage capsules. Far at the bow was the larger diameter spherical primary hull—the operations center.

The scan located the transmitter array at the top of the vessel mounted on the first cylindrical section connected to the main drive struts.

Lee throttled back, slowing their silent glide to allow more careful and precise movements near the transmitter. Keeping the array in direct line of sight, he zeroed all forward momentum at around two-hundred meters from it.

“We’re in position! Close enough to kiss it. Deploying hardpoints.”

Lee saw their energy signature spike before flatlining again. He hoped no one noticed, or at the very least, hoped they would be dismissed as unidentifiable debris.

“Okay, here goes,” Lee said over the intercom.

Targeting the array, he released the recon limpet with preprogrammed payload from the hacking kit. The Nightcrawler’s internal audio systems replicated the pulse of the limpet’s operations. It even reproduced the Doppler-effect in pitch and volume with its distance.

Lee’s eyes followed the glow of the limpet’s small thruster until it made physical contact with the transmitter. The target panel shifted to a readout of the intrusion attempt and data collection progress.

There was nothing they could do but sit and wait. The progress readout inched forward at a painfully slow pace. Lee’s senses were all at high alert.

“How are we looking, Xohn?”

“Everything is still performing within expected parameters. Nothing concerning on sensors.”

The cluster of signals continued to dance out of range on the sensor display. Jackson was still keeping the patrols busy.

Lee returned focus to the hack in progress. It stalled at the intrusion process.

“It looks like we have a problem. They must have anti-intrusion defenses. Research vessels typically don’t have this kind of protection. Duryss must have had it upgraded with military-hardened systems.”

“What do we do?” There was a worried edge in Xohn’s voice.

“Tarrek said the hacking kit was slow but reliable. So, for now, we wait and see if it can break through, hopefully without triggering alarms.”

Out of nowhere, the ship’s computer began playing broken, crackled audio from an encrypted signal source the sensors picked up. Lee tried to localize where it was coming from. It had to be close by.

“What is that?” Xohn asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe the Vilant’s transmitter is active, and we’re picking up the encrypted signal?”

“Will it affect the hack?”

“It shouldn’t. It’s just coincidental timing. Let me see if I can analyze it.”

He pulled up his signal analysis tools to see what kind of metadata he could glean from it. When the signal scan completed, he started to read out the findings.

“It’s a narrowband signal. It looks like it’s a data stream coming from the outpost. It’s… It’s using an Imperial encryption scheme. Why the screb are they using Imperial encryption?”

“Maybe they wanted state-of-the-art encryption?”

“We know Duryss had this ship outfitted with military-grade tech. That’s Imperial military encryption.”

“Imperial military technology on a corporate research vessel?”

“And the outpost! That’s a Sirius Corporation subsidiary installation using Imperial military encryption!”

“That is puzzling.”

A rapid ticking-beep sound began.

“Ah, screb! We’re in, but we tripped a trace.”

“Now what?”

“It means we cut and run with nothing or try to download as much data as possible before the trace locates the source of the breach.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

There was only one thing to do. They needed the data. It was their only shot at building a body of evidence against Duryss. Beyond that, they needed a map of his assets to scope out useful targets for Resistance strikes in the future.

“We’re gonna have to wait it out.”

Lee eyed the progress of the data copy process. Time was running out faster than the data was copying. He felt his pulse quicken. He had to do something. His mind raced.

Then he remembered the tools in the hacking toolkit and took manual control of the recon limpet. With a quick scan of the available programs in the kit, he located the perfect tool: a Shattered Mirror virus. It was designed to hide in memory as a noisy Red Herring intrusion routine. A Red Herring was an easy signature for scans to identify. But, each time the counter-trace found a Shattered Mirror’s Red Herring signature, it spawned several new copies of itself and logged a message.

Lee sent the Shattered Mirror to run under the privileged permissions that the hacking kit unlocked. The log messages piled up. The counter-trace was fast owing to the vast computing resources available on the Vilant. The messages scrolled fast enough, the display blurred with text. Lee locked eyes on the data copy in progress.

“We got it!” Lee was exhilarated by the narrow success. The counter-trace was caught up trying to purge each fake intrusion program it encountered, buying them just enough time. “Looks like lots of encrypted archives. But, no way to tell if we got what we needed without analysis. I wonder…”

“Wonder what?” Xohn asked nervously.

Lee looked out of the canopy at the installation in the distance, then glanced at the sensors. The indistinct signals were still out of range. Jackson and Tarrek were doing their job well. Maybe there was enough time…

“I have a bad idea. What if we flew over to that research facility to hack its transmitter?”

“That is a bad idea. The data we came for we already got–”

“Yeah, I know, but that just tells us what they’re sending to the facility. We don’t know what they’re getting from them. It’s the other half of the puzzle. We need their data too.”

He heard Xohn sigh, “I don’t like this. But, the ThermARC is still working. As long as it holds with no system faults…”

Lee didn’t wait; he pushed the throttle forward, angling the Nightcrawler to Wagner Park. He scanned the facility with the data link scanner to locate their transmitter.

The main section of the installation was a large cylindrical core with two large office wings that seemed to orbit it. It was connected to another structure by two extra long struts. The struts themselves were at least the length of the entire Vilant.

The Nightcrawler crept up to the transmitter and stopped a couple hundred meters away. Being so close, the limpet would only be detectable for a couple of seconds. Lee took a deep breath, then launched a recon limpet to begin the hack.

The intrusion took its time. It felt like it took even longer than breaking into the Vilant, but maybe that was just because they were pushing their luck.

“Uh oh, Lee,” Xohn’s worried voice came over the intercom.

“What?” Lee’s eyes darted to his sensor display.

“The Para Bellum… The Para Bellum was captured, I think.”

His own read of the sensors agreed. The indistinct cluster of signals was now a formation of ships around the Para Bellum. He cursed.

The ticking-beep of a trace sounded in the cockpit. Lee cursed again.

“Another trace?” Xohn said.

Before Lee could respond, an alert sounded. “Yes, and that means we were detected. That was too fast!”

The sensors showed three of the ships that had been escorting the Para Bellum had broken out of formation and were headed directly for them.

“Oh, vack!” Xohn cursed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Duryss smiled. “That is wonderful news, Captain. You are to be commended.”

He sat behind the desk in his state office on Emen facing the holofac image of Captain Brooks of the Vilant. He always appreciated the Captain’s professionalism. Brooks knew his place in the universe and never strayed from it.

“What would you like us to do with them, sir?”

“They’ve earned bounties, haven’t they? I want you to bury them. Ship them off to the penal colony in that marginal, nowhere system, and impound their ships. All except the engineer. I want him brought to me on Emen as soon as possible.”

“Understood, Consular.”

“I’m dispatching the Decimator. Colonel Reeves will be en route to you shortly.” He tapped the console to send an encrypted text communique to the Decimator.

Brooks half-turned as if to look back at something. “Curious. I recently saw a report that the Colonel had been removed from command.”

“My faith in her has recently been restored.”

“Very good, sir. We’ll ship the prisoners off to Arber Penal Colony and hand the engineer over to Colonel Reeves when she arrives. We’re remaining in the system to assist the research efforts at Wagner Park.”

“In fact, Captain, with the engineer in hand, the situation has changed. Please let Chief Larenz know that I no longer need the calculations his teams have been working on.”

“Very well, sir.”

“That’s all, for now, Captain.”

The Captain gave a brief salute before the holofac connection terminated. The polarized windows returned to normal after the call, allowing the deep red of the evening sun back into the office.

Duryss tapped his fingers together. The engineer, finally in hand, changed everything. The Senator would soon have his modules and make his move.

He turned toward his terminal and interacted with it to begin dictating a message to Senator Draden:

“The timetable is active. Expect delivery to begin in 5 days. Assemble the fleets and signal when ready.”

He sent the message and sat back with a breath.

Help the Senator or destroy him. It all came down to this decision. He realized he had finally arrived at the height of his influence and power.

It was in his hands alone whether the Senator’s efforts would succeed or fail. The original plan would make Draden one of the most powerful Senators in the Empire. Of course, if he helped the Senator, he would greatly benefit, but only under the shadow of Draden’s office.

On the other hand, sabotaging the Senator’s efforts had the possibility of elevating himself to an untouchable political position.

Plotting against an Imperial Senator was unthinkable. He was at extreme risk from failure, but the rewards… The rewards were too tantalizing to pass up. Succeeding meant etching himself into the annals of history and victory over a man with whom he held a lifelong hatred. But failure would utterly destroy him. It had the potential to remove his hold on power, expose him, and worse than anything else, make him infamous in his failure.

A comm tone sounded.

Already tense, he was startled by the sudden sound and jumped in his seat. He took a moment to catch his breath before he answered the comm request.

“Consular, there is an urgent call from Chelum.”

A mild panic took hold. In all his maneuvering around the device, he’d lost sight of the first coordinated plan the Senator and he had put into motion. “Yes, yes. I assume it’s a frantic appeal from the Medical Director.”

“Indeed, Consular. Shall I tell her you are unavailable?”

He grumbled back, “That woman is as stubborn as a dying star and will no doubt continue calling until she has my attention. No, go ahead and put it through.”

“Yes, sir.”

The holofac illuminated to project the form of an elegant looking older woman. Her straight silver hair curled at the ends where it rested on the cobalt blue fabric at her shoulders. Duryss recognized the blue suit as a government uniform for the Chelum Health Corp. Although there was a definite beauty to her narrow face, she held an angry expression.

“Consular Duryss. Thank you for taking my call. I half expected that you’d simply ignore my messages. I’m a little shocked, actually.”

“Director Albright, I do keep a busy schedule. Hyades is one of the largest Sirius Gov regions. I manage hundreds of star systems with trillions of citizens to care for. In the future, I think you’ll find it far easier to schedule a call with my staff.”

“You know Consular, in fact, I did schedule a call. Two weeks from now!” She almost spat it at him. He was, at that moment, thankful for the remote call. “This entirely avoidable crisis is continuing unabated with a trickle of the necessary treatment. The epidemic is now out of our ability to control.”

“Yes, I’m quite aware of the situation on the Walker Lab colony. The outbreak there is terrible. My staff continues to give me regular updates. I’m told it’s spread to Kippax Beacon and Shepherd Terminal.”

“And Buchli Orbital. And Brunton Dock. And Zamka Dock. That’s an exposed population of 1.1 billion people, Consular.”

There was no doubt, she was a force to be reckoned with. He scoffed, “Exposed? Come now, Ms. Albright, you have your quarantine procedures in place, don’t you? How many cases are there now?”

“Over 60 million. And you know full well that people never adequately follow quarantine guidelines. Between that and the lack of available treatment, it’s spreading beyond our ability to contain it.”

“Then perhaps it’s time to turn guidelines into a government mandate. Work with CHC and the Chelum government to enforce them system-wide.”

“Consular,” she sighed at him. “Forcing quarantine procedures is far too costly and time-consuming. The most effective solution is increasing delivery of Byrox to infected stations and colonies.”

“So get the treatments delivered.”

“You really have no clue what’s going on out here, do you?”

Her lack of respect crossed the line of civility. Duryss’s sense of decorum would not stand for that. “Be careful of your tone, Director,” he warned.

“Consular, with all due respect,” she said in a tone that sounded anything but respectful. “Shipping capacity in Hyades is almost non-existent. Your Thargoid defense campaign incentivizes shipping for anything but treatment. They’ll ship materials for manufacturing weapon parts. Or ship the finished parts to construct one of your precious station-mounted weapons. It’s made shipping costs so astronomically high across the region that no one but the rich can afford to import the Byrox treatment.”

“Oh, come now, Director, that’s nonsense. Surely that isn’t the only reason for the drug’s high cost. As I’m told, it has an expensive development process with rather small yields given the demand.”

She reluctantly bowed her head in acknowledgment, “Yes, that’s true, but–”

He interrupted, hoping to shut down the conversation, “Then I’m afraid there isn’t much to be done from a government perspective.”

“Consular, please. The small yields are because of supply-side constraints. The high cost of shipping multiplies the cost. Byrox is priced impossibly out of reach of anyone but the richest. CHC will continue to deny patients at these prices.”

Her expression turned from angry to pained and almost tortured looking. “Consular, you do understand what this disease… What aculosis does to people? What people are going through?”

“As it was described to me, it sounds quite unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant?” She shook her head and unfolded her arms and worked some controls in front of her. “Aculosis is a living hell.”

In a different frame of the holofac projection, images appeared beside her. They showed pictures of people covered with strange purple and brown marks on their skin.

“Look. This is what it does to people.” She worked controls in front of her to transmit more images. ”The infection starts with skin mottling. It’s followed by a mild tingling that becomes an excruciating stinging sensation. As the disease progresses, they experience acute muscle spasms. The stinging and spasms trigger coughing that rips tissue against the tightened muscles.”

The images changed to show a gruesome picture of a middle-aged woman. Her facial skin was covered in tiny veins that branched all over among the mottling. She had excessively dark marks in her eyes where vessels had burst. It upset his stomach to look at the image.

“Their lung tissue hemorrhages. Then the lungs fill up with blood and fluid. Eventually, they choke and drown in their own blood…”

He held up his hand, “Enough! I’ve heard enough.” Then he pulled back his hand and clenched it into a fist that he put to his mouth in an attempt to swallow down the lump in his throat. He was always squeamish at medical topics. After taking a moment to recompose himself, he continued, “What would you have me do? Force CHC into bankruptcy to pay for the drugs?”

“I’m asking for Hyades government assistance. You can offer incentives for pilots to deliver the supplies for the treatment or for delivering the Byrox itself. It’s the only effective medication we’ve found.”

“Does the treatment cure the disease?”

“No, but it drastically reduces the mortality rate.”

“Then I see no point in diverting shipping resources for a partial solution.”

She looked stupefied for a moment before turning cross again. “I just explained how horrific this infection is! This treatment reduces some of the worst symptoms and allows hope for otherwise hopeless cases!”

“I will not detract from setting up our defenses. The Thargoids are at our doorstep. The latest report puts them less than 100 light-years away.”

“Then, you’re condemning these people to die.”

“I’m protecting billions more.”

“These defenses you’re building—it all protects from a potential future disaster. But, there is a current disaster destroying the lives of your citizens today! I’m begging you, Consular! Help us!”

At this point, he knew there was no reasoning with her. The best he could hope for was a delay.

“I’ll tell you what Director Albright, I’ll take a day to consider it. Please send me all the data your office has on the infection, and its spread.”

She pressed him, furthering his irritation, “What time tomorrow will you make your decision?”

“I said I’ll take a day to deliberate it with my staff. You’ll have my final answer by this time tomorrow.”

“Very well, Consular. I’m sending our data to your office now. I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow.”

He gave her a quick head bow, then jabbed at the control to terminate the connection.

His mind raced. The outbreak complicated his ability to achieve success against Senator Draden. Chelum was one of the most populated systems in the Hyades cluster. It represented an enormous stake in the region.

The sound of a new message arrived. It was the data from Director Albright. He opened the attached data file.

The summary of the report painted a grim picture. The aculosis virus had high transmission and mortality rates that made it fast and deadly. Reading further, the report confirmed his fear. At first appearance, the data showed a rather indiscriminate assortment of infections across nationalities. But, he knew what to look for, and the data confirmed it: exceedingly low infection rates for people of Imperial descent.

The Senator had played the game well, and he found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. If shipping slowed deliveries, there wouldn’t be enough defense systems in Chelum to hold it. But, if he didn’t re-prioritize delivering treatments, the virus threatened to thin out the forces that were loyal to him. There might not even be enough left to man the defensive systems.

The realization dawned on him that at the height of his power and influence, he had been held in check by the Senator from the very beginning.

“Well played, sir,” he said out loud to the empty chamber of his office. “Well played.”

***

“We have our orders, people. Get to it,” Reeves walked to the center of the Decimator’s command deck. Their orders hung over the crew like a shadow, even with the ghostly glow of the system’s blue-white host nearby. Reeves clenched her fists, a measure to keep her anger and embarrassment in check. She knew it wouldn’t sit well with her crew.

Sloane broke the silence with an angry outburst. “Prisoner transport? What kind of screb mission is this?”

Huxley shook his head, cleared his throat, then returned to the comms display at his console. Asher was her usual quiet, but her face said everything. The disappointment in the crew was understandable.

This slight from Consular Duryss wasn’t lost on Reeves. They were transporting the engineer that had gotten away. The message was clear. Screw up and get the screb jobs. She admitted a particular respect for the way he rubbed her nose in it. There was something almost poetic in its irony. Apparently, I still have a ways to go to re-earn his trust, she thought to herself.

“We go where we’re ordered to,” Reeves said. “Sloane, calculate a route to Syev.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied through gritted teeth and tapped at his console to pull up the astrogation chart. He continued working, but clearly wasn’t finished complaining, “Permission to speak freely?”

Reeves felt a headache coming on. “What is it Mr. Sloane?” She put her hands on her hips and waited for it.

He swiveled his flight chair back to look at her. “Ma’am, these are total vackin’ screb orders, and you know it. We did everything we could to catch those ships. It took the long-range sensors on the Vilant to finally find them, and by that time, it was too late. That’s not our fault!”

Even Asher looked back to watch how she answered.

“Thank you for your observation, Mr. Sloane. And would you please explain how that is supposed to be helpful now?”

He continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “Their idents told us they were harmless! What, were we supposed to do?”

“For all we know, they were Resistance trained pilots sent to pick up the engineer…” Reeves began, cut off before she could finish. It ticked her off.

“Sure, but you make decisions based on the intel you have and adjust with new information. We followed protocol. We did our jobs.”

“I’m not arguing that!”

“But Consular Duryss is…”

“That’s quite enough, Lieutenant!” Reeves held a stern gaze at him. Her anger had simmered and was rising to a boil. Appearances, she reminded herself, aware of the rest of the crew watching her. “I hear what you’re saying, but here’s the cold reality of it—you can make what seems like all the right calls and still fall short. The galaxy doesn’t wait for you to stop whining and crying. It’s up to you to pick up and move on.”

“You mean like Commander Sumason?” Suddenly his eyes grew. She saw the realization set in on his face that he’d crossed the line.

She decided to build on the shock value, “Yes, exactly like Commander Sumason. I’m told he did everything he was trained to do, and yes, he got replaced. But he is a man with a backbone, Mr. Sloane. He didn’t whine or complain about the cards the galaxy dealt him. He took it in stride and stepped down like a good soldier.”

She paused to let it sink in.

Then it dawned on her why Sloane always had such an attitude toward her. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

Sloane remained silent and began to shrink back to his console.

“This is about me taking command of the Decimator. Isn’t it Mr. Sloane?”

“Yes,” he said. Then quickly added, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright, then. I’m glad we had this out.” Reeves felt more clarity about her crew and how they saw her. It relieved her to know it wasn’t about her at all, but the change in leadership.

“Commander Sumason completed all the missions given to him. He had an impeccable record, Colonel.”

“And that is exactly my point, Lieutenant.”

The command deck remained quiet except for indicators beeping softly. The glow from the star was far dimmer with the growing distance. The distant thrum of the engines grew in her ears. She had to address it head-on.

“Alright, look people, I know you didn’t want me standing here. You didn’t want me, but I wanted you. I saw your record and the capabilities of this ship, and I knew that we’d accomplish great things. Commander Sumason turned you into one of the finest crews in the galaxy. He has my utmost respect. So do you. The Consular may not see it now, but he will. I promise you that. For the moment, I’m being punished for being sloppy.“

Huxley turned his flight chair forward toward the bow, “Sloppy, Colonel?”

“Yes. Sloppy. I missed one important detail.” Although reluctant at first, she knew she could earn their trust by taking responsibility herself. “In my debrief, it was pointed out that we didn’t notice the pilot of the Fer-de-lance was once in our employ.”

“What?” Sloane looked up from his console in disbelief. “Vackin’ mercenaries. No loyalties!” He spit in disgust.

“The point is, we had all the tactical data we needed on the pilot and the capabilities of their ship, and we missed it. We underestimated them, so now…”

“Now we’re being made an example,” Huxley finished.

Sloane, still fuming, angrily tapped at his console, “So we need to make an example out of that pilot. That’s how it goes, right? Someone pushes you and push the next person down the line.”

“Yes, we are being made an example,” she responded to Huxley, then turned back to Sloane. “We don’t get to meet the pilot. He’s being shipped off to Arber with his accomplices. We do, however, get the engineer. Our orders are to ‘convince’ him to do the right thing.”

“Hah. The right thing. I have no idea what that is anymore, and at this point, I’m too afraid to screw it up again.”

Reeves ignored Sloane‘s pitiful complaining.

“Ma’am, what are we trying to convince him to do?” Asher asked.

“To continue working on his prototype—the tech the Consular believes will help us not only defend against but defeat the Thargoids.”

“Ahh! So there is a bright side to all this! We at least we get to make someone else’s life miserable,” Sloane mocked and turned back to his station to continue calculating their jump course.

“Colonel,” Huxley piped up from his comm station, a shocked and sudden urgency in his voice. “GalNet is reporting the protests in Chelum have turned violent. And… Resistance forces are mounting attacks in the system.”

She snapped her head upward, “Put it on audio…”

Huxley tapped the commands to run the GalNet audio feed:

Chelum Protests, Plagues, and Terror.

Authorities in Chelum have reported skirmishes with Resistance fighters. The widespread clashes remain small scale and appear focused against Imperial traffic in the system.

Chelum, the largest populated system in the Hyades, has, in recent weeks, seen several civilian labor protests. Thousands of protesters clashed with authorities on Boswell Hub in a fresh round of anti-corporation demonstrations. The violence ravaging the system takes place amidst a deadly outbreak of the devastating aculosis disease.

Workers’ unions are continuing organized labor strikes against unfair employment practices. The corporations are in fierce competition to cash in on defense contracts for the Hyades government. Sietae Federal Corp. manages the regional governance contract for Sirius Gov in the region. Alden Duryss, Sietae Federal CEO who presides as regional Consular for Sirius Gov, issued the following statement:

“I am distraught at the events reported in Chelum. Resistance terrorists have exploited the turmoil in the system of protests and disease. These craven attacks present a danger to the billions that call Chelum home. They threaten the safety of citizens throughout the Hyades. I have mobilized system authorities in the system and call upon the galactic community for their support.”

“It’s a mess there,” Asher remarked sadly.

Reeves sighed in a long breath, “It won’t be long before the system becomes a target for mercenaries and pirates.”

“Those coward churdflippers! They’ve been waiting for this!” Sloane slammed his console. “We should ignore Duryss’s orders and rip those terrorists apart.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Mr. Sloane. Do you have our route?”

“Plotted,” he spat.

“Colonel, I’m with Sloane on this one,” Huxley jumped in. “I have a brother on Buchli.”

Reeves nodded, “Believe me, I’d rather be there too. I’d love to drive those Resistance screbs back to the wastelands they came from.“

Sloane turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow, “Then why not?”

She shot him a look of disbelief at his apparent display of stupidity, “Orders, Lieutenant! Orders.” She made a gesture toward Huxley’s comms console. “We’ll get our chance, Mr. Sloane—I promise you. I was assured by Consular Duryss that after we complete this mission, we’ll be back at the front of the action. I’ll make a firm request to dispatch us to Chelum first, okay?”

Sloane let out a reluctant sigh, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time arguing so we can get it done people. Asher, charge the drive.”

“Aye. Starting jump prep, ma’am.”

A distant thrum toward the aft of the ship grew in the command deck from the power build-up in the drives.

Reeves spoke over the engines, “We get this done, then join the fight in Chelum.”

The tunnel enveloped the ship. It took a couple of back-to-back jumps. The transit time through hyperspace was short, but gave her enough time to reflect. The conversation was fruitful. The crew was beginning to accept her.

She felt more resolve and a growing anticipation for coming face-to-face with the engineer that had gotten away. Information was power. A short, intense ‘pain consultation’ might reveal a great deal. It could even produce an explanation for the advantage Consular Duryss saw in the engineer’s device. How will it help us defeat the Thargoids? She wondered. She’d know soon enough.

Once the Resistance was dealt with, they could finally turn their focus on eradicating the Thargoids from the galaxy. She felt a renewed energy watching their approach to the installation.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Lee blinked the sleep out of his eyes and summoned the will to sit up on his rack. The morning wake up tone sounded with the lighting in his quarters growing steady but slow—part of the regular wake up sequence. After a couple of months on Arber Penal Colony, his body had adjusted to the forced schedule. Now he was waking up before the alarm, much to his annoyance. He sat for a moment, first to allow his faculties to return to him, and then to assess his level of soreness.

The gravity here was far less than standard. The only place he’d been with a gravity close to it was on Titan City at around a tenth or so of ‘standard.’ He slid off the top rack and half-floated to the floor. His quarters weren’t much more than a small, unadorned hotel room. Across from the wall with two mounted sleeping racks was a doorway to the utilitarian private bathroom.

He stumbled into the bathroom past the small chest of drawers and a recliner set against the back wall. After relieving himself, he washed up in the nondescript sink.

He splashed cool water on his face and watched the reflection in the mirror, allowing the droplets to drip from his brow, nose, and chin. The drops slowed, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the reflection that stared back at him.

He lost everything.

Tarrek and Jackson were captured and shipped to the penal colony with him. Xohn was taken by Duryss goons. Who knew what happened to Zee and Dex after Foden Dock was attacked. Vic was already gone forever, but they took the Nightcrawler from him—his last connection to the old man. He let everyone down and lost it all.

That’s what happens when you get involved. Serves me right, he thought to himself.

Worse still, he didn’t have any direction. He’d confronted the man responsible for Vic’s death. He couldn’t even do that right. His mission for the Resistance failed.

He felt less than worthless and dragged himself back across his quarters to sink back down into the lower sleeping rack. Pulling the blanket up to his shoulders, he rolled away from the growing light of the room’s automated illumination.

Another sequence of tones sounded—ten minutes until breakfast. Instead of getting up, he pulled the blanket back over his head and buried himself under the pillow. He wished he could curl himself tight enough he could collapse out of existence like an imploding star.

A thumping sound on his door startled him out of his self-loathing.

“Go away!” He shouted, his voice muffled by the pillow.

“Hey, it’s breakfast. I mean, I know you don’t want to miss breakfast, Lee.” There was more pounding. “Hey, come on! You gotta get to your shift, or they’re gonna throw you in the tank.”

The colony wasn’t anywhere near as brutal as a prison. Their basic needs were met. They had access to decent meals, medical care, even entertainment. It was more of a strictly managed police state. Guards were posted in sensitive areas, but otherwise, they had the freedom to move about as they wished. All you had to do was show up for the mind-numbing labor you were assigned. If you didn’t, you were sent to a void-vault, a ‘tank’. It was the term colonists used for total isolation therapy. Lost in his personal ocean of despair, complete isolation sounded fitting.

“Just leave me!” He shouted back.

“Come on, grow up, and be a man. This isn’t doing you any good.”

“Jackson, you’re the last person in this galaxy I want any help from. Just go!”

He waited and listened. When the pounding stopped, he assumed Jackson must have given up on him.

He was right though; the tank wasn’t going to do any good. When they were processed into the colony, they all had to spend a 24-hour cycle in that hellish exile. The isolation chambers were less a room and more of a closet. They weren’t even big enough to turn around in. He was forced to stand against the new gravity for hours. But the worst part was the absolute silence created by noise cancelation filters. The outside world was gone. Nothing existed outside of that coffin except the sound of blood that rushed through his head. He had no appetite to ever do it again. It was admittedly ironic given how much he wanted to be alone. It seemed working with the Resistance was far more influential than he thought.

Lee threw the covers off and sat on his rack, holding his head.

Another sequence of tones sounded. Breakfast was starting. Missing breakfast meant missing fuel his body was going to need. With renewed urgency, he changed into his work clothes and rushed out of his quarters into the dim corridor already filled with people.

“Morning,” he heard Tarrek’s sharp voice behind him. Lee ignored him, kept his head down, and shuffled forward in the crowd. “Still upset, Sollinger?” There was a ‘you should be’ implied in his tone. Tarrek hit his shoulder while walking past him.

“Yeah, and you’re still mad at me?”

“You got caught.”

Lee scowled back, “Yeah, well, so did you.”

“I blame my pilot. Who was pilot on your ship again? Oh, right. You. And now Resistance continues blind strikes. You got greedy and now…” He threw his hands dismissively at Lee in disgust and walked away from him.

“Oh, come off it!” Lee stopped behind him and shouted over the heads of the crowd. “We all knew it was risky. If I remember it right, you got caught before we did.”

Tarrek stopped, spun around, and stabbed a finger in his own chest, “I knew going in!” Then he pointed down the hall into the crowd, “Jackson—he knew. He knew we’d get caught. He sacrificed to protect you. Point is, we were supposed to get caught, not you. You made our sacrifice… failure. You lose. We lose. Resistance loses.”

“Okay, so I screwed up everything. What do you want from me?”

It looked like Tarrek was about to lay into him again, but something stopped him. He dismissed Lee with a wave of his arms and walked up to where the crowd was stopped to wait for the lifts.

The lift was packed. Space was almost as tight as a void-vault tank. Tarrek drifted off somewhere into the mass of people, and Lee lost track of him.

When the lift doors opened, the crowd forced Lee out in a rush to the breakfast queues. Lee moved into a forming line, getting shoved and shoving back a couple times to keep his place. He grabbed a sealed tray of food. It was standard fare: eggs, bangers, potatoes, and tea. He walked the enormous hall to find a seat and devoured his meal.

Like a robot, he disposed of his tray and headed to the lift. He thanked his lucky stars that it was empty. People wanted to stay to make the most of breakfast time. Lee was ready to get on with the day and avoid people as much as possible.

It was a long trip from the residential tower to the factory buildings below. From the lift, he strolled down a long corridor. Near the end of it, he arrived at the security checkpoint. Amid the morning rush, it was notorious for delays that backed up foot traffic all the way down the corridor. Some days the only way to get through quick enough was to bribe the guards.

Lee found a soft spot with one of the guards that always seemed to be in a disturbingly good mood. Sure enough, he was there this morning, much to Lee’s annoyance. He was short and portly with a bushy white beard and tufts of white hair wrapped around his head. His cheerful demeanor completed the look, but it was the twinkle in his eyes that was his namesake. Everyone knew him as Billy ‘Sweeteyes’. He always had a small bot or gadget that he was fiddling with between residents passing by the checkpoint.

At Lee’s approach, he put down his tool and a blinking palm-sized decorative bot of some sort. It had the simplistic svelte design of Imperial stylings. Lee’s eyes were drawn to the mesmerizing lights blinking all over the device.

“Mornin’ Lee,” Billy looked up at Lee with an ear-to-ear grinning smile.

“Morning Billy,” he sighed, already irratated at his pleasantness. Somehow, Billy frowned but kept smiling with his eyes. “Oh, say, you look down, son. Whatsa matter?”

Lee couldn’t hold back his sarcasm, “I don’t know, take a guess.”

Billy stared him in the eyes for an awkward amount of time and shook his head, “No it ain’t the work. Ain’t jes the work anyways. Tell ole Billy what’s got ya down.”

“Not today, Billy. I just want to get on with it.”

“Alright. But jes’ remembers this thing about life; ain’t nobody gets out alive, so make the most uh your livin’ now,” he offered Lee his work chit.

Lee took a slow deep breath and took the chit. “Words to live by Billy. Thanks,” he said with a fake smile. His eyes returned to the rhythmic flashing lights on the bot. His curiosity got the better of him, and he blurted out, “What is that thing?”

Billy picked up the small bot, regarding it for a moment, “Eh jes’ a little cam bot, I ’spect. He’s a lil’ cutie idn’t he? Ya like it?”

Lee couldn’t help but be sarcastic, “Sure Billy, it’s just what I need to go with the barren slum look of my quarters.” He shook his head.

Billy kept smiling, unaffected by Lee’s tone and went back to his tinkering.

Lee shrugged it off and walked through the scanners, then stepped down into the main hub of the factory complex. The large open area branched out into several corridors and lifts to ferry laborers to the sprawl of work zones across the complex. The scrapyard facility required another long walk straight through to the last building.

He geared up in the locker room and dropped his work chit into the receptacle to check in for his shift. Grabbing the safety helmet from the bench and throwing it over his head, he stepped into the scrap sorting department. It was enormous—of the scale that could more easily be built planet-side with gravity. Far above their heads, and the towering machinery, was a series of gangways. The foreman, a man Lee found to be an arrogant churdtool, stood overlooking the work crews. He did his best to avoid the guy.

Lee meandered through the sprawl of the huge metal processing equipment all connected by the conveyor belts. Big hunks of metallic fragments were being shuttled around the huge space to the sorting and processing machines. It was a noisy affair. A loud stamping machine pounded in the distance causing the entire facility to shake under his feet as he walked.

He reached his position and, not wanting to shout over the noise, he tapped the laborer he was replacing. A rather obese fellow, drenched in sweat, turned to see Lee with a look of relief that crossed his face. The man stopped the machinery, detached his safety tether, gave Lee a haphazard salute, and bolted at as much of a run as he could manage.

Lee strapped in and began the mind-numbing process. His job was to pull ferrous metal from a magnet and put it on the ferrous metal processing line. It was an important first step to sort the ferrous from non-ferrous metal to process it into re-sellable cubes.

Going through all the motions that he’d done over and over again since he arrived, he felt himself die a little more every day. In any other facility, it all would have been carried out by expensive automation. Here, it was replaced by a low cost meat machine. The process was designed as cheap and de-humanizing as possible. And why not? It was a perfect setup. The labor paid for colony operations, including meals, housing and the like. It gave the colony “guests” something to occupy their time. During their stay they made a contribution to the economy, and were kept too tired to cause trouble.

The scrap came in a wide variety of sizes. Everything from small palm-sized strips and bits of bot-scrap to heavy hull-plating for ships. It was another reason why facilities like this were often setup on low-gravity worlds. The low-gravity helped the meat-workforce handle larger scrap, but it still took enormous effort to move around. It made him sore every day. That was his life now.

The day came and went, much like any other. His replacement was late. When the tap on his shoulder finally came, he was too tired to even scowl. He shutdown the machines, unplugged, and sluggishly headed back to his room.

He tossed his work uniform onto the chair and took a long relaxing shower, trying hard to keep from thinking about anything.

When he emerged, he placed a glass of water next to the recliner, then grabbed his work clothes to shove them into the reclamation slot. When he turned to sit back down in the recliner, he found the Imperial cam bot that the checkpoint guard had been tinkering with. Billy must have taken his sarcastic comments literally. Lee shook his head. He palmed the bot while floating down into the recliner to relax. He turned the bot around in his fingers, regarding it for a moment, then smirked.

“Computer, dim the lights,” Lee commanded the room’s environmental controls. A tone sounded in acknowledgment, and the lighting decreased.

This is what his life had come to. All those lofty goals, and this is where he wound up. In the end, there was no fairness in the universe. Even the balance that held planets in orbit was an illusion. Everything was in a slow and imperceptible decay. The galaxy tried to kill him and everyone else while dying out itself. No where was safe. Nothing lasted forever. Even the eternal stars themselves would die out.

None of it mattered.

Despair more profound than any he’d known took hold of him. It was a dark place—darker than any starless region of space he’d traveled. A part of him knew not to go down this path of hopelessness. Another part was ready to relinquish himself to it.

It wasn’t enough for the universe for him to fail the Resistance, or lose his friends, or his ship, or his family. He had to lose himself.

He pulled his legs up toward his chest and let the emotions swallow him. Completely overwhelmed, tears filled his eyes and clung there. The low-gravity insufficient to pull them down his cheeks.

His energy spent, he drifted into a deep sleep.

***

“Oh, my boy,” an old familiar voice came to Lee.

“Huh, who’s there?” He asked, disoriented, unable to see anything. There was an impression of a presence near him. Then he saw a figure backlit with the glow of light around them in a doorway. It was a dream, or a memory he seemed to be both in and watching. He was young.

“You need to get up, Lee.”

“I’m too tired. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to.”

“Come on, mate. I need you on this one.” The lights in his bunk raised, and Lee could make out the familiar silhouette of Vic pulling his arm back from the room controls.

Lee didn’t respond.

“You can’t stay in here all day. What’s got you all worked up today? You’re moodier than a cat.”

“Just leave me alone.” He rolled back away from Vic.

“Look bud, we’re in this together. You and me. I wanna help, but you gotta start opening up.”

“No offense, old man, but this is… it’s something personal I gotta deal with. You wouldn’t understand…”

“Try me, son. Help me understand.”

Overcoming his reluctance, he turned to look over his shoulder. “Today…” he started to say, but couldn’t finish it.

“Today, what?”

“Today’s the anniversary…”

Vic sat on the wall bench in his bunkhouse and waited.

“Today is the day I lost my mom.”

“Ahh,” Vic looked down at the floor as if in thought.

Lee shouted, “You don’t even know!”

“I wanna know. Come on—we’ve been through a lot, together, and you never talked about it before. There’s no one else here, Lee. It’s me, partner. Talk to me.”

“I– I want to… I just wanna deal with it on my own.”

“Okay, okay. But look at this. In this big wide galaxy, you landed with me. You been with me on the Nightcrawler for what now, four or five years? You trust me, right? You need to get it off your chest. This is poisoning you.”

“Alright, look…” he summoned the energy to get it all out. “This pockmarked, ponytailed arse took my mom from me. He got her hooked on drugs until she couldn’t take care of me anymore. I had to take care of her. Steal for her. Clean her up… I was 11! 11 years old, Vic!” He remembered the jumbled emotions of sadness and anger he felt in that conversation.

“Alright, alright. I hear you, son.”

“‘Son’? I’m not your son! And, if I ever find the guy that did it to her, I’ll kill him! I don’t care, I’ll kill him!” He smacked at the bulkhead. It hurt his hand, but he didn’t care.

When he looked up at Vic, he saw a pained expression in his eyes—in his brow.

“Okay. Alright. I understand how you feel,” Vic said with a comforting softness.

“Understand? How could you possibly understand what I lived through?”

He put his hands up to gesture for Lee to stop. “Hey now…” Lee heard a catch in the old man’s voice. “I’ve seen my share.” A tear stuck to the old man’s right eye. He had such a soft, sad, distant expression on his face. It was a look Lee had never seen before. “Look, you’re not the only one that’s been dealt a bad hand in this galaxy.“

He relaxed his clenched jaw and sat in his bunk with his arms around his legs. The restraints held him to the bunk, so he didn’t float away in zero-G.

“You want revenge. I get it. You’re in that dark place. But let me tell you… You go looking for darkness, and that’s all you’ll ever find.”

Lee tried to wave him off. “What would you know,” he said and rolled back on to his side with his back to Vic.

“Many, many years ago, I was a combat pilot with the AJN, under Admiral Wilson.”

“Admiral, who?” Lee asked.

“Never mind, it’s not important. The important thing is, I was part of the militia force when the AJN was being cobbled together. We ran escort sorties for the AJN Bounty. Boy, was she a piece a’ work—Valiant-class battleship. Sounds impressive, but she was really just a bunch of new hardware and weapons crammed on a long-range cruiser’s frame. See back then, the Imps were threatening to invade, so the Alliance was retrofitting ships to build up a defense force. We became the AJN. After that, I went to combat training at the Academy. While I was there, I…” He paused to collect himself. “I had a son.” His face became a mix of pain and pride.

Lee watched Vic adjust himself on the bench holding a tight fist.

His voice cracked with anguish as he continued. “He followed his old man’s footsteps. It was my fault. I encouraged it. He was a true AIS soldier through-and-through.”

Vic wept and stared at the deck plates for awhile.

“What happened?” Lee unstrapped from his bunk and held himself in place by the edge.

“Growing up, he loved to fly with me. Had a real knack for the stick, too, and he knew it. He was always so sure of himself. Thought he was invincible. Back in those days, the Alliance was heavily recruiting. As soon as he was old enough, he went to the Academy. Graduated top of his class and did 4 tours. I couldn’t…” He put his fist up to his mouth. “I couldn’t stop him.” The tears stuck to his cheeks and bounced with his movements. He shook his head, and Lee watched the liquid globules fling off.

Vic continued, “I couldn’t stop him from the fourth tour. The lad didn’t have to go, but he did anyway. His wing was sent to a combat zone. His ship was disabled, and they had to use the escape pods. He was recovered, but his co-pilot was captured by the Imps. All he wanted was to give the Imps some payback and rescue his buddy. Even got the rest of his wing to join him in an assault-rescue mission. He was out for blood. It’s all he could see. He wouldn’t listen. His anger and hatred blinded him. I couldn’t reach him no matter how I tried… But you know, he was a great pilot. They got into it, completely outgunned. He saved every last one of his boys. Rescued his friend, too. But he paid for it… with his life.”

“Wow,” Lee was breathless.

“So I went after the pilots that took his life. I was angry. Found the Imps training in a HazRes with this very ship. I learned an important lesson that day. It’s better to get ahead than it is to get even. Getting even feels good for a few seconds. Getting ahead means completely destroying your enemy, but it’s hard. It’s a sacrifice.”

“Right,” Lee nodded. “So, how did you beat them?”

A proximity alarm sounded from the command deck. Lee jolted, and his adult self’s perspective ran from the scene of his teenaged memory. When he made it to the command deck, Vic was there waiting for him. Lee looked out of the canopy and saw a now-familiar Anaconda flying with the Para Bellum off the port bow.

“Your friends are here, Lee,” Vic said matter of factly.

“What? Where are we, what are you doing here?”

Vic was back to his usual, calm self. “Your friends.” He pointed to the ships.

“Vic, they’re not my friends. They,” he pointed to the Anaconda, “want to kill me, and that’s the ship that… that killed you.”

Vic shrugged his shoulders.

Lee had a sudden realization he was dreaming, “Vic, I’m in a bad place,” Lee said.

“Yeah? How bad is bad?”

“I’m on a penal colony… I lost the Nightcrawler. I’m stuck on a moon in Glist, and I lost everything. Everything’s gone wrong, and it’s all my fault.”

“Sounds pretty bad, bud. But you’ve got friends, and I’m here for you.”

“Vic, you’re dead. You’ve been gone 3 years now.”

“Lee, I’m here.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t real. It’s just my brain making up a story from random stuff in my head.”

Vic was busy looking through the Nightcrawler’s system panel. “True. That’s all true. But I’m here. You brought me here, kid.”

“So help me! Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

“But you always seem to like going it alone.”

“Only ‘cause you’re not around anymore. People basically suck.”

“Yeah? Even that bald tattooed fella?”

”He’s alright, but his accent drives me nuts.”

“You know Lee, everyone comes with baggage. They all have a story behind who and how they are. The trick is to not get even. Get ahead.”

Lee rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah. Heard that one before. It’s getting pretty old, old man.”

“And?”

“And what? I don’t have a clue how that helps me here.”

“You always were a stubborn kid.”

“Look, the Resistance was counting on me, and I blew it, and now I’m stuck here, chucking metal like a bot. They didn’t even give a sentencing date. I could be locked away in here forever.”

“Resistance,” Vic said, considering the word for a moment. “That’s the story of your life, kid. You’ve grown up with that chip on your shoulder, dependent on only one person. Your own little personal resistance to life.”

“Vic, I’m… I’m at the end of my rope here. Are you here to badger me?”

“I’m here to help.”

“Then help me! Please!”

He pointed to the Para Bellum. “That’s a beautiful ship.”

“Yeah, with a stupid pilot.”

“There. See? All that ‘resistance’? You need to get to know him better. Everyone’s gone through something you know nothing about.”

“I know all I need to know. That’s the pilot that killed you!”

“But was it really him?”

“Yeah, he did. I know it.”

“Lee, he may have been behind the trigger, but there’s always someone else’s agenda behind it. Remember, I used to be a combat pilot too.”

“So?”

“I stopped the day I realized the Imps that killed my son were following someone else’s agenda, following orders. That’s what a soldier does. We were soldiers. That was the day I decided to resign my commission from the AJN.” He pointed back at the Para Bellum, “This guy was going about his life, following someone else’s orders. And you’re going to make him responsible for doing his job to the best of his ability?”

“I just… I don’t want to like him.”

“Resistance.”

Lee shrugged, then nodded.

“You’re trapped here.” Vic patted a hand over his heart. “As long as you hold onto that resistance, Lee… You’re a prisoner of yourself.”

Vic took the controls of the Nightcrawler and throttled forward. He smiled a simple, peaceful, contented smile. “You were a second son to me. All I ever wanted was to help you the way I couldn’t help my son. You grew up street smart. You had to be to survive. You’ve broken out of jail cells before. You can hack your way through security systems. And, if you’re brave enough, you’ve got friends that can help you out of this prison you’ve made for yourself. If you’re brave enough to let yourself out and let others in.”

The Anaconda and the Para Bellum maneuvered into a wing formation and followed their lead.

“Don’t get even, Lee. Get ahead.”

***

Lee woke up to the familiar ceiling and walls of his quarters on the penal colony. The dream was fresh on his mind. Still in the recliner, he leaned forward and tried to recall it all before he lost it.

The wake-up tone interrupted his thoughts. The lights began their gentile illumination.

A fresh perspective invigorated him. He was up and ready before the second tone sounded. Like the day before, there was a pounding at his door.

Lee sighed. Alright, Vic, I’ll try it your way, he thought to himself. He opened the door to Jackson, standing there waiting for him, “Morning, Lee.”

“Morning, 2K.”

“Wow. Honestly, it’s good to see you up.”

“You worried about me?” Lee scoffed.

“Ehem. No. Not worried. I mean, I’ve got something that will cheer you up.”

“You? Cheer me up? What could you possibly say to me that would cheer me up?”

“Okay, look, just come with me, alright?” Jackson made a gesture for Lee to follow.

Still reluctant, Lee went along with Jackson to the lifts and down to the mess hall. Instead of filing into line, Jackson led him around the building crowds of people to one of the last sets of serving stations. There, behind the counter, handing out trays was a burly, curly-haired beast of a man with a cybernetic arm.

“Well, as I live and breathe. Sollinger!” Dex said with a toothy smile.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jackson was right, Lee thought. Although he felt it was best to keep that sentiment to himself—no need to inflate an already galactic ego. Lee still had his doubts about Jackson, so it was better to not make it public knowledge.

Everything changed after seeing Dex. He found a new sense of hope in their hopeless situation. His “talk” with Vic had reminded him of who he was; what he was capable of.

The day wore on. Time seemed slow as if to taunt him, today of all days. He attributed it to the anticipation. There was no time to catch up with Dex in the mess hall. They were rushed through the line at breakfast. In the brief exchange, Dex said there was “lots to talk about.”

They made a hasty plan to get together that night for dinner at one of the “pubs” in the residential tower promenade. There was no alcohol on Arber Penal Colony, but they did have pub food. It was another measure designed to pacify the residents. The illusion of choice goes a long way in maintaining order, or so the thinking went.

Lee pulled another hunk of scrap and tossed it. Somehow, the aches that had been there were gone. The daily grind no longer ground him down. He found himself reinvigorated, able to push past the rigors of dehumanizing labor.

After his shift, he ran back to his quarters to clean up and make it to the pub. Even in his colonist ’uniform,’ he felt the most human he had since he arrived.

He hopped off the lift at the Marketplace. It was a promenade of shopping, restaurants, and services. It had an almost theme park quality to it. The tall ceiling was a display screen set to simulate a sky. It was starting to shift into a dusky evening scene with the blue-white star of Glist setting below the building tops.

The pub was on the corner of a set of “buildings” inside the vast area of the Marketplace. The stylized sign above it read: Last Call. He smirked. It was a nice touch for a prison pub.

Inside was crammed with people, but it was never hard to find Dex in a crowd. He saw the flaming curly hair over the heads of everyone else in the place.

Lee pushed his way through the crowd. When he reached them, he found Jackson and Tarrek talking with Dex at a table coming out from the wall. Dex’s back was to Lee as he walked up to them, but Jackson nodded his direction to indicate to the other’s that Lee had arrived.

Dex backed up to make room and turned to welcome Lee, “Sollinger! You lousy smuggler…” Dex continued talking, but Lee couldn’t hear him anymore. His big frame moved out of the way, revealing Zee, sitting in the corner, her hands over each other on the table. Her eyes connected with his. In the span of a breath, his heart leaped from shock to unbelief, to relief.

Jackson slid out from the table to let Zee out. She jumped up and, without any words, wrapped her arms around his neck. They held each other in the corner of the pub for a time.

Her voice was soft and at almost a whisper in his ear, “Good to see you, Lee.”

Still holding her to him, he whispered back, “I can’t believe you’re here. You’re still alive! I–” He couldn’t continue. It took a moment to collect himself before the flood of emotion could embarrass him. “I just can’t believe it! I thought about you and worried–”

“You? You worried about me, did ya?” She whispered back again. He could feel her smile on his cheek.

They pulled away to look at each other again. It took Jackson clearing his throat for Lee to even remember other people were around them.

Lee looked over at Dex, who had an enormous grin under his beard.

Zee gestured at the table and said, “Let’s have a seat and catch you up on everything.” She scooted back into her stool at the bar-height table.

Jackson gestured to Lee, and Lee took a seat beside her. Jackson sat on the end beside Lee. Across the table, Tarrek and Dex both sat on a couple of stools.

“So, really, what happened on Foden Dock? How’d you guys end up here?”

Dex spoke up, “Well, the attack destroyed a lotta the station. I thought we were all gonna bite it. Took a hit on the market level that blew out all the power relays in the bar. I jumped out from behind the counter before it blew my legs out. At some point, the shootin’ stopped, and the station was boarded. We were rounded up and sent to the docking bays by some vicious broad.”

Zee continued, “There was this wicked Colonel lady that was calling the shots. They took the Exec in restraints. I’m not sure if he was brought here, or maybe they killed him. I don’t know. We were all given bounties for being complicit in working for the Resistance under Marco, then we were sent here.”

“Had no idea we worked for terrorists till we were hauled off the Dock,” Dex shook his head.

“Well, we all are now,” Zee said in a lower voice.

“Impro, ada, over,” Tarrek said.

“Impro, ada, over,” Jackson echoed. “So, what now?”

Lee realized there were ears everywhere. Not only the other faux-pub patrons but also monitoring equipment built-in to the facility throughout. He was careful in choosing his words. “We need to bid farewell,” he made a suggestive movement to emphasize the phrase, hoping everyone grasped what he meant. “And find a way to– share everything happening in the Hyades.”

“I think I know just the person to help with that,” Zee smiled. “I met her working maintenance in the office complex on level 70.”

“Help with which part, bidding adieu, or…?” Lee asked, again emphasizing his word choice.

“Both, I think. But we need someplace where we can have a more uhh… intimate conversation,” Zee grinned at her wordplay.

“So where can we go?” Tarrek scooted in to ensure his hushed voice could be heard.

Lee looked around at them, “Any ideas?”

Zee sat back on her stool in the corner. Jackson had a puzzled look on his face, “What about a cargo bay?”

Tarrek shook his head, “No good. Entrance is strictly controlled and monitored.”

It was quiet for a moment before Jackson tried again, “A bathroom?”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I’m sure that’s not going to raise any suspicions,” Zee said, with mild amusement on her face. Jackson shrugged back.

Dex made a circle gesture around the table. “You gonna bring two gals into a bathroom with four guys Jackson?”

“You said ‘intimate’! I don’t see anyone else throwing out ideas!”

“Bathrooms still have eyes and ears anyways,” Lee added. Dex scratched at his neck under his beard, then Lee saw his face change like he landed on something.

“Icebox,” Dex continued his scratching.

“Icebox?” Lee asked.

“Yeah, the icebox,” he wagged a finger as he thought it through. “It’s off the kitchen. It’s noisy with lots ‘uh folks movin’ and runnin’. It’s refrigerated storage. There’s an open alcove with eyes on it. Wouldn’t be outta the ordinary for some uh’ the tall racks to be pushed in front uh’ the sensor. All the banging around would be enough to cover our conversation I’d ‘spect.”

Zee scooted back into the conversation, “Sounds like that’ll work. I’ll see if I can bump into my friend and arrange for us to meet there, say day after next, around breakfast bell?”

There were nods around the table.

“Great. Nothing says ‘intimate’ like a rendezvous in the kitchen,” Lee remarked.

“Same old Lee,” Zee pushed him on the shoulder. “So what about you? Dex told me he saw you head off to the docking bay. You obviously made it off in the Nightcrawler; what’ve you been doing all this time? How’d you end up with these guys?”

He scratched at the back of his head, “That’s a bit of a long story.”

“Curfew’s not for a couple more hours.”

“Alright, let’s actually order some food, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

It didn’t take Lee near that long to fill her and Dex in. They ate pub food and laughed together. He told their story from meeting Jackson in Dex’s bar, stranding Vin Xohn in RemLok survival gel. Then he told them about outrunning the Decimator, discovering the ThermARC and Vin Xohn’s fiancé, to being captured by the Athos. Tarrek and Jackson added a few choice details here and there, particularly bits about flying chairs and hacks-gone-bad.

It was the most fun Lee could remember having in a long time. Tarrek and Jackson turned in first. As Dex got up to leave, he grabbed Lee in a giant bear hug and patted Zee on her head.

He walked Zee out of Last Call, and they meandered through the corridors together, back to her quarters. The banter of the evening turned into a more intimate, tender conversation.

“Hey, you,” she bumped his shoulder.

“What?” He let out a bit of a nervous chuckle.

“You owe me.”

He racked his memory to recall what she was getting at. He snapped his fingers, “The shield generator.”

She pointed a finger in the air with a smile, “Yup. The generator.”

“What was it again, dinner?”

“Dinner. Yes. And…?” She stepped in front of him and turned to face him, making him stop in his tracks.

“And…what?” He laughed, playing dumb.

“You know what!” She gave him a playful smack on the shoulder. He enjoyed how her hair bounced about her shoulders when she was like this.

“Dinner… and, oh, that’s right, drinks,” he grinned mischievously.

“No!” She stomped a foot in the hall, making a thunk sound that traveled the entire corridor.

“Alright, alright, I give up. Dinner and what?”

“Dancing!”

“Agh, right.” He gave himself a playful smack on his forehead to sell his dumb act. “The dancing. Well…” He cleared his throat. “If we ever get off this rock…”

She looked at him from under her eyebrows, a sparkle in her eyes, “I’m not letting you off the hook. You owe me.”

“Alright,” he laughed. “I promise. I owe you.” He turned to point down the hall. “Well then, we better hurry, it’s almost curfew, and I gotta make it down 10 levels before the bell.”

“Okay, flyboy,” she said with a grin as they continued their walk.

The door opened at her quarters, and she turned back to him.

“Hey Zee, I’m– I’m sorry I didn’t come back for you at the Dock. I– you know.”

“I wasn’t expecting a rescue. I’m not some helpless damsel. I had to stay to make sure people made it onto ships to evacuate. I was glad when I saw the Nightcrawler wasn’t on the pad anymore. I knew you’d made it out.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know what happened to you.”

“What? We’re you really that worried about me?” She almost burst out in laughter.

He half shrugged, trying to stay aloof about acknowledging it.

“Well, well. Lee Sollinger worried for someone else. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Hey!” He said with a hurt look that was a little oversold.

“I just– Really, Lee, I never thought I’d see the day. It’s a good thing!” She stared at him for a bit, then threw her arms around his neck to hug him and whispered, “It makes me happy.” He nodded into her shoulder, and she pushed him out of her doorway. “Now, go before you get caught out past curfew.”

He smiled, “G’night Zee.”

“Night,” he watched her beaming smile as the door shut.

***

Lee, Tarrek, and Jackson got off the lift at the mess hall. They passed the guards at the entryway. Lee spotted Dex near a doorway behind the counters for distributing trays of reconstituted food. Along the wall were several evenly spaced doors leading, Lee presumed, to the massive kitchens used to assemble their meals.

Out of the corner of his vision, he spotted the figure of Zee. Even in her maintenance jumpsuit, her flaming red hair and physique caught his eye. She was leaned up against the wall at the far end of the hall beyond the counters, arms crossed and a leg bouncing in front of the other. Her head rested against the wall. It didn’t seem to matter what she was doing; she always had a sort of gracefulness he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

It had taken her a week to arrange the meet and plan out the elaborate means of having a private conversation. Today it was finally happening, and it had given something new for Lee to look forward to for the first time since he arrived.

Dex saw them and tipped his head in acknowledgment, then turned back to nod at Zee. She lifted her head off the wall and made a subtle nod to someone out in the hall. A young woman in a pantsuit with straight auburn-colored hair stood and walked around the counter behind Dex. It was curious to Lee that she wasn’t in an official Arber Penal Colony uniform of any sort. Her small frame disappeared behind his large hulking form that well-covered the doorway.

Dex continued to stand facing out toward the hall and nodded in Zee’s general direction, being careful not to call attention to her. She pushed herself off the wall and started walking behind the counters at a casual pace, trying to remain inconspicuous. Again, she disappeared behind him.

Dex walked away from the door and made his way to the door nearest Lee, Tarrek, and Jackson. He moved his oversized body into position in front of the door. One by one, he signaled them over until Lee was the last to follow.

Through the door was a large space of metal counters with rows and rows of racks filled with their trays. These poor kitchen laborers looked to have an even worse mind-numbing task than tossing scrap. It was an assembly line of drones. They filled the trays, fit them into reconstitution machines, then sealed them to keep the contents from flying out in the low-gravity.

“This way,” Dex barked over the banging of tray after tray landing on the metallic counters.

Weaving through the sprawl to the back hall, they came to an opening, and the alcove Dex had mentioned. There were a couple of tall empty tray racks that were pushed into a strategic position. They blocked the hall sensors, with just enough space to squeeze behind.

Dex went first, followed by Lee. He ducked behind to find the small group circled up behind the racks. A large, thick, unadorned metal door was behind them.

Dex looked around, “Alright, the racks are blocking the cameras, and the banging from the kitchen noise will distort the recordings. But we can’t stay here forever, so let’s have it darlin’.”

Zee nodded and made an open-handed gesture to the young woman, “Everyone, this is Trisha–”

“Trisha Hinsley,” the woman finished.

“She’s assigned as an aide to Arber Penal Colony’s Search and Rescue manager.”

Lee understood it to mean she served as a Colony official. Lee realized that’s why she was wearing a pantsuit instead of a labor uniform.

Trisha stayed standing straight with her arms crossed. “Before my relocation to Arber, I was a GalNet reporter researching Consular Duryss.” Her voice was quiet and hard to hear with the banging sounds of trays getting slammed.

There was a quick round of introductions, ending with Lee. “I’m Lee Sollinger. Tarrek, Jackson, myself, and a friend of ours were captured by Sietae Federal Corporation ships on a mission with the Hyades Resistance. We–” He looked to Tarrek, who nodded for him to continue. “Zee tells us you might be able to help us expose what’s happening here to get the attention and assistance of the AIS, Feds, or even Imps.”

“I’d avoid Imperials, but, yes, I think I have enough on ‘Duryss’ now to expose him for what he really is–” She made finger quotes when she said his name. “For who he really is.”

“Who?” Jackson asked.

“Yes, who. Consular Alden Duryss is not who he says he is.”

“What? Some sort of imposter?” Jackson seemed rather eager to be the one to talk to her.

She turned to look at Jackson, “Not an imposter, but as far as my research shows, ‘Alden Duryss’ didn’t exist more than 5 years ago.”

“A clone!” Jackson got excited.

They seemed to edge closer to each other as both their excitement and pitch got higher.

“Not a bad guess, but no, he’s not a clone.”

“Wait,” Lee started to piece together what she was saying. “So you mean someone just invented this guy, this persona, and became the appointed head of a regional government over a hundred or so systems?”

“Okay, look, I don’t have every detail, but I think I have a pretty good picture,” she began to pace with a sort of nervous excitement. “I was assigned to do a local story on the history of Emen. That lead to digging into the background of Sietae Federal Corporation, the largest company operating in the system.”

Lee gave her a nod recognizing the company name of the pilots that had captured them.

“My queries for information on the history of the company were getting denied. My editor warned me to be careful, so I was. I used every indirect technique I could to track down information about the company. I had to hire a hacker to break in and get access to all the data. My freelance hacker turned up dead. That’s when I knew how serious it was. Thankfully, he hired a private courier to deliver the data to me.”

“Okay, we get it, wha’ja learn darlin’?” Dex said in a low voice. Lee could tell he was impatient and nervous about the time they were spending.

She continued, “Alden Duryss got handed a cush job in Sirius Gov about 5 years ago as a diplomatic envoy. He worked his way up the org chart and was handed the promotion to CEO of Sietae Fed. Within two years, he expanded the influence of Sietae Fed to take over as the head of regional governance to exploit systems in Hyades for Li Yong-Rui.” She stopped to look around at them all, almost as if she was paranoid about sharing the rest of it.

Zee tried to encourage her, “Hey, it’s okay, we’re all here to help. Like I told you, we’re with the Resistance.”

She gestured for them all to move in close and took a deep breath. “About the same time Alden Duryss showed up on the scene, someone else disappeared—someone related to a well known Imperial Senator.”

Lee knew it in his gut. “That Imperial Senator’s son!”

“Precisely. Sylus Draden.”

“Wait,” Jackson shook his head in disbelief. “You’re saying Sylus Draden is Alden Duryss?”

“The ‘Find Sylus Draden Campaign’…” Lee added, remembering the GalNet news feeds.

“Yes. Senator Madius Draden’s son, is the Sirius Gov appointed governor of the entire Hyades region.”

Tarrek began to nod, “Hmm. That making sense why we have sudden influx of Imperial investment and colonization in Hyades.”

“Whoa,” Zee was animated. “This is wild. Stuff like this doesn’t happen around here. This is the back end of space.”

“What I don’t understand, though,” Jackson said. “I don’t know, I mean, maybe you can explain it to me… Why is Duryss or Draden pushing all this anti-xeno stuff? How does that help the Imperials?”

Trisha’s face looked serious, “Now that’s the more subtle part to figure out. I don’t really have a good answer. I think it’s just profit from manufacturing contracts. My research turned up more and more contracts going to Imperial manufacturers. And, there’s enough evidence to show a growing trend for Duryss giving preferential contracts to Imperial companies.”

“So, it’s about money,” Jackson said.

“Money and power,” Tarrek spat. “In politics, money always proxy for power.”

“Okay, so all this being true, how do we use it to bring Duryss– err, Draden, down?” Lee asked.

“All my data is sitting encrypted on a server on Holland Base in LHS 28. If I can get to it, I can publish it on GalNet.”

“But it’s out there. We’re stuck here.” Tarrek replied.

Jackson said the obvious, “So, we need to escape.”

Lee scoffed, “Breaking out one person is hard enough, but six?”

Jackson was animated, his excitement getting the better of him. “I got it. I know what to do! I drive the loaders that tractor large cargo containers from the loading bays to the landing pads. I can drive everyone out to the pads, and we can sneak onto a ship from there.”

“All six of us?” Lee asked him, a little impatient that he wasn’t thinking it through. “How many fit in the loader you drive?”

“Just two in the cab. But, I don’t know, maybe we load you all in a container.”

Tarrek shook his head, “Jackson, we need atmosphere. That’s at least few minute trip out to any pads, even from factory.”

“And we sorta need ta know when a ship’s gonna be there,” Dex said over the group, his cybernetic arm gesturing outside. ”Not like we have comms to tell each other when it’s time to go.”

Lee waved his arms for quiet, “Alright, alright. One problem at a time. We’ve got travel to the pads. We need enough atmosphere to make it there. And, we need to figure out a scheduled ship. The best time to slip away will be during a shift change like breakfast or lunch break. Or better yet, end of the day shift. They won’t be looking for us until the evening, so the place won’t go on lockdown until curfew when the room sensors register us missing. That’s plenty of time to be long gone before they realize it.”

“Maybe I can long-term borrow some RemLok survival packs from the maintenance bay?” Zee offered.

Lee nodded, “Okay, that’ll work. So we need to find a ship and figure out where to be at what time to slip away.”

Tarrek groused, “Still, we need shut down sensors at where ever we end up leaving.”

“I could handle that if I can make it to a command terminal,” Lee said.

Trisha wagged a finger, “I think I can make that happen. My position gives me access to a lot of secure offices. I can get you into one of them.”

“Okay, so while I’m in there, I’ll see if I can figure out a shipping schedule too. When do you think you can make that happen?” Lee asked.

“A couple days. Tomorrow I’ll work on finding the right out-of-the-way office. I’ll let you know where to go at breakfast the day after tomorrow.”

“We have at least a couple days to wait then. In the meantime, everyone keeps their ears open about ships. Tarrek, you’re at the factory—see if you can figure out where shipments are going. That might give us a clue.”

Tarrek nodded, “The lines have been running full-tilt, building some sort of… I don’t know what it is. Never seen anything like it. It had mount points. Looks like they fit in a size 2 or 3 ship module slot.”

Dex leaned in, “Probably worth keepin’ an eye on it. I also hear a lot of rumors in the kitchen. If anything interesting comes up, I’ll letcha know.” A loud metallic bang was followed by a reverberating gong-like sound. Everyone in the group snapped their heads back toward the doorway to the hall as everything in the kitchen went silent. After what seemed like several long slow breaths, the regular kitchen commotion resumed. Dex continued as he moved out toward the doorway. “I think we gotta get moving, folks.”

“Sounds like we have a rough plan. Let’s meet back here three days from now,” Lee said while they made their exits.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“And how are we doing today, Mr. Xohn?”

The sudden voice startled Vin Xohn amidst the trilling from the projected holo model he was working on. It caused him to jump and make an uncontrolled input into the model. New oscillations amplified within the projected structure, and the entire simulation destabilized. The projection came to an abrupt end with a red failure message glowing before him and his uninvited visitor.

The ponytailed bureaucrat walked behind him. He hated how the man seemed to slink into his workspace unannounced, watching him over his shoulder from behind. It was a dark, windowless lab space with dim ambient lighting and a single badged entryway. The combination of dungeon-like conditions and the ever-present overlord pushed him to the breaking point.

“I simply cannot work like this! Not under these conditions. You cannot come in here unannounced. That was hours of work destroyed by your uninvited interruption.” He pulled his hands from the holo projection and put them flat on the desk in front of him. His patience had long since worn thin. It may have had something to do with the constant threats to hurt his friends. The images of Jackson, Lee, and Tarrek held in isolation boxes at some distant, forsaken prison facility were lodged in his mind. It’s what forced him to cooperate, despite his protests.

Duryss put his hands on his shoulders and spoke into his ear. “You’ll have to. Your friends are still counting on you. I’m counting on you.” He shifted to Xohn’s other ear and continued in a low voice, “The fabrication process of your enhanced ThermARC device is already underway. They’re all useless without the right firmware. It’s all up to you.”

“The improvements are delicate work. These calculations must be correct. The test suite needs to be completed. Any miscalculation could be quite… dangerous.” He said with an edge to his voice.

“Well, well, Mr. Xohn. I didn’t think you capable of threats. You continue to surprise me.”

“It is a fact.”

“Oh, I know a threat when I hear one. Let me return the favor. The stakes are now higher than you realize.”

Xohn half turned to see the pitted pock-marks of Duryss’s face lit from the glow of the terminal screens at his workstation. “Wha… what do you mean?” He asked, nervous about the implications.

“Are you familiar with the system of Chelum?” Duryss halfway sat on the corner of the desk.

“I’m not from this region.”

“Chelum, or HIP 21280 in the star charts, is a system of over 2 billion people. It is currently under siege by Resistance terrorists and,” he shifted on the desk. “…an outbreak of aculosis is spreading across the entire system.”

“What is aculosis?”

“It is a dreadful, painful disease,” he shook his head with a pitiful look. “Your skin gets a ghastly sort of discoloring before it develops into a high fever. Your capillaries begin to burst, and it progresses into the lungs. You start coughing up blood. Then come the muscle spasms that tear you up from inside. Your violent cough rips apart tissue while you drown in your own fluids.”

Vin Xohn couldn’t keep himself from looking appalled with his mouth hanging open at the description. “My word,” he said softly.

“By the last count, there were 80 million now infected, and it’s spreading fast. The death toll is rising as well—in the hundreds of thousands I’m told.”

“No treatment is available?”

“Oh, there is. But we’re fighting many different priorities in the system. Most shipping to the system is for weapon parts to set up defenses against a Thargoid attack. They are at our doorstep even now.”

“Yes, your xenophobic defense policies are well known.”

“Xenophobic? Come now, Mr. Xohn, millions upon millions have died in the attacks that have spread across the galaxy. It’s entirely justifiable to defend our citizens. It is and must remain a top priority. Our citizens demand it. But you see, in Chelum, even the pace of shipping for our system defense initiatives has slowed to a crawl because of terrorist interference. We can’t ship parts safely anymore, let alone treatments.”

“I see.”

“Do you, Mr. Xohn? Understand me, this is no game. There are potentially hundreds of millions of lives at stake.”

“So, the ThermARC is needed for delivering the medication?”

“Precisely. Think of the lives you can save. You’ll be a hero.”

He didn’t trust Duryss. It sounded to him like exaggerated theatrics. But, what if it was real? His conscience wouldn’t allow him to sit idly and do nothing. “A hero is not what I need to be. Saving lives is what matters.”

“Of course, that is the most important thing! Very good. Very good indeed. How long will it take to finish your tests?”

“Most of the tests from my original dataset that you took from me can be used. But at least a hundred new tests for complete coverage are needed. A few more days, maybe less.”

“In a few more days, there could be 30 million more infected at its current rate.”

“Two days at least it will take if I do my best, but cutting corners like that may also cost lives.”

“They’re counting on you.”

Xohn turned back to his workstation, “Then, to save as many lives as possible you best leave me to my work.”

“Very well,” he patted his legs and stood up to leave. At the doorway, he turned back and said, ”I’ll have Miranda bring your lunch to your lab so you can keep working. You’re in for a home-cooked Sietaen treat: Lyota Root Stew with Tamka Loaves.”

He disappeared, and the door slid shut behind him, leaving Xohn again in the quiet solitude of his dungeon. He immediately pulled up GalNet news reports from Chelum to confirm what Duryss had said. It confirmed everything. Worse, it told an even more worrying story about the rapid spread of the disease. The game was up. Delaying the ThermARC to help the Resistance would do so at the cost of innocent lives.

He could only hope his enhancements were enough to save them all.

***

Duryss arrived in his office giddy from satisfaction. The ThermARC would now serve a dual purpose. So long as the engineer’s calculations worked as well as promised, he would have the upper-hand.

His plan to repel the Senator’s forces was a stroke of Machiavellian statecraft that surprised even himself. It was almost poetic, this ability of his to turn the Senator’s advantages back against him. Even the virus was now an advantage. The rebellion of citizens in Chelum would end with the promise of a cure. His ability to control the supply of medication meant absolute control of the population.

He took a seat in his office chair and stared out at the night sky. Wisps of faintly glowing teal clouds veiled the sparkle of stars adorning the northern hemisphere of Emen.

He reveled at the idea of Senator Madius getting news of his decimated fleets. What a delicious victory it would be. At that moment, the Senator would know. He would realize that he had been beaten by none other than his ‘greatest disappointment.’ But, disappointment no more.

A message appeared on his holo terminal. He leaned forward in interest but also to focus his aging eyes. A smile crept across his face as he read. It was the notice that the first manufacturing line had completed its run of the ThermARC hardware.

It was time to bring a shipment to Sietae, where the engineer could install his newly configured software. He worked his terminal to locate ships large enough and close enough to pick up the modules. There was only one choice.

He placed the call, and a gentle, trilling sound played while waiting for the connection.

“Consular,” Reeves answered on an audio-only channel.

“Colonel Reeves, your mission performance of late has begun to restore my faith in your abilities.”

“Thank you, sir. I think it just took some settling in time with the crew.”

“Very good, Colonel. I have another mission for you.”

“Of course, sir.”

“I have a cargo shipment of classified equipment that I need delivered. Given the sensitive nature of this equipment, this is a black op. I need you to pick up 100 units and deliver them to me on Emen.”

“I’m sorry, sir, this is a black op… cargo run?”

He could hear the confusion and an edge of disappointment in her voice.

“Indeed. I cannot risk losing this cargo, and there can be no record of the mission. Black ops protocol: coded messages, no logs, and no record of any kind.”

“Understood. Where are we picking up the cargo?”

“You’ll travel to Gliese 170.1. I’m encoding the destination in an encrypted message that you’ll pick up at the nav beacon in the system.”

“You mean back to the same system we delivered your political prisoner?”

“Precisely. When you arrive, you’ll have a limited window of time to pick up the cargo. The ground crew will have the units standing by. Maintain minimal contact.”

“Yes, sir. We’re plotting a course now.”

“Do keep on alert. We know there are Resistance forces in the system.”

“We’ll be ready.”

“Also, when you arrive to deliver the shipment, I want the Decimator put in for a refit. I will need your ship and crew ready for engagement in Chelum.”

As always, Reeves was predictable to manipulate. A mindless cargo run was below the Decimator’s crew, but the promise of action and combat enhancements was an effective motivator.

“We’ll get it done. Thank you, Consular. We’re getting underway now. Decimator out.”

***

Huxley closed the comm. Reeves crossed her arms in the middle of the command deck. Sloane immediately let out a long sigh. Asher was quiet. The tension seemed to float forever in the zero-G silence among the crew.

That is until Sloane burst out, “What in the vackin’ screb hauling biowaste are these orders?” He smacked around his console.

“Stow it, Sloane,” she snapped. Truth be told, though, Reeves herself had reached the limits of her patience with these assignments. Leading an attack force for revenge against the ‘goids was now a distant memory. Still, orders were orders. Unlike the mercenaries or freelance pilots, they didn’t pick their missions. They had to stick to the program, no matter how ridiculous it seemed. “Look,” she put a hand to her forehead and, with a pained look, continued, “I don’t like it either, people.” She looked around at each of them. “You all deserve better assignments than what we’ve been handed.”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Sloane asked.

“Do you ever not? Go ahead, Mr. Sloane,” She gestured to him to give him the floor. It was better to let them all get it off their chest to get clear before the mission. Crap assignment or not, there was a job that needed to be done, and it was her duty to convince them to do it well.

“We paid our dues, ma’am. A cargo run? This isn’t a cruise liner or a cargo hauler. The Decimator is built for combat. This is a waste of time, a waste of resources, and a waste of my skills. This is not what I signed up for.”

“Anyone else?” Reeves opened the floor for everyone.

“Sir, it’s just… my brother. I still haven’t heard any news. I– I’m worried about him.”

“Asher? What’s your take?”

She set the flight controls to auto and turned back to the rest of the crew. “I‘m with everyone else. I mean, I agree; I don’t think we’re being utilized to our full potential, sir.”

“Okay,” Reeves answered. “Now that that’s all out of the way… I don’t like it either, but this isn’t a simple errand. I know it feels like we keep drawing the short stick. But folks, we’re heading back to Sietae for upgrades to prepare for battle. We’re getting new enhancements that we’re going to need before we go into combat in Chelum. This simple cargo run happens to be on our way anyways.”

“But sir, that’s going to take hours,” Huxley said. “At least an hour picking up all the cargo, and several hours to unload and get the refit.”

“Yes, it’s certainly going to take a little extra time,” Reeves massaged her temples.

“My brother’s in danger now and–”

“Mr. Huxley, there are billions in harm’s way in Chelum. This is far bigger than your brother.”

“Then why aren’t we headed there right now?” Sloane asked. He kept a professional tone, aware that he could readily be taken as insubordinate.

“There’s a reason the Consular needs this equipment and only trusts this ship and this crew to deliver it. This is a black op. No records, no black box recordings. The simple nature of the mission doesn’t diminish its importance. We need to get this job done, then get out to Chelum as soon as possible. Agreed?”

Huxley and Asher nodded, turning back to their stations. Sloane, still reluctant, with gritted teeth, said, “Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Sloane, plot our course back to Gliese 170.1.”

***

Lee worked as fast as he could. It was a challenge to decipher the quirky layout of the colony’s data network. It wasn’t like the bank systems he used to crack. Credit skimming off of bank accounts became second-nature to him as a scrappy teen surviving on the streets.

At least access to the colony network was easy enough, Trisha had made sure of that. She was very resourceful, likely owing to her experience as a reporter. Not only had she managed to get him access to the room by faking him as a support technician, but she also swiped her boss’s access credentials. He was snooping around with complete facilities administration access.

Trisha brought him to a logistics office for the Search and Rescue department. Most installations and outposts were required by Pilots Federation statutes to have one. Only the smallest didn’t. The room was large enough to include an open floor plan with four workstations. They were there at lunch shift, so they were able to spend the entire break period undisturbed. Still, Trisha was sitting on a rolling chair at the door listening for any movement in the hallway.

He continued his search, poking around different directory paths. There wouldn’t be a schedule per se, but he guessed he could look through shipment logs to find regular pick-ups or drop-offs. Browsing the services directories found the most likely entry: Port Facilities. Sure enough, he found details about landing pad operations and complete logs for each of the eight pads.

It took him a few minutes to get used to the kinds of filters and queries he could run against the data. He narrowed it to the large pads. They were going to need a big enough ship to hide in. They could all fit on a medium-sized ship well enough, but they wouldn’t be able to stay out of sight. The trade-off being those larger vessels had more lower-deck crew they’d have to hide from, but at least there were more places to hide.

Lee filtered the large pad logs to find regular shipments of consumable commodities. He figured something replenished at a regular cadence, like foodstuffs or medicines, would be the most reliable. It took the system a while to process the log data and spit out results. When it finally did, it gave him a list of records sorted by ships and dates. A quick scan over the lists indicated very irregular delivery schedules.

“Oh, this is no good.” He muttered.

Trisha looked over at him from her chair, “No ships?”

“No. Nothing to indicate a regular schedule. Nothing we can count on anyways.” The records showed a sparse schedule for food and almost no medicines. The colony was far more self-sufficient than he expected. “I’ll have to try something else. Maybe exports. Do you happen to know the main exports of the colony?”

“I don’t. I don’t handle that side at all. I mostly manage Mrs. Herman’s social schedule. She does almost nothing as far as I can tell. There’s rarely any recovery turned in here.”

“Mrs. Herman?”

“My boss. The Search and Rescue coordinator.”

“Oh well, Glist is a pretty low-traffic system. That’s probably why the colony is so independent. But they have to have a regular export or something they run out of space for…” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”

He set up the new query. Trisha jumped up and put her ear to the door. Before he could stop, his finger hit the button to execute the query.

“Someone’s in the hallway!” She whispered in a panic.

The system was locked in a processing routine. “Are they coming closer?”

She leaned in to listen for a moment, then turned back to him and nodded furiously, a look of genuine worry setting in her face.

“Vack! I just ran a new query. The system’s stuck processing the logs!”

“What do we do?”

His mind raced. “Come over here. Stand behind me like you’re working with me. Act natural. I’m helping you with a problem. I’m just a technician, remember?”

She nodded.

The door opened, and they both turned to see a woman in a grey pantsuit enter the room. She had short brown hair, a firm business look, and held her chin high.

“Trisha! Oh, what are you doing in this office?”

“Mrs. Herman!” Trisha’s nerves were plain to see.

Herman walked over to them, “I thought you were bringing me the estimate for the banquet on Thursday.”

“I…” She stammered. “I was…”

“Who is this?” She looked directly at Lee, a note of concern rising in her voice.

Lee looked up and was about to say something when Trisha cut him off. “He’s… this is…” Then as if a lightbulb went off, she pulled herself into the act. “This is a technician I grabbed to help me with this station. I was trying to retrieve the figures for you when it locked up on me. I found him working on one of the holo-signs down in the foyer and pulled him up here to help me…”

“I see. Very good.” She walked past them to one of the other workstations and picked out a datapad stowed in a compartment beside it. “So,” she walked up beside Trisha, watching the spinning hexagonal symbol shimmering on the display. “I do hope you saved your work before it locked up like this.”

“I… I can’t remember.”

“You know, I would have thought by the 34th century, this would be a solved problem.” She pointed to the terminal with the datapad she’d picked up.

“Oh, it is, it’s the credit-cutters,” Lee interjected. “They always cut corners when it comes to productivity systems out in the crater lands like this.” He made a sweeping gesture at everything around them, selling the performance.

“Indeed. Thank you, Mister…?”

“Graves,” he said.

“Mr. Graves.” She nodded. Then she turned her head to look over at Trisha. “Have you had your lunch yet?”

The terminal flashed when the process was completed—the logs displayed with pad 7 and 8’s shipping logs in full view of them all. Lee scrambled at the controls. Thankfully, Trisha kept her engaged even while she stood right beside the screen.

“No ma’am, I was trying to get this done for you. I know we’re on a tight schedule.”

“Hurry this up then and get back to the front office. I’ll have lunch sent up.” She turned to look down at the terminal.

Lee managed to navigate back to the main services directory.

“Oh, good! You got it working, Mr. Graves. Thank you! That was so fast. Who’s your supervisor so I can put in a good word for you?”

“Oh no, that’s really not necessary, ma’am.” Lee’s mind was scrambling.

“Come now, don’t be modest. I can make things happen for you.”

“Much appreciated, but my supervisor… he hates me. He’ll just make my life more miserable.”

“Middle managers. It wouldn’t happen to be that nerdy mouse man, what’s his name? Roger?” She snapped. “Rogan. Oh, I hate that man. If he was in my department, I’d have him put in a tank. You have my sympathy, Mr. Graves. Would you like me to speak to the Super about him?”

Settled that she’d taken the ruse, he played along. “That’d be real nice, Mrs. Herman. Glad I could be helpful.”

“Quite. Alright, then.” She tucked the datapad under her arm and headed to the door. As the door opened, she turned, “See you shortly, Ms. Hensley.”

“Yes, ma’am. As soon as he can recover my work, I’ll be up.”

She nodded and the door shut behind her.

Trisha took a deep breath. “Tell me you have the data, please!”

Lee scrambled to navigate back to where he’d stashed the results. “I got it. Give me a minute to look it over…”

He scanned the results and found the pattern he was looking for. “There… perfect.” He stood up from the workstation.

“What? A large ship?”

“Oh yeah. It’s a big girl. A T9.”

“That’s great! And it shows up regularly?”

“With a few deviations, yeah. It shows up every week to haul…” Lee leaned in closer to read the results from the logs.

“It hauls what?”

“Of course… Screb! It hauls biowaste.”

“But we… We don’t have to hide in it… In the biowaste do we?”

“No, no. Of course not. But it’s not going to be a pleasant ride. Those haulers smell to high heaven.”

“Wonderful. What choice do we have?” She crossed her arms. “So when will it be here?”

“If they stick to the schedule, tomorrow. They usually arrive after lunch and depart a few hours later. It’s perfect.”

“Hmm… That’s cutting it pretty close, don’t you think?”

“Here’s hoping the rest of them can pull their parts of the plan together. Give me a minute to set up a backdoor to the system.”

She nodded, and Lee sat back down and set to work on setting up a new administrator account. He spent the rest of the lunch hour crafting a command sequence he could trigger remotely.

When they started to run out of time, he covered his tracks by cleaning up the log files to erase any record of his transactions.

“Okay, we’re all set,” he pushed back from the workstation and stood. “Let’s get out of here.” As they walked out of the office, Lee said, “Hey, good work in there with your boss, you had me worried for a minute. You can sell a story like a pro.”

“I’m a reporter,” she winked.

He smiled, “Touché. Do you think she bought it?”

She stopped in the hall for a moment. “I think so,” she said, a hint of concern in her voice. ”I hope so,” she said with conviction, but the look on her face said otherwise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

With no time to waste, they gathered at their corner table in the back of the Last Call pub. They fell into their habit of sitting in the same positions with a stool borrowed from another table for Trisha at the end. Discussing things in the open with prying eyes and ears wasn’t ideal, but the lack of time required more desperate actions. They all agreed to talk in generalities to avoid the network from picking up on potential keywords that would implicate them or their plan.

Lee filled them in on what he and Trisha had found in the shipment logs. “It’ll be here tomorrow afternoon, so we’d better get it all together soon. Zee, how are you doing with the life support?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. There’s no way to access the…” she made a gesture like putting on a RemLok mask, “…without alarms. We’d have to trigger a colony alert or something for emergency access.”

“Maybe the kitchen staff are a little careless with some outta control cooking?” Dex half-grinned through his beard.

There were some mild chuckles around the table.

“No, alerting whole colony risks lockdown,” Tarrek said, his face serious, killing the mood.

“What then?” Jackson asked. “We’re literally going nowhere without the… things.”

The conversation was quiet as they sat and thought about the situation. The ambient noise of the pub took over in their silence. A mild level of conversation murmured in the background, and some random glass clinked around the pub.

Lee knew how he’d do it himself, but he couldn’t see any way to bust out six people at once. A shipment container seemed the best way to hold everyone, but the time in zero atmosphere would kill them all. They might survive if there were no delays, but they’d need provisions for recovery once they got to the ship. That would leave it to Jackson to help them all recover. It was a step of trust too far for Lee.

There had to be another way.

The logs he and Trisha dug up said the ship typically departed in the evening. Maybe there was enough time for Zee to make it to the civilian residential domes to collect the RemLok units. He was still dubious about it.

Trisha was resourceful, and her position as an administrative aide meant extra access. There had to be a way to use that. The way she thought on her feet with her boss was a pleasant surprise. Her boss! An idea popped into his head.

“Wait a second,” Lee started. “Trisha, you work for the Search and Rescue manager.”

“Right. So?”

“What are you thinking, Lee?” Zee asked.

“There isn’t much traffic here, but over the years, I’m sure there’s been some turn-in of… single occupant, uh… safety vehicles.” He tried to find a safe, obscure term that was easy for them to pick up on.

Trisha understood immediately, her eyes lit up, “Of course, why didn’t I think of it before?”

“Wait, I don’t get it…” Jackson said.

Tarrek explained, “Search and Rescue office collects many recovery items like black boxes and…”

The lights turned on, and Jackson began to finish his sentence, “Ohhh… right, and esca…” Lee coughed extra loud to cover what Jackson was about to say.

Zee shot Jackson a kind of evil eye, and he sunk back into his stool.

“Ok, so I’ll dig up what I can on what’s available and where,” Trisha said.

“Then Jackson,” Lee pointed down the table at him. “You’ll need to go on a treasure hunt. You have to collect and bring them to this loading area…” He looked around, pulled his hands close to his chest, and signed the numbers 4-3. ”I have a tool installed to help adjust the eyes and ears. We’ll need to meet there right after the end of the shift. That means you have to time it just right, Jackson.”

He nodded.

“One other thing,” Tarrek added with a sound of concern. “What about drones outside? There are maybe two crossing our path to the pad.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Zee said. “I’m already on the schedule for the maintenance hangar. They’ve been having some problems here and there. It won’t be out of the ordinary for a couple of them to need more maintenance after I’m done with them,” she said with a wink and a grin.

“Perfect,” Lee smiled at her. He enjoyed the flash of rebelliousness on her face. It was the spark of life and spiritedness he admired in her.

Dex jumped into the conversation, “Since my shift ends early, I can be there ta scare people off.”

“Nice, Dex,” Lee nodded. “Alright, folks, this is it. Tomorrow, we have to have our ‘get together.’ Check in at lunch to make sure everything is set.”

“Leave it to a smuggler ta’ find a way,” Dex grinned.

“Impro, ada, over,” Tarrek said.

Lee smiled, “Impro, ada, over.”

***

The day ground on. Lee was nervous but excited. His work shift was mind-numbing, except for the buzz of anticipation for ‘the plan.’ The lunch check-in at the Mess Hall was full of status updates. Trisha made some inquiries while she was in the office and found unoccupied escape pods scattered around the facilities. Zee rigged the sentries to experience strategic technical difficulties. Lee’s command sequence was set to automatically force the sensors to feedback a prior recording at 1800. Dex planned to arrive after that to keep the coast clear from others in the area.

It was all up to Jackson now. Trisha had gone over the locations of the pods with him multiple times to make sure he could collect at least four of them. Once he had them all, he’d swing by the isolated factory building to pick up Tarrek on the way back to loading bay forty-three.

The sensors in the section were set to be unavailable for about sixty minutes. Plenty of time for them to gather, hop in their pods, and make it to the large pads where their ride would be waiting for them.

Before he realized the time, he received a tap on his shoulder from his replacement. It was everything he could do to keep from running. Instead of heading to his quarters, he did a quick clean-up of the day’s sweat and grime in the locker room. Throwing on a spare resident’s uniform, he noted with some surprise at how much tighter it fit, especially in the sleeves. The manual labor in a gravity environment had done his body some good. He felt bigger—stronger than he’d ever felt, and energized by what he was about to do.

He left the locker room and headed for the loading bay through the main foyer. Walking caused him to feel a little bump in the left leg-pocket where he’d stowed the cam-bot that old Billy Sweeteyes left for him in his quarters. It was the one and only memento of this place he wanted to keep if this ridiculous plan worked.

He avoided eye contact with the guards to keep a casual nonchalant look as he passed by. Loading bay forty-three was a strategic pick. It was past the scrapyard all the way at the end of the facility, closest to pads seven and eight. It was nothing but a warehouse and a line of loading bays. Bay forty-three was the last in a series of three bays, making it as isolated as it could get.

People were milling about the warehouse during the shift change and were unperturbed by Lee walking through. He arrived at the short passageway to the bays and walked through. He found Dex sitting on a crate past a set of extra-wide double-doors. The bays were separated by walls stacked with crates and a walkway space near the doors. Dex’s crate was on the end of a wall separating bay forty-two and forty-three. It gave him a perfect position to watch people coming down the passage and any movement in the bay beside them.

He stood up and greeted Lee. “Sollinger,” he grinned. “You ready for this?”

“More than ready,” he smiled back. Lee looked around the bay. The walkways along the walls had loading palettes and crates stacked up toward the ceiling. A large, lower area of open floor space between the walkways could accommodate container trailers. At the end of the bay was a large bay door, the size of a cargo container with two people-sized doors at the walkways on either side of it. “Where are the others?” He asked Dex.

“You’re the first, err… second after me.”

Lee walked over to the wall panel by the doors to check the time. “It’s already 14 after. The girls should be…”

Zee walked in.

“…here. Right on time,” he turned toward her.

She flashed a soft smile and gave him a quick hug. “We’re actually doing this, I almost can’t believe it!” Her excitement was contagious.

“Yes, we are,” Lee smirked. “Gotta love the irony that we’re using escape pods to escape a prison,” he quipped trying to lighten the mood.

Dex half chuckled. He manged to get a delightful little giggle out of Zee though. He did enjoy getting her to laugh.

“I can’t believe we’re going to smuggle the six of us out of this screb-hole,” she said, her smile still beaming at him.

“We’re not out yet. Where’s Trisha? She should be here by now,” Lee couldn’t help but pace a bit.

Zee shrugged, standing beside him.

The lights in the bay shifted to a pulsating amber. Lee walked back toward the bay door. “That’s Jackson and Tarrek with our ride,” he said.

Lights lining around the large bay door flashed. A blue field of light snapped on to cover the entire bay door as it opened and disappeared into the ceiling. A green, worn-looking container slid back into the loading area. It came to a stop with a stuttering shake. Lee motioned to Dex. Together they walked over to the back of the container to swing open the doors. A few small overhead lights in the compartment automatically came on when the doors opened. Near the doors sat four escape pods carelessly shoved in.

Lee turned back toward the bay, “Zee, you wanna take a look and make sure these things will actually keep us alive?”

“Sure,” she said, walking past him to inspect one of the pods.

“I’ll get back ta watchin’ the entrance,” Dex said as he pulled the door all the way back around the side of the container. Lee pushed open the other side and saw Tarrek walk in through the side door.

“Lee!” He half-shouted as he jogged up to him. “We have problem.”

“Oh?”

“There’s no T9 on the pad.”

“What?”

“Da! We went back and forth to other landing pads to pick up pods, and as we passed pads 7 and 8, there’s no T9 like you said there would be.”

Lee shook his head. “It should have been here around lunch.”

“Right. But, there is ship out there.”

“And?”

“Anaconda,” Tarrek said, even his good side frowning.

Lee felt like there was more he wasn’t telling him. “And?”

“Jackson recognized it. Ship is called Decimator, he said.”

Lee’s head dropped. “Wonderful. And it’s the only large ship out there right now?”

He nodded.

“Anything else?”

“Da, and you won’t like it either.”

Lee gave him a wry look, “Go ahead, spill it.”

“All those units we built at factory?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re Xohn’s prototype.”

“The ThermARC?”

“Da.”

“They’re mass-producing ThermARC units?”

“Da. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Well, vack!” He stood there for a moment, processing the new information, then pointed his thumb back at the others. Tarrek walked with him to the back of the container. “So what do we do?”

“Your plan, your op,” Tarrek shrugged as they passed by Dex who stayed at his post keeping watch over the entrance.

Lee walked up to the panel at the door. 1832. They were running out of time, fast. “The screb is taking Trisha so long?” He said to no one in particular.

Jackson jogged up beside him, “What, no Trisha?”

“That’s what I just said,” he turned back to the pods. “Zee? How we looking?”

“Uhh, 3 of the 4 look good. This last pod has power in its cells but doesn’t seem to want to hold life support. There’s O2, but it’s not holding pressure.”

“Well, that seems like it’ll be a problem,” Jackson stated the obvious.

“Is there anything you can do?” Lee asked.

“Working on it!” She disappeared behind the pod.

“So, what happens if Trisha doesn’t show up in time?” Jackson asked Lee.

“We leave without her. She’s got 26 minutes before we need to be in our pods and out of here.”

Jackson scowled at him, “We can’t just leave her, Lee. She made it possible for this to even happen.”

“Hey, I don’t like it either, but if push comes to shove, we go without her. She knew when she was supposed to be here.”

“No!”

“What?”

“I won’t leave her behind.”

Tarrek joined in, “Lee, we need her to expose Duryss. It’s whole reason we came up with plans to get off this rock.”

“I know. I know! But we can’t miss this. If we have to, we’ll have to come back and bust her out.”

Tarrek put a hand on his shoulder, “Lee, you realize they’re going to raise security protocols once they know we escaped.”

Lee gave him a hard stare, then brushed off his hand and said, “She’s got 24 minutes.”

“Same old Lee then, huh?” Jackson snapped back at him.

Lee didn’t listen. He knew he was being pragmatic. It was simply taking the rest of them awhile to arrive at the same conclusion. “This isn’t about me. I’m not going to let down the Resistance. Not again. I’m not going to let Duryss or Draden or whoever he is get away with it.” He looked over at Tarrek, “No matter what it takes.”

Tarrek looked back at him and gave him a nod of support. “No matter what it takes.”

Lee walked in to find Zee, “So? Where are we?”

She leaned up from underneath the pod. Her face had smudge marks on it from whatever grime and build-up was on the old casing. “I don’t know that there’s anything we can do about it. It’s not the electronics. It’s just not sealing. Maybe if I had some duranyx or the right tools for reseating the clamps…” her voice trailed off.

“So, we’re down to three?”

“I’m sorry, Lee, but yeah.” She got up from the floor to stand with a hand on her hip. “We’re down to three. There’s nothing else I can do. There’s air, but it won’t hold pressure. Anyone in there would pop, and what’s left would freeze. Not a pretty picture.” She had a sincere, apologetic look on her face.

“No. It’s not your fault. That’s that.” He didn’t want her feeling bad about something out of her control. “Alright, well, maybe Trisha doesn’t show and solves that problem.”

Zee half shrugged and followed him out of the container.

“Shhh!” Dex blew loudly, then whispered with a kind of yell, “Hide. Get back! Someone’s coming!”

Lee ducked back behind a pod pulling Zee down with him inside the container. There was a creaking sound of one of the container doors being moved. They had no idea where the others were. It was silent for longer than Lee thought it should have been. He strained to listen, but all he could hear was the quick breaths of Zee beside him. He could feel how tense she was. He put an arm around her and gave her a nod of reassurance.

Then there was a sound of footsteps; more footsteps than that of a diminutive reporter. It was a group, maybe 5 or 6 at least. The steps got closer and closer, ending with some rustled settling and the tell-tale soft beeps of gun safeties being unlocked.

“Alright.” He heard the contrite woman’s familiar voice. ”Come forward, Mr. Sollinger.”

Zee looked over at him. He shrugged and started to get up. Zee yanked him back down and slowly shook her head, mouthing the word “no” with a pleading look on her face. He put his arm on her shoulder, and she let him go.

He came out of the container to confront a group of three guards flanking Trisha and her boss. The guards raised their rifles at him. They had body armor, but no protective headgear. It was another indication of the lax caution they had in the safety of the penal colony. He slowly moved his hands out away from his body, holding them out as he made deliberate movements forward.

“There we are,” the short-haired woman in her grey and purple pantsuit said, walking around him. She looked him up and down with satisfaction that lingered in her voice. “Not Mr. Graves, after all. I admit it was a decent performance. I’ve worked closely with Ms. Hensley for long enough to know when she’s nervous. You, however, I entirely bought. Hook, line, and sinker. Well done.” She mock-clapped slowly.

“He was protecting me!” Trisha said with a desperation in her posture.

She looked back at Trisha, considering her statement for a moment, “So you two planned to take a loader out for a spin? To what? To escape?” She almost laughed.

Lee was close enough to catch the time on the wall: 1851. If they were going to do something, it would have to be now. “Look, I give up. Take me and let her go. I’m the one who forced her to give me access to that office. It was me. It was all me, not her.”

“Another stirring performance?”

“No, it’s the truth.”

She scrutinized him looking for any tell, any indication he was misleading her. “So tell me, Mr. Sollinger, what’s the play here? You thought you were just going to drive off into the sunset? Steal a ship, perhaps?”

It always amazed him how the truth was sometimes harder to swallow than a lie. “It was my plan. It’s still my plan. I’m just hoping a few of my Resistance friends will show up at the right time.” He emphasized his words loud enough for the others in the bay to hear.

1855.

It appeared Herman was keeping it a low-key affair for the time being. Lee presumed she was fishing for promotion or a story for her social circle. Regardless, when the sensors kicked on in a few more minutes, it was going to get real serious.

“The right time? What do you mean by that?” Herman looked around. She walked over to the wall panels, then turned back to him. “Is something supposed to happen at 1900 hours?”

He stayed silent, letting her fill in her own blanks about the situation. He just needed her to feel pressured enough to act.

“Fine.” She swung her arm to gesture from the guards to where Lee was standing near the container entrance. “Take him into custody.”

“No!” Trisha pleaded.

The three guards moved toward him. It was time to make his move. They had the advantage. He had no hand-to-hand combat experience except some street brawls growing up. He hoped that wouldn’t matter. Unlike his childhood, fighting off Syndicate or Hood members on his own, today, he stood with friends nearby. He had to take action on faith that they would rally when he called for them. This was it. He glanced at the wall.

1856.

The guards approached him at both sides, the last one stepped in front of him, gun raised. “Hands behind you,” he ordered.

Lee put his hands to his back. The guard at his left went behind him and began fixing maglock binders to his wrists. The guard behind him backed off to his side, aiming his weapon.

“There we are. Any parting words, Mr. Sollinger?”

“Actually, yes.” He looked at the guard in front of him, steeled his guts for what he was about to do, and with a sharp stare down at the contemptuous woman, he yelled: “Impro, ada, over!”

Lee reared his head back and slammed into the head of the guard in front of him. Then a deafening metal screech from the hinges of the container door startled the guard to his right. The guard turned around in time for the heavy door to send him flying in low-gravity across the room, slamming him against the wall.

From the shadows behind stacked containers at the wall, Tarrek took the guard on his left by surprise, and in a singularly swift motion, disarmed him. Jackson ran out from the same containers with Tarrek and jumped at the guard, still reeling from Lee’s headbutt. Tarrek finished the guard, disabling him with a concussive hook to the man’s temple.

Jackson continued to struggle with the guard until a cybernetic arm flew out from behind the container door. Dex grabbed the man by the head and tossed him like he was a toy. The man flew across the room into a far wall, slid down it, and didn’t get back up.

By the time Herman screamed, it was all over.

1857.

Lee breathed hard. His pulse still raced, and his head throbbed. “I wasn’t really sure you guys would get my message.”

Dex smiled, “O‘ course you wouldn’t. It’s called working together, Sollinger. Not something you’re famous for.”

Lee opened his mouth to say something, but finding no words, shut it.

Dex picked up a keycard from the guard unconscious on the floor and removed Lee’s bindings. He rubbed at his wrists, then at the spot of his head where he hit the guard.

Tarrek eyed the short-haired woman, “What about her?”

Zee emerged from the container, “I know what to do with her.”

“Please, no, I…Don’t hurt me!” Herman said, her pretentious attitude replaced with terror.

“Whatever it is, we’ve got to go now,” Lee urged. “Right now.”

Zee looked over to Dex, “Can you help me, big guy?”

“O’course darlin’,” he said, making his way over to her.

She pointed into the container, “Can you put that pod up against that wall?”

“Ahhh,” Dex had the biggest grin. “I get whatchure thinkin’.” He used his arm to haul the broken pod off the container and leaned it against the wall.

Zee walked over and opened it, motioning Tarrek.

Tarrek motioned the barrel of the rifle from Herman to the pod to indicate where she needed to go, “Quickly. Move!” He shouted at her.

She stumbled over to the pod and clumsily stood inside it.

Zee worked the panel on the lid of the pod and reassured her, “Don’t worry, lady, you’ll be fine here. Someone will be along soon. We just need to keep you… occupied.”

“No, please! I… I can’t handle enclosed spaces! I won’t be able to…”

“You can breathe… Just breathe. It’ll be ok.” Zee continued to assure her while she closed the lid. It latched closed with the hissing sound of air escaping. “Dex, push something in front of it so she can’t open it from the inside.”

He gave her a quick nod and shoved some large crates nearby to barricade the pod door shut.

Lee saw Jackson consoling Trisha and getting her settled in a pod while the rest joined them in the container. Dex swung the container door shut as he walked inside. Jackson said something to Trisha that Lee couldn’t hear before sealing her in. Then he moved to help Dex.

“Nice work Zee. I trust you have a plan for us being down a pod?” He walked beside her as they approached a pod.

“Only one I got… You and I are going to get very close. No time to argue. Hop in.”

They awkwardly positioned themselves face-to-face in the pod while Tarrek worked the controls to turn it on. “See you two in a few minutes.”

“Don’t leave us in here,” Lee said, an edge of worry in his voice.

“What? Afraid you’ll be stuck in here with me forever?” She winked at him just inches from his face.

“On second thought,” Lee said, “knock before you open it up, alright?”

Tarrek shook his head and closed the pod door. A rush of air hit Lee from all around, and soft light inside the pod faded on.

Zee gave him a devilish smile. He smiled back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The ride was bumpy and uncomfortable in a single-occupant pod with two of them in it. Although closer to Zee than he’d been before, it wasn’t as fun in reality as it was in his head. They squeezed enough that they were breathing each other’s air and taxing the life support systems to scrub the CO2 they were both contributing.

With the rough ride rattling them into each other, the light-headedness from the air quality, and the tight quarters, Lee felt on the edge of crazed panic. After an agonizing five or ten minutes, they stopped hard and sat there waiting.

Zee broke the silence and said in a soft voice, “It must be the sentries.”

“Probably.”

“I messed with their gyros. They should spin out like crazy.”

“I’m sure you did fine, don’t worry about it. There’s nothing we can do from in here, anyway.”

They lay quiet for a while, listening. Waiting.

“Lee?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve changed.”

“I guess.”

“So you’re past it? You got the guy that… that killed Vic?”

“Not exactly.”

She was uncomfortably quiet.

He felt the need to fill the space. “It’s… complicated. Okay?”

“Okay.” She was quiet again for a moment.

A sudden jerk of motion rocked them, knocking their heads together.

“Ow!” She cried out.

His forehead throbbed, and there was no room for either of them to rub the pain away. “Remind me to have a talk with Jackson about his driving,” he said, his voice unsteady from the continued bumps.

“So, what’s complicated?”

“Well, the one that pulled the trigger is driving us right now. The one that gave the order is the guy we’re all trying to take down.”

“Wait, Jackson pulled the trigger? And…”

“And Duryss gave the order.”

She held her mouth open in shock.

“You really have changed.”

“Prison. It changes a man,” he smirked.

“Oh, stop.”

“So, what makes you think I’ve changed?”

“Well, for one, I didn’t think you cared about anything else but justice for Vic,” she said, looking away from him. Then she continued, “And two, Jackson’s not dead.”

“As it turns out, chairs don’t make good missiles in Coriolis gravity.”

She looked at him with a confused, curious expression.

“And, it doesn’t get me ahead or anything to take Jackson out for doing a job he wouldn’t have done if he’d known what they were out there for.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how it is. Bounty missions don’t give you the story about what the target is wanted for. They only tell you they’re wanted.”

Zee thought for a moment, then said, “I suppose it would be nice for mercs to make informed decisions. But, there are plenty of shady corps and disparate factions posting morally ambiguous missions. They probably don’t want you to know why you’re hunting their target.”

“Sure. You can do anything you want if you have the credits for it. Always been that way.”

He stared into her eyes for a bit, as much as the bumpy ride allowed. They stayed that way for a while. He knew what she wanted to know, but she’d never ask for it outright. Something was making him feel different. Maybe it was how close he was to her. Whatever it was, he felt uninhibited enough to say what was on his mind.

“I did care––I do care. Care about you, I mean.” He felt like an awkward schoolboy talking to a girl for the first time. At the same time, he felt strangely okay about it.

She smiled softly and looked up at him from under her brow, “I know. But it’s nice to hear you say it. Like I said: you’ve changed.”

“Yeah, I really have—a whole lot. Like a lot, a lot. I like you a lot. And I can’t stop myself from talking right now.” There was only a vague awareness of how ridiculous he sounded. He wasn’t sure what was compelling him to talk like that.

“Uh-huh,” she nodded back exaggeratedly. “Wow, is it me or is it getting weird in here?”

“It is. I’m completely weird right now, and I can’t stop it.” He had an uncontrollable urge to laugh.

A look of realization dawned on her face. “The scrubbers!”

“You want me to scrub you?” He shrugged, feeling oddly all too happy to help. He tried to move his arms to rub at her as she asked, but she grabbed his wrists. He liked that too.

“No, Lee. Stop!” She half giggled. Her giggle made him feel warm all over. “Lee! We have to slow our breathing. We’re overwhelming…” She had trouble finishing her thought. “Overwhelming the scrub… Too much… Too much CO…2.”

“It’s too much… It’s too much… It’s too muhhhch…” Lee singsonged, in a dizzy, happy trance. Before he realized it, a heavy tiredness gripped him. His vision narrowed. “I think… think… I’ll take a… a nap.” He could see her saying something to him, but he couldn’t make out what exactly it was. Her face had a glowy filter around it. Angelic, Lee thought, before everything went black.

***

A shout invaded Lee’s rising consciousness.

“Cough!”

Then another shout that seemed closer.

“Cough!”

There was the vague feeling of a smack on his back. A reactionary cough leaped out of him, and he felt his body heave forward. A satisfying rush of air filled his lungs, and his vision returned.

“There you are,” Zee said, keeping her voice soft. She was crouched down beside him, a hand holding him up at his back, and her other resting on his chest.

“Here I am,” he said back to her sleepily. “Where am I?”

“We’re on the ship,” she whispered.

“The ship?” He tried to look around. It was an enormous cargo rack. They seemed to be in a small pathway between two large shipping cases.

“Easy now,” her hand went to the back of his neck. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt a woman touch his neck. As he thought about it, it probably wasn’t since his mother was still a functioning human being. “Breathe now. Just breathe,” she told him.

He took a shallow test sniff, expecting the stench of biowaste. But there was only a mild smell of mechanical grease, nothing more. He started some slow, measured breaths.

“We’re on the Decimator, Lee,” Jackson stood over him. His hands at his waist, in a waiting sort of stance.

“What happened?”

“You both passed out,” Jackson replied.

“Mornin’ cupcake,” Dex said from somewhere behind him with a quiet laugh.

“Hey!” Lee raised his voice.

They shushed him in unison.

“Alright, alright,” he said more quietly.

Tarrek stood near the cargo rack door, keeping an ear out.

Jackson started to fill him in, “Sorry it took us so long, Lee.”

“Ran into some trouble, I take it?”

“When don’t we? We were stopped by a patrol. Since the sentries were out of commission, they dispatched a couple of SRVs to patrol the area. We got stopped and redirected to load equipment from the factory onto the ship at pad 8.”

“Okay… so?”

“So,” Jackson tapped a control on the side of a shipping case about Dex’s height. The door slid up into the ceiling of the case, and the built-in illumination came on. He made a gesture into the metal box.

Lee recognized the objects inside as ship modules. Four arc segments that made up a donut with a central core: ThermARCs. Judging by the number of large cases in the rack, there were hundreds of the modules.

“Duryss! Vack! He’s got Xohn working for him now. These are ThermARCs. This is the ship that was chasing us.”

Jackson nodded, “Yeah. Apparently, they’re picking up a shipment to deliver somewhere.”

Lee furrowed his brow. “No, I mean, this has got to be under direct orders by Duryss.”

“Okay, so what do we do with that, Lee?” Trisha spoke up.

“I don’t know. I don’t know yet.”

Jackson quipped, “I say we take over.”

Lee shook his head at Jackson’s brazen suggestion.

“Against trained military officers working for Sietae Corp and the Hyades government?” Trisha asked, with worry in her voice.

Jackson pressed his point. “Right, well, we have Tarrek and Dex, who can handle the tough ones and…”

“Trisha’s right,” Lee said. “We probably can’t overpower the entire crew. This is an Anaconda. There’s at least four command-deck officers and a dozen or more non-com crew.”

“Then what?” Jackson threw his hands up. “What’s the plan?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Think faster,” Tarrek shouted in a whispered voice from the entrance of the cargo rack. Then the normal side of his face turned to something like a look of surprise. “Someone’s coming! Hide!”

There were various sounds of shushing, followed by frantic shuffling throughout the rack. Lee found a spot behind a case along a pathway toward the door, so he could see them coming. He felt the need to get some idea of who they were up against.

The door slid open. A woman with short, dark hair, wearing some sort of green and yellow uniform walked in with her arms held behind her. She touched the pad controls by the door, and the rack lighting blinked on. Nervous that he could be spotted, Lee ducked down and listened.

The sound of magboots on the deck was almost deafening. Some timid beeps were followed by the scrape of a case being opened.

“So this is the device that will help us defeat the ‘goids.” The woman said. She had an authoritative voice. Lee guessed it was someone high ranking on the crew. “How long until we’re fully loaded?”

A male voice responded. “They’re all delivered to the pad. Loading will finish in a couple of minutes.” Lee assumed it was a subordinate officer.

“It’s not much to look at, is it?”

There was a grunt from the crewman.

“I’m not yet disclosed on what this device does,” she continued.

“You’re not exactly on the Consular’s good side,” he responded. “I don’t care what it does. I’ll be happy when we can join the CZ and dust terrorists in Chelum. This is an errand standing in the way of what I signed up for.”

“You’ll get your combat, Sloane. One way or another. I promise you that.”

“Until ordered on another errand.”

There was a pause. Lee was startled by another small beep and the scrape of the case closing. He peaked around the box in front of him to see what was happening. The man she had called ‘Sloane’ appeared to be standing outside the rack. She turned from the case to face him, arms crossed.

“You understand our position.” She told him.

“Your position.”

“Our position,” she stressed. Her tone had a dangerous edge. “You’re under my command, Lieutenant. Until such time that you are granted transfer or resign, you’re part of this crew, and will follow orders; my orders and those of our mission.”

Sloane straightened at her command tone.

“I’m built for the front lines too. If you knew my past, you’d know why I’m here. Right now, we need to set up a tactical advantage. Part of that means regaining favor with the Consular.”

“Or stand up to him,” Sloane responded back.

”Careful, Lieutenant. Be very, very careful. You almost sound like a terrorist,” she said, leaving the thought to hang.

“No, ma’am. I’m… I’m not suggesting… I only meant about our orders… not…”

A chirp emanated from the datapad under his arm. “The loading is finished, sir.”

“Very well.”

Lee watched them leave the cargo rack.

She continued talking to Sloane while they walked down the corridor. “Let me tell you something Sloan, if I ever find the Consular abusing us or his position, I won’t hesitate to use all my contacts and resources to…”

Her voice trailed off in the distance as the rack door slid shut behind them.

There was silence in the rack for a minute, as they waited to make sure the pair wouldn’t return. Satisfied they’d be left alone, Lee stood and saw Tarrek pop out from around another case at the front corner of the rack. “Okay, coast clear,” he said.

They all gathered at the sort of center of the rack at the crossroad path between cases. “That had to be the Commander and someone from the bridge crew,” Lee said.

“Sounds like a lil’ dissension in the ranks,” Dex said, his voice still almost booming despite his attempts to speak softly.

Jackson was unusually animated, “We should go talk to the Commander; tell her what Duryss is doing out here.”

“Are you crazy?” Trisha nearly cursed back at him.

“No, I’m serious. Then we don’t have to stage a takeover.”

It didn’t sit well with Lee at all. “We just have to expose the fact that we’re Resistance ‘terrorists’ that escaped the penal colony by stowing away on her ship. I’m sure she’ll be entirely ready to believe anything we tell her.” He kept a deadpan expression.

“No, Lee. If we’re not going to try to take the ship, we have to try and tell them. You heard them—they’re not 100% behind Duryss. Trisha has all the evidence we need. I’m telling you, there’s a chance…”

Lee interrupted, trying to get his attention to plead with any rational side he might have. “A chance to what? Get ourselves thrown in their brig? They’ll just hand us back over to Arber, then it’s the tank for each of us.”

Zee had a repulsed look on her face. “I am not going in one of those chambers ever again. I agree with Lee; we can’t risk it. At least not until we’re far away from here.”

“Then we wait, but this is the best play we…”

Jackson was interrupted by the sudden roar of the ship’s thrusters. The deck seemed to leap underneath Lee, and he felt extra G-forces on his legs that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It forced him and the rest of the group to squat, sit, or lean on something for support.

“Okay, so there, we’re taking off. We just have to wait…” Jackson grunted at even more G-forces as the ship made a hard bank to aim toward whatever course they were taking. A sudden engine boost caused them all to start to roll toward the doorway. Arms flailed to catch an edge to hold themselves in place. “We wait until we’ve made a jump to a different system, then go talk to her.”

“Jackson, they’re not going to listen. I don’t even want to listen, and I believe it! Does anyone else agree that we need to take over or get the crew to listen to us? Tarrek? Dex?” He already knew Zee’s position, and Trisha thought it was a crazy idea to begin with.

Dex half-cleared his throat so he could speak clearly while keeping his voice down. “There’s dissension, but not mutinous feelin’s, so far as I can see. I see where yer comin’ from Jackson, but it seems layin’ low’s the best thing. Wait till we get ta where we’re headed and make our way from there. Clear our names and get back in’ta the fight.”

“Alright, so, Tarrek? You’re the intelligence specialist. What’s your take?”

Tarrek looked up at the ceiling considering it. “There is opportunity. The divisions in crew can be used. Sloane seems ready to mutiny, but we need more support from rest of crew. No way to know crew feelings without more intel. I say it’s too risky to go to Commander. Not enough evidence she’s ready to turn on Duryss.”

“Fine. So we go ‘gather intel’ then,” Jackson said, getting exasperated by everyone. “We’re all way past playing it safe, we gotta do something.”

Tarrek nodded, “I agree there. Even if we hide until landing, this is good opportunity to find out about their plans.”

Dex looked at Lee and gave him a half shrug, “I can’t argue with that, Lee. Might be somethin’ to help the Resistance.”

Lee sighed, “Alright. Then we need to split up and be extremely careful.” He looked over at Jackson, “I mean it.”

Jackson rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

“Trisha and I will try to access a terminal and see what information we can dig up. Dex, can you go with Zee down to the engine room? Find out the specs of the ship?”

Dex and Zee both nodded.

“Tarrek, go with Jackson, try to learn what you can from listening to the crew. Don’t talk to anyone, just listen.” He pointed a finger to underscore his seriousness.

Jackson knew it was pointed at him. “I won’t!”

Lee leaned over to Tarrek, and whispered, “Keep a close eye on him. Don’t let him do anything stupid.”

Tarrek gave him a quick nod. “And you—stay out of places that trip intrusion countermeasures.” He gave him a stern look from under his brow, “No matter how tempting.”

Lee nodded back. He clearly picked up the implication of his failed hack attempt. As he gestured Trisha over to him, the maneuvers stopped, and they began to float. There was no gravity, and no magboots.

Trisha squeaked and floated right past Lee. He just missed grabbing her arm. “Well, this is going to be interesting,” Lee quipped. “Gently push yourself to a wall or an edge, or somewhere you can grab on to. Don’t push back too hard to stop yourself, or you’ll bounce off. You want to use your arms and legs to absorb your inertia, like pulling your legs in to absorb the impact of a big jump.”

Lee had a handhold under the lip of one of the cases he had been leaning against moments earlier from the maneuvering Gs. With an acrobatic like flair, he pushed off and used another crate to pull himself in the direction of the cargo rack door. Zero-G maneuvering came back to him, and the extra strength he built planet-side on the penal colony gave him even more control and agility. He stopped himself on the wall and planted his ear on the door to listen for movement on the other side. He couldn’t detect any magboot locking or unlocking sounds. Then he tapped the door panel to open it and pulled his head around the door frame to look around. It was still clear.

He pushed himself down to orient with the deck and “stood” by holding the edge of the door opening. Looking back into the cargo rack, he saw Trisha awkwardly holding herself still at the corner of a shipment case. He quickly made a “pull-down” gesture with his hand to encourage her to push off in his direction.

She made an attempt and shot forward but also kicked off the case with her foot putting her into a multi-axis spin. Lee braced his knees around the door opening then twisted himself to put both arms out to catch her. She landed with her arms out and almost bounced back, but he was able to grab around her at a hip and her opposite shoulder. He righted her into a more-or-less standing position beside him.

“First, we need some magboots. I’ll be right back.” Lee left the cargo rack and took the small passage right toward a corridor intersection. At the junction, he made a left toward where he hoped was the aft of the ship to make it to the loading bay. He pulled himself along the walls of the passage, floating to his target.

The end of the corridor opened up into the loading bay, just as he suspected. Still floating, he pulled against the edge of the opening to cross the bay into a position in front of a set of storage compartments. He opened a large locker and found space suits. Where there were suits, boots wouldn’t be far away. Underneath was a half-height compartment. After closing the first compartment, he found three sets of magboots underneath. Holding himself in place with a hand on the open storage container, he yanked off his plain boots and shoved them to the back to hide them. Then, he pulled a magboot and stuck it to the floor, grabbed both sides of the opening, and shoved a foot in. Now anchored, he pulled the other mag boot onto his foot and secured it to the floor. He grabbed the two remaining pairs, closed the compartment, and looked around. There was another large compartment above a half-height one. Crouching to look inside the low container, he confirmed it had three more sets of magboots. Out of arms, he knew it was going to take another trip.

Lee headed back to the cargo rack with a magboot set under each arm. When he arrived, he handed one set to Trisha, and the other to Tarrek. “Get these on. Tarrek, make a left at the main passage to get to the landing bay. The lower compartments have more magboots. Gather the rest for the others. I’m going to take Trisha and go see what we can see.”

Tarrek took his boots and started fitting them right away. Lee had to stop to help Trisha with hers. He looked over at Zee, who pursed her lips with a flash of jealously on her face. Lee shrugged back at her, but her face seemed to scrunch inward even further. He hadn’t known Zee to be the jealous type. It was the first time he realized she’d crossed that line of seeing him as hers alone. Women were abundantly strange creatures.

Trisha looked up at Lee and whispered, “All set.”

“Alright, let’s go,” he whispered back.

“Where are we going?”

“Forward toward the crew areas. Follow me and try to stay out of sight.” She nodded, and they took off to the intersecting corridor.

Instead of heading left, Lee steered them right but took slower, more deliberate steps as they got past the center of the cargo area. He opened the doorway out of the cargo area and looked around. It was another corridor junction, but this one had airlocks at the far ends. It appeared to span the entire width of the ship. The style of the corridors changed from utilitarian to a much more inviting aesthetic, clearly the habitation areas of the ship. Satisfied that no one was around, he entered with Trisha on his heels. There were three open doorways along the foreword corridor wall. The central opening led down another corridor toward a closed door at the far end. Lee motioned Trisha to follow, and he led them down it to the far door continuing along their heading to the bow of the ship.

As they approached, Lee put an ear to the door to listen for motion. Hearing nothing, he decided it was safe and tapped the controls. The door opened to reveal a sizable empty gathering room. There was another door at the far end, and two other doors at the mid-point along the sides of the room. He snuck past the large L-shaped lounge with the sound of Trisha’s magboots following behind him.

Forward would likely mean crew quarters on a ship this size. His instincts told him they needed to try the side rooms. He lead them to the left and again listened with an ear on the door.

They entered the room, and on either side of them were two computer terminals.

“There,” he pointed to the other terminal. “I got this one.”

“What am I looking for?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. Evidence that further corroborates your story?” She looked at him dubiously, then turned to work on her terminal.

He took a seat and cracked his knuckles before poking around the terminal. It didn’t take long at all for him to map out where the more interesting information was.

The communication logs were heavily encrypted, but the mission logs were easy to access. Lee began to review them in the reverse sequence: loading at Arber, the landing, a departure from Sietae, prisoner transfer, and on and on it went. As he dug, he even found their chase through Glist and their engagement at Foden Dock. It was all here. All mapped out.

He waved Trisha over, “This is what we need, right?” He pointed to each of the entries that told the ship’s story.

“Maybe?”

A noise of magboots running through the next room caught their attention. Lee pointed to get beside the door. Trisha scrambled to her position, and he moved as silently as his magboots allowed up against the wall. His pulse quickened at the coming confrontation, but he forced himself to remain calm. The boot sounds seemed to go off in another direction for a moment before growing louder and louder towards them. He knew whoever it was stopped right outside their door. The door opened. Lee took a blind swing.

Tarrek instinctively used his arm to deflect his swing away while dodging. “Lee! It’s me!”

“Tarrek? What the screb are you doing down here?”

“We have problem!”

Lee rolled his eyes, “Now what?”

“Jackson.”

Lee couldn’t keep his face straight, and actual fear crept across it. “What did he do?”

“He went to the Commander.”

Trisha cupped her hands to her mouth.

Lee cursed. A lot.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“We have to hide. They’re starting to search ship for other stowaways,” Tarrek urged with a hushed voice.

“Where do we go?” Trisha asked, an edge of panic setting in.

“The cargo racks are the first place they’ll search. Wait… I have an idea. Follow me.” Lee pushed past Tarrek and walked through the rec room area. “Tarrek, did you warn the others?”

“Yes, but they’re in the racks.”

“Great, I guess there’s no choice. Come on.”

At the door, Lee waved Tarrek and Trisha back so he could open it and glance down the hall without being spotted. The coast was clear.

He spoke back to Tarrek, “I don’t think you’re going to like this idea at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’re going to hate it.”

“No time, just go!” Tarrek snapped.

Lee ran down the hall to a corridor that spanned the ship and pointed with two fingers to the left. He looked back and caught Tarrek’s eyes. The side of his face that still worked scowled.

“Take Trisha and protect her. I’ll go to the other one.”

Tarrek nodded and held out his hand for Trisha. Lee took off and sealed himself in the airlock at the opposite end. There were no places to hide except to crouch at a corner near the door.

He was breathing hard now, not for himself, but for the others—for Zee. He tried to calm himself, but for the first time he could recall, he found it challenging. He realized he’d never actually worried for anyone else in a very long time. The realization hit him; he had shut that part of himself off long ago.

A flash of his mother, beautiful and full of life, crossed his mind. He remembered the way her hair blew in the wind on the one planet they had ever visited together. The color-shifting pendant swung from her neck. It was the pendant he gave her—the man that stole her from him. It surfaced a memory of her curled in a fetal position in bed, trembling from withdrawal—eyes bloodshot, and her teeth rotted.

A tone sounded and invaded his thoughts.

Then, a voice on the ship’s intercom: “Attention, passengers,” the woman’s voice emphasized the word with obvious sarcasm. “I have shut off life support to the ship. You have less than ten minutes to present yourselves on the flight deck. Feel free to try for a RemLok. Our teams will be waiting for you.” The lighting in the airlock changed and phased from natural to red and back again—the ship-wide warning for life support going offline.

“I swear, Jackson! I hate that guy,” Lee cursed under his breath to himself. Reluctantly, he stood up and left the airlock. Across the corridor, he saw Tarrek and Trisha emerging from their airlock.

Trisha was panicked, “What do we do now? What’s your plan?”

“There isn’t one,” Lee replied as they met at the central corridor. “Checkmate.”

Lee gestured for Trisha and Tarrek to head back toward the central lift, and he followed. When they arrived, Zee came walking toward them with Dex trailing.

Zee stopped and crossed her arms, “Now what, Lee?”

“Why is everyone looking at me?”

“You been givin’ the orders, pal,” Dex reminded him.

“The screb’s just getting deeper. I’m no leader–”

“Hey, you got us off of Arber,” Trisha said.

Zee shot her a look, then softened it, looking back at Lee. “Lee, we trust you,” Zee told him as two guards brandishing rifles approached them from either side of the corridor.

Lee looked at the guards, then slowly entered the lift, “There’s nothing left to do but face the Commander.”

“Hold it,” a guard with a bushy but well-trimmed, nostalgic sort of mustache ordered. “You two, get in.” He motioned his rifle toward the lift.

Zee, Tarrek, and Dex entered with Lee. The mustached guard followed behind. He kept his rifle aimed at them and pushed the control pad.

The door opened to reveal the sweeping forward windows of the enormous flight deck. It was more spacious than the Nightcrawler and the Para Bellum flight decks combined. The flight crew at the front of the deck swiveled back to watch. The guard motioned his rifle for them to exit. Lee stepped off first.

“Ahh, there we are.” The short-haired woman with narrow eyes, whose voice he heard over the intercom, stepped toward him. She carried herself like a leader, arms held behind her back in a well-postured stance. Her face seemed almost flat, except for the sharp cheekbones and a small nose. She had a boyishness, though Lee attributed most of it to her hairstyle. “You are the stowaway companions of Jackson Dekker?”

Lee nodded.

“Escaped prisoners from Arber Penal Colony. Your rap sheet and bounty list continue to grow, Mister…?”

“Sollinger.”

“Sollinger,” She repeated while tapping at the personal datapad. “Lee Sollinger, of course. And Jackson Dekker. You were the pilots that aided Mr. Xohn’s escape from that charming little outpost.”

Lee hadn’t thought about Xohn for a while. Unlike before, he actually felt a little guilty about that. “You know Vin Xohn?”

“We had the privilege of transporting Mr. Xohn back to Sietae to assist with the completion of his prototype for mass production.”

“There’s no way he’d help willingly,” Lee snapped back.

“Oh, I can be very convincing.”

“So, what, torture? Why does everyone think torture gets them what they want?” He gave a sidelong glance at Tarrek, who stared blankly. “So I take it you’re Reeves?”

“Colonel Torra Reeves, Commander of the Decimator.”

“A Colonel? That’s a strange rank for a ship commander.”

“I lead ground forces for the Hyades government. My role for the time being commands this vessel for Consular Duryss. As his principal tactician, my services became more valuable here.”

“So, what now? Are you going to torture us like you did Xohn?”

“No, Mr. Sollinger, not torture. We merely had a little chat.”

“Is that what you plan to do to us? To Dekker?”

“Mr. Dekker made a foolish, unfounded accusation against Consular Duryss. With his escape from Arber Penal Colony and illegal boarding of this ship, he has earned multiple bounties. He’s a wanted criminal, as are all of you.”

She motioned to her guards, who raised their weapons and closed in.

“Wait!” Lee snapped as he looked back and forth at the guards. “Wait. We have more evidence you need to hear.”

The guards paused and looked to the Colonel. She put up her hand to stay them. “What evidence? And you’d better be more convincing than Dekker’s insane theories.”

Lee motioned to Trisha, who came forward to stand beside him. “Colonel, this is Trisha Hensley, a GalNet reporter.”

“We’re already acquainted with Ms. Hensley. I arrested her on Boswell Hub for sowing discontent in Chelum.”

“Right, you’re military. You want absolute order and control.”

“Order, yes. Control is for the bureaucrats.”

“Well, before that, she was working on a piece about Emen, with a profile of Sietae Federal Corp and Duryss as CEO.”

“And after, they arrested her for sowing discord and panic against the Hyades government on Boswell Hub. She stirred the local Resistance cells to attack Imperials throughout the Chelum system.” She eyed Trisha, who held her gaze, unbowed by the accusation.

“From the sounds of it, she was reporting the truth she discovered in her investigation.”

Reeves shuffled her feet and looked away. “She committed acts of sedition and is a criminal.”

Lee could read she was lying. “Her bounty was illegal, and I think you know it. Duryss manufactured the charges, didn’t he? He wanted her locked up in Arber to silence her.”

“Hmph. Your interpretation, Mr. Sollinger.” She tapped on her datapad. “Our records show her bounty was legitimate, issued for network breaches tied to a mercenary she hired to break into secured Sietae Fed Corp assets. I’d hardly call that unjustified.”

“Alright, alright.” Lee sighed. This line of reasoning wasn’t getting them anywhere. He needed something that hit closer to home.

“I’m waiting to be convinced, Mr. Sollinger, and so far, you’ve done nothing but further convince me that you’re all wanted, escaped criminals.”

“You want a criminal act? How about the attack at Glist 6?”

An eyebrow raised at that. Colonel Reeves eyed him cautiously. “What ‘attack’ are you referring to?”

“Around three years ago, Jackson Dekker was part of an operation in the rings of Glist 6. They were hunting a Cobra Mk IV with Xohn’s prototype. They couldn’t capture the pilot, so they launched an all-out assault on the rings. That attack killed the pilot, and an innocent miner caught in the middle of it all.” He paused for effect. Her expression told him he’d struck a nerve. He continued, “The Hyades Government covered it up.”

The Colonel looked a lot more uncomfortable. “How would you know about it? Was it Dekker? Did he tell you?”

“Because I was there.”

“Impossible,” she scoffed.

“Not impossible. I was on the miner’s ship on an EVA when a hunk of space rock cut through the shields and front canopy of our Asp. It killed my–” his voice caught unexpectedly in his throat. “It killed the best friend I’ve ever known.”

The Colonel straightened her stance. “Military operations have collateral damage despite best efforts to avoid it.”

“Duryss authorized the action, right?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Let me ask you this, then. If your boss is so noble, why the cover-up? No acknowledgment of your ‘collateral damage’? At all? That sounds like a cover-up to me. Isn’t it interesting: two cover-ups sanctioned by Consular Duryss.”

She looked down and seemed to consider it. “Ok, Mr. Sollinger. I’m listening. I’m not convinced. But I’m listening.”

“Trisha tells it better than me,” he gestured for her to start.

She stepped toward Reeves. “Hello again, Colonel.”

Reeves gestured with her hand, “Get on with it, Ms. Hensley.”

“Well, Colonel, I spent a lot of time researching this. And you’re right; my guy got into the heart of Sietae Federal Corp and exposed a lot of secrets. If I may ask, how long have you known Consular Duryss?”

“Almost three years.”

“Do you know much about his past?”

“He’s from the Diplomatic Corp at Sirius Gov. He was a successful envoy for Sirius. Li Yong-Rui appointed him CEO of Sietae Federal to manage the region.”

Trisha nodded, “Right, and before that?”

“I’m not sure. He told me he grew up on Imperial worlds and learned governance and diplomacy from his father. Why is any of this relevant?”

“Because my evidence shows Alden Duryss joined Sirius Gov as a diplomatic envoy the same week Sylus Draden disappeared.”

Reeves’s face read full of doubt, “You can’t be serious. Are you implying that Consular Duryss is the same irresponsible, party-crazed, entitled son of Senator Draden?” Her voice was full of skepticism.

“The same.”

“I find that quite hard to believe. Duryss is brilliant, Sylus Draden was an incompetent fool.”

“Oh, I know, but consider for a moment his foolishness was an act. He changed his entire personality to become this Duryss persona. And look at all the Imperial business he’s connected to here, nearly triple that of his predecessor.”

She eyed Trisha. Lee picked up some conflict in Reeves’s body language. Her head turned one way, then back, as if thinking through what she’d seen and heard.

“No, no. Absolutely not. I don’t believe it. Duryss is trying to protect the people of this region.”

“From Thargoids?”

“Exactly.”

“Is he? Have you seen the profit he’s earned from all his contracts with Imperial businesses? Tell me, does he attend a lot of social functions? A lot of parties, where he is, let’s say, very well treated?”

Lee observed her. Reeves’s conflict was all over her. She scowled in anger as she stood in the center of the flight deck, shifting her stance in front of them. She made a sharp motion with a hand from the guards to their group.

With a fiery resolve, she snapped, “No, I will not subscribe to this insane conspiracy theory! Take them down to join Dekker. Lock them all up and get them off my flight deck. Now!”

***

A guard took position outside the room as another closed and locked the door. It was a small square room, empty apart from a row of lockers on the wall opposite the entrance.

“Well, at least we’re all locked up together this time,” Jackson said, completely straight-faced.

Lee couldn’t hold his tongue and yelled, “Thank you, master of the obvious! Screbhead!”

“Hey!” Jackson scowled back.

“Boys,” Zee admonished them. “Focus! We’ve got bigger problems. You both tried and failed to get the ice queen to do the right thing. We’re going to be headed for a high-security prison unless we figure something out.”

“Whad’ja have in mind, darlin’?” Dex asked, his head nearly touching the upper deck.

Zee eyed his cybernetic arm. “May I?” The huge bearded man nodded with a half-smile. She started to investigate the mechanics with her hands. “Maybe I can ratchet up the power on this. The bulkheads are too thick, but the door…”

“Then what?” Tarrek blurted out. “Those are KA S-19 shock rifles. You get zapped, then uh…” He rolled his eyes upward and made an uncharacteristically amusing noise like he’d been electrocuted.

“Ok, so, dangerous pew-pew guns, and we should probably avoid them,” Lee quipped.

“Or disable them,” Jackson offered. “Oh, I know!”

Lee groaned.

“Dex can punch through, grab for the nearest guard, and slam him against the door!”

Trisha was standing near him. With a gentle, patient smile, she patted him on the shoulder.

Zee looked back at him, “Jackson, this isn’t some sort of action holovid.”

“Well, it could work.” Everyone in the room turned to look at Lee in total shock that he agreed in even the slightest way with Jackson. “I mean, it’s the best bad idea we’ve got. I think we’re down to only bad ideas at this point.” He pointed to the door, “If Dex goes through close enough to a side where a guard is likely positioned. That’ll take care of one. The other is gonna try aiming through the hole. We need to stay out of line-of-sight by being up against the wall. You’ll have to get your arm back in as fast as possible, big guy.”

Dex nodded, “A’right. Go ahead, darlin’, crank it up.”

Zee looked around the room, “We’re lucky you have an older arm. Its power regulator is hardware adjustable.”

“Yep, stops the hackers,” Dex replied, winking at Lee.

Zee continued, “I need to find something I can use as a tool…” The rest of them started to look around the room.

“There’s nothing here!” Trisha sounded anxious. “It’s just lockers.”

Lee examined one of the half-dozen lockers at the back of the room. “Hmm, biometric locks. Guessing weapons lockers.”

“I don’t think they’re dumb enough to lock us in room with weapons,” Tarrek said while trying to feel around the edges of a locker.

“Unless that’s all they have in all the locker rooms,” Lee replied. “Dex, you think you can bust one of these open?”

He shrugged and moved in front of one. “Ya don’t think the noise will bring the guards in?”

Tarrek immediately moved beside the door in a ready stance and gestured to the other side for someone to join him.

Lee moved into position, crouched, and nodded back at Dex, who was also crouched to be level with the locking mechanism.

“A’right, ‘ere goes…”

He pulled his arm back, twisting his torso to add his body weight to the motion. He slammed his mechanized fist into the door, crumpling it inward, the corners bending out in response. Dex stood to grab a corner. But the door to the room opened. The nose of a charging shock rifle crossed the threshold of the door.

Tarrek elbowed the gun down toward the floor and spun his other arm in a connected reactive motion, landing a punch square in the guard’s face. The guard reeled back while the second guard moved in toward Tarrek.

Lee ducked low, aiming himself for the second guard. He pushed off the floor and hit the repulse button on his magboots. He slammed into the guard and grabbed for the gun to fight it away. The man crumpled under him and let go of the rifle. Lee looked back to see Jackson pulling his arm back from a cheap shot to the guard’s kidney. The first guard recovered and re-entered the fray.

Focused on the struggle, Lee lost his sense of the rest of the group. A booming voice cut through the chaos, “Enough!”

Everyone froze.

Standing at the doorway was the figure of Colonel Reeves, hands on her hips, holding a wide battle-ready stance. “Stand down, people.”

The guards recovered control of their weapons but kept them pointed to the floor. The rest of them engaged in the fight stood up straight and looked at the Colonel.

She tapped a comm panel, “Flight deck, hold our position.” Then Reeves stepped into the room and looked over at the bent-up locker. “You people have some pluck. I’ll give you that. Escort them to the observation lounge. We need to have a little chat.” She snapped around and left the room with a purposeful walk down the corridor.

The mustached guard raised his shock rifle, “You heard the Commander. Get moving.”

Lee led the way out of the room with Zee at his heels. There was something different in Reeve’s tone.

He turned to head to the ship’s bow, with the rest of them following behind. Entering the observation lounge momentarily took his breath away. The view was stunning. The large curved glass at the bow extended from the deck plate to the ceiling. It encompassed his entire field of view as it stretched entirely around the curved room. It gave Lee the feeling of walking out among the stars. Off the starboard side, a stream of densely packed star clusters illuminated the bronze-colored dust of the galactic plane.

In the center of the forward windows, Reeves stood resolute and patient, waiting for them to file in. Dex entered last, with the guards following behind. Both guards took up a position at the double doors, rifles ready.

Reeves began to pace. Her boots echoed in the chamber. “This ship is delivering a large shipment of experimental modules to Sietae.”

“Xohn’s prototypes,” Lee spoke up.

She nodded.

Jackson added, “We saw them in the cargo hold.”

“Of course,” she nodded. “When we arrive, we will offload the prototypes to Duryss. Then we’ll meet your engineer friend.”

“You…?” Jackson almost spat. “You’ll what?”

“I’m not saying I believe you. I don’t believe for a moment that Duryss is that reprobate Sylus Draden, but I know his actions are suspect. You don’t get far in command without good instincts. I need more information. And I need you to convince Mr. Xohn that I’m on your side. We didn’t end on the best terms when we left him in Duryss’s hands.”

Trisha stepped out from behind Jackson, “So, what changed your mind?”

“Him,” she gestured with her head toward Lee. “He was right about you. And, right about me,” Reeves said with a touch of regret.

Trisha replied, “Right about what?”

“The charges against you. Duryss ordered me to arrest you and find a charge that would stick. I was too focused on getting back my command; I didn’t even question.”

“Figures. He needed to keep me off his back,” Trisha said, pursing her lips with a smirk.

Reeves nodded in agreement. “I realize now he’s been abusing my loyalty and manipulating me. To what end, I don’t know. I believe your engineer can help me understand what these modules do and how they’re useful against Thargoids. They’re like no weapon I’ve ever seen, and if they provide any Thargoid defense, I have no idea what it could be.”

Lee couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice. “Thargoids? Who said anything about Thargoids?”

“That’s been Duryss’s campaign for the past few years. He’s been upgrading station defenses in the Hyades to repel Thargoid attacks.”

Lee shook his head, “But Thargoids? They’re not even in the Hyades.”

“Attacks have been getting closer,” Reeves insisted.

“Well, Xohn’s ThermARC isn’t going to help you.”

“ThermARC? What do you mean?” She tilted her head at him, reminding Lee of the alley dogs on Carson City.

“It’s not a weapon, and I don’t think it’ll help with defense. At least not for stations.”

“What are they then?”

“It’s a heat exchanger. It converts heat to energy and helps ships run silent longer, or indefinitely.”

“I don’t understand,” her face was contorted into a puzzled look. “How does that help against Thargoids?”

“It doesn’t,” Tarrek groused. “He wants them for something else.”

Reeves crossed her arms. “All the more reason we need your engineer friend to tell us what Duryss is doing.”

Zee shifted next to Lee, “So you’re helping us?” There was unmistakable doubt in her tone.

”We’ll call it a ‘favor’ for pointing out my tactical blindside to Duryss.”

Lee addressed all of them, “What we need to do is expose Duryss.”

“That will be a challenge,” Reeves responded. “As you’ve experienced, he’s willing to silence the media to control them. He’s a shrewd politician, willing to spin the media narrative in any way that will favor his position.”

Lee continued, “Then we need to find concrete proof and take it to someone with the power and influence to expose him.”

Dex made a sweeping gesture with both of his arms. The servos in his cybernetic arm whirled, “Who can do that out ‘ere? The Feds? Imps? No one cares about this corner of nowhere.”

“Except for the corporations,” Lee answered.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Dex grumbled.

He continued, “It’s all business out here. We need to go to the big boss himself.”

“Li Yong-Rui,” Zee said.

Lee nodded back and pointed to the stars beyond, “Sirius Corp started this mess by putting that man in charge out here.”

“So how do we find evidence and get it to Li Yong-Rui?” Jackson asked.

“Well, we’re headed to Sietae,” Lee looked over at Reeves for confirmation, and she nodded back. “Sietae is where the Hyades government operates, so while we’re there, we’ll rip the evidence from their servers.”

Trisha shook her head, “But how do we get it to Li Yong-Rui?”

Reeves raised a finger and shook it once, “Your ships were impounded in Sietae. Once you have the information, you can take it to him.”

Tarrek jumped into the conversation, his accented voice contrasting the others in the room, “This going to be a complex operation. We need to split up to pull it off.”

“Agreed,” Reeves replied. “Someone will need to join me to talk to Xohn. Someone he trusts. Then we need to infiltrate Duryss’s office.”

“I think I’m the one Xohn trusts most,” Lee offered. “And I’m the one to hack into his office.”

“Perfect,” Reeves replied. “Xohn is undoubtedly in the office complex, which will be near Duryss’s office. We’ll free Xohn, hack Duryss, then meet the others at the docks.”

“Then rest are with me,” Tarrek said. “We’ll get ships ready to fly.”

“My crew can help,” Reeves said, then paused in thought. “I need to brief them on this.”

“You think they’ll help?” Zee looked back at the guards.

The mustached guard looked at his compatriot and nodded. His partner nodded in response.

“I know they’ll be with me on this,” Reeves smirked. “Duryss has jerked us around for too long.” She walked over to the guards at the doors and put a hand on the shoulder of the mustached one. “This isn’t going to be easy, and once we do this, there’s no turning back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the guard replied.

“Let’s get going then. I need to talk to the rest of my crew.” Reeves walked out with the guards following behind.

“I don’t trust her, Lee,” Zee shot him a concerned look.

He shrugged, “I’ll keep an eye on her, Zee. It’ll be ok. We need her to get to Xohn and get our ships back. She’s not shipping us back to Arber, so that’s got to count for something.”

“I guess we’ll see,” Zee grumbled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

After a stop at LHS 28, deep into the territory of a powerful, large faction known as The Fatherhood, they retrieved Trisha’s data locked away in her server on Holland Base. The data corroborated everything Trisha told them about the timing of Sylus Draden’s disappearance, the sudden rise of Alden Duryss, corruption in Imperial dealmaking, and even encrypted communications logs between the Consular and the well-known Imperial Senator, Madius Draden. The connection between the Senator and Consular Duryss made the timing of Sylus Draden’s disappearance all the more suspicious.

It convinced Reeves and her crew that Duryss needed to be exposed. Still, Lee was on edge. As much as Reeves and the crew seemed genuine, he couldn’t help but wonder if they were being played. Was Reeves going along with them to keep them under control?

The Decimator was now several jumps in on its journey back to Sietae. Lee was in the galley tinkering with Billy’s cam-bot. Reeves had given him a new datapad that he was using to interface with the decorative little bot’s programming. Cam-bots like these were designed for home security in Imperial apartments, hence the stylish design. It looked like a knick-knack that would live on a bookshelf filled with decorations instead of books.

The work was a helpful distraction from the growing tension of what lay ahead. Lee focused on reworking the wireless communications stack to connect over more than video channels to make it a more functional remote tool.

He put down the bot and reluctantly sipped on a coffee. He winced at the bitterness. He tried in vain to find anything else, but the only other option was the foul abomination of powdered tea.

The door to the galley opened. Lee turned to see who it was and watched Jackson Dekker enter. He tried to keep his composure even while he cringed inside.

“Hey, Lee,” Jackson greeted him. “Mmm, coffee. Smells great.”

“Jackson,” Lee responded. “Be my guest,” he gestured to the machine, then continued his work on the bot.

Jackson stepped up to the dispenser and looked around.

Pulling the cup back from his lips, Lee swallowed and pointed. “Upper compartment,” he directed Jackson.

“Ahh, thanks,” Jackson pulled a cup from the compartment with a tilt to release it from its mag-locked storage.

For a moment, Lee watched Jackson work the dispenser. He was still annoyed by the guy. His cocky, know-it-all attitude was irritating to the point of being infuriating. Though being honest with himself, he admitted it could also be the grudge he held. He pushed past a lot of it, but perhaps there was a deep part of him that could never forgive Jackson.

“Hey, Lee,” Jackson turned back as the dispenser began to stream coffee. “Thanks for backing me up in the locker room.”

“Nah, it was nothing.” Lee took another sip and kept working on the bot, attempting to keep the conversation to a minimum.

“No, really, it means a lot. I guess I just wish people looked to me the way they look at you.”

“Me?” Lee put the bot back down and pointed to himself with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, everyone likes you, respects you. Everyone trusts you.”

Lee shrugged, “I don’t know what to tell you. I guess it comes down to being genuine. You come across a little… well, a little desperate.”

Jackson’s face flushed, then he frowned and joined Lee at the table. “I don’t mean to,” he shrugged. “I just want to feel, I don’t know, like I’m worth something, you know?”

“Sure, of course.”

“I’ve never felt like I mattered.”

“Sounds like family issues to me. That’s above my pay grade. I don’t want to get into…”

Jackson cut him off, “Now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense. I guess I never felt important. My dad was always too busy for me. He always just bought me off.”

“Bought you off?”

“My family is pretty wealthy. Dekker Industries—my dad’s a Tritium dealer. He buys me whatever I want. That’s how I got the Para Bellum. I never thought about it until you mentioned it, but you’re right. Guess I just wanted not to get dismissed. That’s why I’ve hung around with you guys this long. At least here I feel… seen.”

Lee saw a deep hurt in Jackson’s eyes. It was a pain that stretched back through his life, and for that moment, at least, he felt genuine pity for him. Maybe he’s not bad—just misunderstood, Lee thought.

He tried to think of what to say, “I think we’re all trying to figure out how we can contribute something meaningful to the universe. You got us out of that penal colony. That’s something, at least.”

“Made some mistakes along the way,” Jackson said with his head down.

Lee finished working on the bot and closed it up. “Yeah, you have,” his voice had more of an edge than he intended. He took a breath to try to diffuse his anger.

There was an awkward silence between them while Lee tinkered with the bot.

“You know, Vic used to tell me nothing teaches faster than learning from your mistakes.”

“Then, I’ve learned more than most.” Jackson looked up at Lee with a wan smile.

“Cheers to that,” Lee raised his cup with a half-smile.

“Cheers,” Jackson said, returning the gesture.

They sipped their coffee together. It was as friendly as Lee was willing to go, but the new understanding did help him hate the guy less.

A warning tone sounded as the ship engines began to build for a jump. Lee stowed his datapad and bot in his jumpsuit, then moved toward the wall restraints. Jackson walked over to join him and strapped up.

“Thanks for the chat, Lee.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it. Really.”

Within moments, the intercom was filled with the onboard COVAS. “Five… Four… Three… Two… One…”

The deck lurched, and the room looked stretched as the ship jumped into hyperspace. Reeve’s voice came across the intercom.

“Attention crew, we have arrived in Sietae and are on approach to Novandra City. Special forces, please report to the flight deck.”

Lee and Jackson unstrapped, left their cups locked on the table, and headed to the flight deck together.

***

Everyone was assembled on the flight deck. The point of light resolved into the glowing blue marble of Emen—the seat of the Hyades government and Consular Duryss. The Decimator banked into a gently curving course toward a surface approach.

A communication signal sounded, and the comm’s officer acknowledged it. “Colonel, it’s Consular Duryss.”

“Business as usual, people,” she encouraged, then nodded to the comm officer, “Put him on.”

A blip sound indicated the connection, “Colonel, is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine, sir.”

“Very good. We expected you some hours ago, and the colony reported you departed on schedule.”

“Yes, we were delayed by a sensor recalibration that required us to take several systems offline. It was minor maintenance, but it did take several hours to complete.”

“Ahh, I see. You have the shipment?”

“Yes, a full hold.”

“Excellent. See to it the shipment is offloaded to the receiving crews at landing pad twenty-eight. You’ve been given special landing clearance there. We need to turn this around quickly, Colonel. The timeline has been accelerated, and we need the fleet equipped and ready to launch in a few hours.”

“A few hours? Is something happening? Are the Thargoids attacking?” She tried to bait him.

“No, Colonel, it’s not a Thargoid attack. We need to shut down the Resistance attacks in Chelum. It will be an operational test of the new modules.”

“And the Decimator? We’re getting the upgrade, too?”

“Absolutely, Colonel. I want the Decimator leading the forces to support Chelum system authorities and put down this petty resistance. We must keep order if we are to be ready for Thargoids.”

“Understood, sir. We’ll make all efforts to assemble a fleet for launch by 1900 hours.”

“You are authorized to use every resource at your disposal to make sure of it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Colonel. Duryss out.”

The commlink connection closed.

“Asher, bring us in,” Reeves ordered.

“Aye,” she responded, working the controls. The ship responded, moving into a mild angle toward the planet’s surface. As a pilot himself, Lee knew she had maneuvered to a precise angle of entry based on the planet’s atmosphere. The ship would skip off the upper atmosphere at too low of an angle. But going in too steep and the vehicle burns up, even with full shields. Atmospheric landings were always a delicate operation. Lee noted Asher’s professionalism in making it feel completely routine.

Reeves turned to address the rest of them at the back of the flight deck. “Landing pad twenty-eight is on the opposite side of the city. Alpha Team, we’ll need to take a transport to the capitol building. Bravo Team, your job just got a lot easier. You’ve been conscripted into the task force for Chelum.”

Tarrek nodded. “We’ll need official mission record.”

She gestured towards the comms officer, “Huxley, draw it up and contact the Sietae Corp rep to post it.” With a nod, he turned and began to work at his console.

“Lee, we’ll need to stop by your ship so you can sign on and get the authorized upgrades.”

“Actually, no, we won’t,” Lee smirked.

“Oh?”

“The Nightcrawler is already fitted with the original.”

“You’re full of surprises, Sollinger.”

He winked with a grin.

Reeves turned back to the center of the flight deck. “Okay, people, it’s go time.”

The deck plates shook from Emen’s gravity and its lower thermosphere. They dropped to the K-line, the calculated altitude where space ends and atmosphere begins. A glow illuminated the shields where the effects of entering the atmosphere were visible. Their shields absorbed the dynamic pressure impacts from increasingly dense atmospheric strata.

Lee stepped forward to get a better view of the descent. He caught the heat indicator rising on the co-pilot’s holo-display. The ship’s heat management could only cope with so much.

It reminded him of his first lesson on atmospheric landings with Vic. The old man called it “controlled crashing.” The heat build-up wasn’t from friction like Lee naively assumed. It was from the ship crashing into air particles that couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. The particles pack into a compression wave with enough force to break apart chemically. It releases energy in the form of heat—loads of it. The superheated gases turn to plasma, capable of burning up the vehicle if the heat management systems don’t keep up.

Different atmospheres require different glide slopes to manage the heat. Lee read the descent angle from the HUD: a safe six degrees. That also confirmed for him that Emen had a nitrogen-rich atmosphere typical of Earth-like worlds.

A light show danced along the shields with arcs of bright colors that shifted from yellow to fluorescent pink and purplish colors. The shaking worsened, and the colored light loops danced erratically around them. Lee clamped his mouth together to keep the vibration from breaking his teeth.

He heard a pounding sound behind him, and Dex cursed, “Mother Hubble!” Looking back, Lee saw the big man bracing his cybernetic arm against the upper bulkhead to steady himself. Then, a sudden deceleration caused them to lurch forward with the breaking sound of the FSD being disengaged. Lee had to catch himself by planting a foot forward and grabbing the back of Asher’s chair. The light show became a golden orange that shifted to yellow before dissipating to a soft glow before disappearing entirely. Everything settled into a smooth glide, aside from regular atmospheric turbulence.

The comms lit up from Novandra City traffic controllers. “Attention Sierra Charlie Zero-Niner Whiskey, you have priority clearance on pad two-eight. Maintain your current flight path and reduce speed to one zero zero at three klicks from touchdown.”

The comms officer responded. “Affirmative Novandra Control, Decimator on locked approach to pad two-eight, speed one zero zero at three klicks.”

Reeves spun around, “Bravo Team, move out.”

Tarrek nodded and led Bravo Team, with Trisha, Jackson, Dex, and Zee, to the lift.

Lee stood by Reeves, the two of them making up the entirety of Alpha Team. The rest of the flight crew remained aboard to oversee the cargo transfer, outfitting, and armament prep for combat in Chelum.

Once the ship settled on the pad, Reeves stood between Asher and Sloane at the forward consoles. She put a hand on Sloane’s shoulder, “Lieutenant, you have the con.”

“Aye, sir,” Sloane acknowledged while working his station.

“Mr. Sollinger, you’re with me.” Lee caught up with Reeves’s purposeful gait to the lift. They hopped off several decks down to stop by a locker room. Reeves handed him a sidearm, “Don’t make me regret this.”

Lee shrugged, “Who me? I was thinking the same about you.”

She gave him a hard stare. “Our goals align…for the moment. I’m the one going out on a limb, trusting criminals that just broke out of prison.”

“Falsely accused by your own admission,” Lee pointed back at her.

She didn’t blink, holding her stare. “We’ll see.” Then she blinked and tipped her head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

They left the ship, walking across the landing pad to the terminal. Lee drew in the fresh air. It was a literal breath of fresh air compared to the sterile environment of the ship, even with the ship’s off-gassing and other mechanical aromas. The bright teal skies and gentle breeze carrying floral scents into his face were energizing. A sense of constructive purpose put meaning to his steps while he kept pace with Reeves. The gravity was heavier than Arber but still far less than standard. His labor on the colony gave him the strength and energy to take it in stride.

When they entered the terminal, Reeves called for a short-range transport to carry them to the capitol building. The vehicle that arrived was a standard small shuttle capable of holding up to six people. As soon as they boarded, the doorway slid shut, and it accelerated into the teal sky. The city was massive and sprawling. Other shuttles flew in streams of pre-organized pathways to and fro. The building styles in Novandra City had decidedly unpretentious and practical architecture. A mix of towers stretched into the sky built on broad bases. Some buildings had a narrow middle section connected to a more prominent rectangular tower with overhangs at the top.

They approached the city’s center, where the towers seemed to cluster and grow higher. Their shuttle weaved into a flight path of other traffic heading into the city center. High walkways connected the buildings at different levels. It created a complex interconnected structure throughout the forest of dense towers.

“First time in a city?”

Her voice startled him out of his tourist’s gaze. “Me? Well, first time on a planetary city this large. I thought the Orbis stations were impressive. But this,” he gestured at the cityscape. “You’d never run out of places to go.”

The shuttle veered off to a narrower flight path of single-file vehicles heading toward a different-looking building.

“After a while, they’re mostly the same. Except for that one.”

The building they were headed toward had a much more ornate look than any other building. Three massive white struts curved upward around a circular base to create a tall, narrowing tower shape. Curved segments of gleaming, crimson-tinted glass shimmered between the main structural support towers. The glass was a beautiful visual contrast to the teal skies. The shuttle swept down to the large circular base. As they closed in, ornate sculptures decorating the edges became visible.

The shuttle slowed to dock at the building, entering a level with a traffic loop and receiving pad. The door slid open in slow, synchronized time with the shuttle coming to a stop. Lee hopped off with Reeves following behind.

Reeves stepped forward. “This way. We need to head up to the government offices. Xohn is on the R&D level. He’s likely in the lab working.”

“Hey, hold up,” he caught her arm. On pure reflex, she spun, grabbed his arm, and twisted it, forcing him into a spin, bowing to keep his arm from breaking. “Whoa! Whoa, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…”

Holding him from behind, she spoke into his ear with a cutting edge, “Don’t… ever… touch me. Understand?”

“Yeah, alright, I got it,” Lee sighed. “Look, I just wanted to tell you, we’re going to need Duryss’s identity.”

She looked at him curiously, “What do you mean, his identity?”

“His digital identity. His datapad. We’ll either need a backup of his datapad we can image onto a new one, or we’ll need to lift his datapad off of him.”

“Wonderful. You didn’t think to bring this up before? Like when we were planning?”

“It was enough to know we needed to hack him, not how. Look, it might be possible to do it without it, but our chances go up by a lot if we have it,” Lee said.

“Alright. We’ll chat with the engineer, then I’ll go find Duryss.”

“You can’t just lift it off him.”

“Okay, then how am I supposed to steal it?”

“With this,” he held up a datapad.

“I’m a soldier, not a spy; what do I need to do?”

“On the Decimator, I set it up to skim his identity right off his own datapad.”

She smirked, and then her face turned into a look of concern, “I must admit, Mr. Sollinger, I underestimated you.”

He shrugged, “I grew up on the streets and skimmed credits for a living. Skimming an identity is one of the ways you access bank accounts.”

“You are a criminal.”

“I used to skim credits; now I’m an honest smuggler,” he winked.

She shook her head, “I see why Zee is fond of you.”

“My dashing good looks?”

“Your witty tongue. Careful that it doesn’t get you in trouble.”

“It’s gotten me out of more trouble than it’s gotten me into.” He handed the datapad over to her.

“So far,” she said. “Now, how do I use it?”

“The tools are already loaded and running on it. Just get him to open his datapad. It’ll log his authentication.”

She nodded. “Simple enough,” she slipped the datapad in a side leg pocket. “Alright, let’s get this done,” she said, continuing toward the main doors.

He followed her into the building where they took a somewhat winding path to a central courtyard. The colossal base struts framed an open atrium decorated with enormous trees, among other assorted plant life that grew from the floor. Leaved vines hung from suspended ceiling rings like natural banners. They moved across the atrium and upstairs to the core hub of lifts.

The lift had a delicate female voice that prompted, “Destination?”

Reeves responded, “R&D level.”

“That level is restricted.”

“Authorization, Colonel Reeves: Tango Two One Foxtrot Zero.”

The lift immediately shot them upward and acknowledged, “Government clearance granted. Welcome, Colonel Reeves.”

The doors opened to a white corridor with a sterile, lab-like look. Reeves got off the lift and beckoned Lee.

A woman behind the reception desk stood up, “Can I help… you?”

Reeves gave her a look that Lee couldn’t see from behind her. The woman went quiet and sat back down.

Reeves navigated the maze corridors and stopped at a room locked behind badge access. She held up her datapad, but the badge reader blinked red. Reeves looked back at Lee, and he shrugged back at her. She tried again, but it still denied her access. Just as she brought her datapad back up to try again, the door opened to a well-dressed man with a ponytail and pockmarked face.

“Ahh, Colonel,” his voice was full of pretentiousness. “There was no need for you to come to see me in person.”

“Consular,” Reeves said. There was no hiding the shock in her voice.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” He didn’t sound particularly suspicious to Lee, but there was something in his voice. It seemed familiar somehow.

“Sir, I…” She stammered. “I wanted the engineer to meet our flight officer… Major…” she looked back at Lee and made a struggling face the Consular couldn’t see, “Major… Tom.”

Lee grinned. It reminded him of one of those classic songs Vic listened to while mining.

“Major Tom, thank you for your efforts in upgrading our fleet for this operation.”

Lee cleared his throat, “Yes, of course, uhh, Consular, sir.” He extended his hand in greeting.

“Pardon my manners; the outbreak in Chelum has us all a bit…cautious, as you might imagine.”

“Oh, yes, my apologies, Consular, sir.”

The Consular flashed him a look of confusion at first, then recognition, and finally a dismissive look, “No matter, Major. Just see to the fleet. Master Vin Xohn is the engineer that invented this wonderful technology. Please,” he gestured them into the lab.

Reeves and Lee walked past Duryss into the lab space. They found the bald, dark-skinned man glowing from a bright display before him.

“Master Xohn,” Duryss projected his voice from behind them. Xohn jumped, startled. Then he turned to see them. His face seemed locked in stunned silence punctuated by a look of confusion. “Master Xohn,” Duryss continued, “you know Colonel Reeves. She brought you here to us, and this is Major Tom…” He paused to look back at Lee, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your surname, Major?”

“Callahan.”

Duryss gave the practiced smile of a politician, “Major Tom Callahan.”

“…the Third,” Lee added with a wink. “Sir,” he said, rocking a bit on his heels.

“Major Tom Callahan, the Third.”

“My friends call me ‘Tommy.’”

Duryss shot Lee a look of impatience. Lee’s street knowledge taught him how to manipulate a mark. He would get them to feel any other emotion to throw off suspicion. Make them laugh, angry, or frustrated, and skepticism is replaced.

Xohn nodded.

“Master Xohn, it’s an honor to meet an engineering genius like yourself,” Lee said, sounding like a good ole boy from Ground Control.

“The honor is… is mine,” Xohn said, still slightly stunned.

“Wonderful. Now that you’re introduced, I hope you can get straight to business. In the meantime, Colonel Reeves, may I have a word with you in private?”

“Of course, sir,” Reeves gave a respectful bow of her head, then looked over at Lee.

Lee nodded almost imperceptibly back at Reeves. This was it. It was still difficult to trust her. Getting her to steal from the big boss himself would go a long way to helping him rely on her. For the moment, though, it was enough to be here to talk with Xohn.

“Master Xohn, Major Tom, please excuse us,” Duryss looked at them both before turning to exit the lab. Reeves bowed slightly toward them both and followed Duryss out into the corridor.

When the door closed, Lee smiled and covered the distance between them. He placed his datapad down on the desktop beside Xohn. “It’s ok. It’s scrambling the sensors in the room. Xohn! How are you?”

“Lee! What are you doing here? How did you get here? What are you doing with… her?”

Lee waved dismissively, “It’s a long story. We’re here to rescue you. Reeves is helping us.”

“What? She’s the one that brought me here, why would she help you rescue–”

“We busted out of prison and stowed away on her ship. When we were found out, we convinced her to look into Duryss. Truth be told, I don’t fully trust her either, but she did get us here.”

“Lee, he forced me to work on…”

“Yeah, the ThermARC,” Lee finished. “That’s what Reeves was hauling here.”

Xohn nodded, bowing his head sadly. “Every day, all times of the day, my progress is checked. The unknown material tolerances forced me to adjust and recalculate every parameter.”

“Do you know what he’s planning to do with them?”

“Only that by finishing them, I’m saving lives. He claims the Resistance is attacking ships in Chelum, preventing him from shipping medical supplies for the outbreak.”

“What? That’s not what he’s using them for at all. He’s planned a–”

The door opened, and Reeves walked back in. Lee saw Duryss outside the door with a broad smile that seemed to creep across his face. It was the politician’s smile. As the door slid shut, he made eye contact with Lee. Duryss held the creeping, knowing smile as the door closed.

It had the hairs standing on Lee’s neck. “Did you get it?”

She power walked and pulled the datapad from her pocket, handing it to Lee. “You tell me.”

Lee took it and started to look through the datapad’s logs.

Reeves turned to Xohn. “I don’t have time to waste,” she said impatiently. “Master Xohn, I realize we did not have a pleasant time getting to know each other on the way here. But you have got to tell me what possible purpose your invention would have fighting Thargoids.”

“Thargoids?” Xohn replied with a puzzled look. “Of that, I have no idea. Heat management is what it was designed to improve. The excess heat is turned into extra power for ships.”

“Aha, so that’s it—extra power for weapons.”

“What? No!” Xohn had a mortified look on his face. “I suppose it could work that way, but it is not what I designed it to…”

Reeves shook her head, “Duryss doesn’t care what you designed it for, only what he can use it for.”

Lee nodded and explained, “The mass production ThermARCs are getting installed in a fleet headed for Chelum.”

Xohn nodded back, “Yes, for the medical supplies.”

“No,” Lee said. “It’s for a task force to take down the Resistance.”

“No,” Reeves said. “No, the task force is not for the Resistance, either.”

Both Lee and Xohn turned to look at her.

“Then what’s it for?” Lee asked.

Reeves shook her head, “An invasion fleet.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Lee leaned on a workstation in Xohn’s lab, analyzing the logs of the datapad while they continued discussing Duryss.

Reeves explained, “An invasion fleet is headed to Chelum, and our task force is meant to repel them.”

“The ThermARC should not be used for combat!” Xohn was adamant.

“Like it or not, that’s what they’re going to be used for,” Reeves replied, cold and unsympathetic.

“The production ThermARC modules will not hold long. They have at max fifteen minutes of use before the heat becomes runaway. There was not enough time for the tests to help me identify stable parameters. They will leak heat that will build up until…” He made an ‘explosion’ gesture with his hands.

“Well, that sounds bad,” Lee said. “But what about the prototype on the Nightcrawler?”

“That is the one that took me two years to identify the exact right parameters. It works as intended. Theoretically it has no limit to how long it will operate as long as the ship is producing heat.”

“So it’s only the mass-production versions that won’t work?” Reeves asked.

Xohn nodded. “They used materials based on available supplies, costs, and keeping the project secret. It meant new harmonic parameters that I tried to warn them about, but Duryss was in a big hurry to get it done.”

“It doesn’t matter, Xohn, you did what you could,” Lee tried to assuage his frustrations.

Reeves straightened, “It’s a tactical advantage to know the weakness of these devices. Thank you, Master Xohn.”

He hesitated before giving her a slight bow of his head.

“So do we know who’s invading? Is it a corporate takeover?” Lee asked.

Reeves shook her head, “I wasn’t given any details, most likely on purpose. Lee, you need to get up to Duryss’s office. We need to find something that implicates him in the coverups, manipulating the press… something.”

“What, he didn’t tell you in your hallway discussion?” Lee said with an accusatory tone.

“Duryss plays it very close to the vest. He told me the Resistance was a sideshow. Our main objective is to repel an invasion force, not who or where they’re coming from. The only thing I know for sure is that it’s not the Resistance, and it’s not Thargoids.”

“Right. So that leaves a corporate faction,” Lee suggested.

“Not the Imperials or the Alliance?” Xohn asked. Being relatively new to the region, he didn’t know the ins-and-outs of corporate politics.

Lee explained, “The entire Hyades region is a Sirius Gov managed area. Systems under Sirius Gov are purchased by Li Yong-Rui. An invasion by a superpower would ignite an interstellar war. And for an invasion force of that scale, there’d be a fleet build-up that wouldn’t go unnoticed. We’d have heard about it on GalNet, at least.”

Reeves nodded in agreement, “Regardless, we need to figure out who we’re up against, even if it means a list of factions Duryss suspects might invade. We need to get you up to his office. His workstation is on an isolated network. There’s no access to it remotely. Xohn, I’ll take you back to the starport so you can join the others. Would you be willing to work aboard the Decimator to improve our ThermARC?”

“No! Where Lee goes, I go.” Xohn slid closer to where Lee was standing in the lab.

“Master Xohn, I understand you have no reason to trust me, but getting one person into the Consular’s office will be difficult. Getting two will raise far too much suspicion.”

Lee looked at Xohn, “It’ll be easier for me if I go it alone on this one.”

Xohn mouthed the word ‘no’ back to Lee, an urgent expression on his face.

“Go with her. It’ll be alright. She’s kept her word so far. She’s taking the biggest risk: turning against her boss, the most powerful person in the Hyades.”

“It’s okay,” Reeves waved it off. “Trust is earned, and I’ve done nothing to earn it. I showed up, unannounced, with a close friend.”

Lee cocked his head at that. Initially, It sounded earnest, but he couldn’t mistake the subtle manipulation. It set his teeth on edge, but bringing Xohn with him wasn’t an option. “Xohn, for now, let Reeves get you to the starport. Jackson, Tarrek, and everyone else are there. I’ll get back there as soon as I can. Well, now,” he smiled, still working the datapad. “What do we have here?”

“What?” Reeves and Xohn said almost at the same time.

“A certain Consular’s identity,” he looked over at Reeves and gave her a respectful bow of his head.

“My pleasure. So, do you trust me enough now?”

“Good enough for me, Colonel,” he said. “Xohn?”

“Alright, Lee, I’ll go with her,” he said, bowing his head in deference.

Lee asked Reeves, “So, how do I get to the office from here?”

“I’ll authorize the lift to take you to the office level; then we’ll head back down and take a shuttle back to the starport. You’ll need to find a way into and out of the office on your own.”

“Hmm…” he looked around the lab. It was filled with terminal displays and an assortment of equipment spread on the center work tables. He sat down at a workstation and pulled out his datapad. The proximity of the workstation to the datapad brought up a prompt to connect the two. He acknowledged it and set to exploring the network. In a few moments, he found access to the starport network that allowed him to establish a connection to the Nightcrawler.

Xohn was hovering over his shoulder and asked, “What are you looking for on the Nightcrawler, Lee?”

“My old datapad had all my greatest hits on it. I just need to re-image this one with the backup on the Nightcrawler.”

After restoring his new datapad, he immediately sent a nodesweeper program across the connection. It located the routing nodes and reset them, wiping out any trace of network access from the lab.

Reeves stood at a distance, waiting with her arms crossed, “Do you have a plan to make it into the office or not?”

He stood up, picking up the datapad and held it up in front of him. “I do now,” he said with a self-satisfied smile. “C’mon, let’s go!” He gestured toward the door and waited for Reeves. She was caught by surprise, and half stumbled getting up from leaning on a workstation table to lead them out of the lab.

While they walked, Lee worked on his datapad with one hand, frantically running commands. He could feel Xohn following close behind, trying to peek over his shoulder to catch sight of what he was doing. By the time they arrived at the lift, Lee had finished his work and initiated an upload of his newly completed package of routines.

They rode the lift to the top floors of the building that housed the administrative office level of the Hyades regional government. The lift doors opened, and Reeves said in a low voice, “Here you go, Mr. Sollinger.”

Lee put a hand to his right hip pocket, “Can you hold the lift here just a few minutes?”

“What?” Reeves asked, confused. Even Xohn had a curious look on his face.

“Just wait here,” Lee said, walking off the lift into the hall with an entirely new demeanor. With a purposeful step and fake confidence, he walked through the large lobby. While walking, he noticed an open doorway to what looked like a maintenance closet. As the door began to shut, he shuffled over and caught the edge before it could close. The door re-opened and he ducked in. He found a loose maintenance jacket and threw it on over his jumpsuit.

From there, he continued his power walk to the desk before a long hall with massive columns and ornate double doors at the end. He assumed that the doors lead to the governor’s office. He stopped in front of the desk with a thin-framed woman sitting behind a terminal. He palmed the object from his pocket. When she finally noticed him, she looked up from her display, “May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m uh… Tom… Tom, from maintenance.”

She sat there waiting for him. When he stalled too long for her, she gave an exasperated sigh, “And?”

“And… I have orders from Duryss to deliver this here.” He placed the object on the desk in front of her, and it gleamed in the light.

“Oh, one of those cute little condo-sentries! An expensive Imperial one,” the woman almost seemed to squeal in delight. “Did he get it for me?”

“Uhh…” Lee was shocked. It couldn’t be this easy. “Yes! Yes, he did! He wanted you to have it for your desk as a… uh… a memento.”

She giggled like a schoolgirl, “He can be so thoughtful.” She held it in her hands, turning it back and forth.

“Yeah, thoughtful. Whatever. Hey, anyways, he says you’re supposed to keep it here for the night, so he knows you got it… and…”

“Yes, of course, thank you… What did you say your name was?”

He paused, incredulous at her gullibility. “Never mind, you have a nice day, miss.” Then he spun on his heels and made for the lift. He shook his head as he re-entered the lift where Reeves and Xohn stood waiting for him. Lee held his thumbnail up to his mouth, but stopped short of putting it in his mouth, still shaking his head in disbelief at how easy it was.

“You’re done already?”

He stopped shaking his head and nodded back to Reeves.

“Well,” she put her hands on her hips to wait for him.

He looked up, “Well, what?”

She half scowled, annoyance spreading across her face, “Well, what did you learn?”

“Oh! Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yeah, nothing yet.”

“Well, weren’t you supposed to make it in his office while we head back to the starport?”

He shook his head again in disbelief. “It’s never been that easy before,” he mumbled out loud.

“Easy, so you did get something?”

“Oh, no, like I said, not yet,” Lee smiled at her.

“I’m confused,” Reeves turned her hands out in an exasperated motion.

“I have to say, I am also confused, Lee,” Xohn said.

“Look, I’m not going to break in the governor’s office and get stuck up here. I’ll do it from a nice safe distance when I’m safely on the Nightcrawler, okay?”

“Well, you might have explained that part of the plan to us.”

Lee shrugged, “I didn’t have the plan until about ten minutes ago. Anyways, what are we waiting for?”

Reeves looked up to the ceiling as if the lift’s computerized awareness lived up there, “Lift, ground floor, please.”

A tone of acknowledgment sounded. The doors closed, and the lift sent them speeding down.

***

At the starport, Lee rushed across the hangar, eager to reach the Nightcrawler. Reeves and Xohn were behind him but didn’t try to keep up. It had been more than a month since he’d seen her and his excitement got the better of him. Ship after unfamiliar ship were lined up on transit pads. He passed several mid-sized vessels, and near the end of the row found the Para Bellum. Behind the sleekness of the Fer-de-lance, he found the dark hull and distinctive angles of the Nightcrawler. He stopped at the gangway to the back of the transit pad to look her over. She was beaten to high heaven with wear and tear at almost every edge. The contrast was striking next to the sparkling Para Bellum with only a few visible battle scars. But, she was his—she was “home.”

Reeves and Xohn showed up a few minutes later.

“She is in better shape than she looks, Lee,” Xohn said, huffing from trying to catch up to him.

“What do you mean? She looks great!”

“Lee, we need that intel,” Reeves said with a respectful urgency.

“Then let’s get on board,” Lee started toward the ship. “Xohn, what did you mean she’s in better shape than she looks?”

“I had some spare time. When I wasn’t working on the ThermARCs for Duryss, I came down here to work on her.”

“Wait, you didn’t…” Lee stopped on the ramp.

“I know what she means to you. I didn’t break anything!”

Lee couldn’t keep the scowl off his face. “What… did… you do?”

“Just upgrades! It was only upgrades, I promise.”

“What kind of upgrades?” Lee asked through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t touch the COVAS… I finished integrating the enhanced shields and tweaked them to work with the ThermARC. It keeps your systems from overloading and shutting down.” Xohn said with mild exasperation.

“Okay, fine.” Lee took a breath. “Thank you,” he added as an afterthought while turning to walk up the ramp.

“You’re welcome. My goodness, you’d think it was your dog I kicked or something.” Xohn shook his head.

“Boys, please,” Reeves sighed. “Can we get on with it?”

Lee chuckled as he approached the inner door. He turned back to look at Xohn with a grin, “Xohn, I’ve missed you.” Lee enjoyed every minute of watching Xohn’s eyes go wide.

“What did they do to you in prison?”

He looked over at Reeves, who gave them both an impatient scowl. “I’ll tell you about it later. Let’s find out what Duryss is up to.” Lee walked through the central corridor for the flight deck. As he approached mid-ship, some banging noises from a starboard compartment caught his attention and stopped him in his tracks. He turned back to Xohn following behind him. He half-whispered, “Do you hear that?”

Xohn nodded with a look of concern.

Lee took the adjoining corridor to investigate. Opening the compartment, he found someone welding a reinforcement strut to the hull. “Hey, who the screb…?”

They stopped welding and said through their mask, “Oh, you’re back. That was quick!”

“Why is it everyone thinks they can mess around with my ship?”

The technician pulled off their mask and revealed a full head of red curls. Zee stood from her crouched position, putting a hand to her hip with a raised eyebrow, “Oh?”

“Oh, Zee,” he chuckled. “I thought you were some tech from Novandra Dock Ops! I was about to deck you!”

She crossed her arms, “I’m sorry, I thought you might want this ship to survive combat.” Her eyes shot daggers at him.

Reeves half snorted behind him, and Xohn snickered.

“Right,” he scratched the back of his head. “Sorry, but you know how protective I get with her.”

“Nice to know you care about something that much,” her tone said everything about the thin ice he was on. “Did you get the evidence on Duryss yet?”

“No, I…” Lee was still caught off guard. “I still need to… I gotta… go…” he pointed toward the main corridor, “Gotta… do the thing.”

He started to leave the doorway and heard her call out, “Hey!”

He stopped and leaned back through the door frame. “Be careful, okay?” Zee said with an earnest expression.

“Of course! Sheesh, everyone’s in such a mood today,” Lee grumbled, passing Reeves and Xohn on his way to the flight deck. He led them through the corridors and said, “You know she’s right, this isn’t going to be a walk in the park. I expect he’s got strong encryption and probably anti-intrusion countermeasures.”

He climbed into his flight chair and looked around the cabin. Everything felt right again. At least there was that. Reeves and Xohn stood behind him on either side of his shoulders.

He activated his datapad to transfer control of the bot to the Nightcrawler’s controls. With a theatrical crack of his fingers, he grabbed the flight stick and throttle, “Alright, here we go, little guy.”

Lee turned the bot around to check the surroundings. A window on the lower HUD terminal displayed the camera feed of the bot. The view had an exaggerated perspective owing to the wide-angle of the bot’s camera. It showed the immense gallery leading to tiny double doors of the Governor’s office in the distance, and an empty chair at the desk the bot was on. Thankfully the assistant he spoke to earlier was now off assisting somewhere else.

He tested the throttle back and forth to gauge the movement. When he felt ready, he rolled the bot to the edge of the desk, slowing up in time to gently fall over it onto the seat of the chair below. The display shook with the landing, and he immediately had to catch it from rolling off the curve of the seat cushion. He aimed to do the same off of the chair onto the floor of the gallery. The curved seat required him to compensate. He got it mostly right, and the scene on his display jarred with the impact. Interference lines jumped across the image from the connection interruption. The sound meter overlay on his display peaked with the landing. Lee punched a toggle above the screen to pipe the bot’s sound feed into the cabin.

He gave the flight stick a slight twitch, and the bot righted itself to match his inputs. Swiveling the bot, he aimed it toward the gallery columns and the wall beyond to help keep the bot out of eyesight. The velocity caused it to bounce against the wall before its heading settled toward the end of the hall. Lee kept it at full throttle past column after column. After what seemed like a minute or so, he eased back the throttle, so it didn’t smash into the intersecting wall. The bot came to a stop before the corner, and Lee had to inch it forward with a couple extra thrusts of the throttle. With a twist of the flight stick, the bot turned toward the doors, and he eased it onward again.

A sudden noise spiked on the sound meter, and the heavy oaken double doors swung open. Lee immediately stopped the bot but turned it to watch the hall. The doors hung, floating open before they began a slow, gentle swing to close. The view showed a male figure walking beside a thin feminine one. Then the bot picked up their conversation.

“…and let Colonel Reeves know her fleet must be underway by 1730. There isn’t a moment to lose. Get the Knight ready to depart for…” The voice of Consular Duryss trailed away with distance. Lee quickly tapped the auxiliary terminal controls to command the bot to focus its sensor array toward the sound and amplify it.

The feminine voice of his assistant came through the cabin, “…entirely wise, sir?”

“It is crucial I am there personally to rally the populace. There is no other way to win against… against what’s coming.”

“Yes, sir. With the Resistance in the area, you should at least have a military escort.”

“That won’t be necessary. They’ll never see me coming in…” The voices cut off suddenly.

“The lift,” Reeves said. “They took it to the transport level.”

Lee nodded and pushed the controls to move the bot through the remnant slit of the open doorway before the heavy doors shut. A thud sounded somewhere behind the bot, replicated in the Nightcrawler’s cabin. Turning the bot back and forth, Lee tried to survey the new surroundings. The room felt enormous, both from the perspective of the tiny bot, and the real scale of the high ceilings. On the left, a floor to ceiling window let in light that poured on to the desk centered in the chamber. Lee pushed the throttle to move the bot to the desk, then moved his hands into position at the keys before the terminal.

“Showtime,” he said and began cycling through scanning routines. In this case, he settled on Medium, a program adept at detecting faint signals such as background signals designed to look like ambient noise. The program began feeding back a list of sources. Lee chose one from the list at random, listed as “S22T”. It quickly became apparent it was normal network traffic.

He knew he needed to isolate a close-range channel, something much higher wavelength. He scrolled down into the E-range channels. On instinct, he selected “S91E”. Channels in the exahertz range were very high bandwidth but easily dampened by barriers. They had to be used for very short-range communication. “Well, well, what do we have here? It looks like he has a private server,” he commented, dropping out of the scanner and into the communication stack he designed.

He set the configuration to use terminal display connection protocols and opened a connection. The connection initiated a handshake that ended with an authentication challenge.

Lee looked back at Reeves, “Time to see if this identity works.” He issued the identity and waited for the verification process to complete. After a moment, the terminal began filling with multiple streams of data.

“It looks like gibberish,” Reeves said. “Did it work?”

“Oh yeah, it worked alright. That’s instructions for a display, along with a channel of information, and…” Lee worked the keys, “There.”

A frame on Lee’s console acted as a remote display for the system.

Reeves put a hand on the back of his chair and leaned forward to see the display more clearly. “So, can you look for secure message records, or maybe his meeting schedule?”

Lee continued to work, launching more tools he’d loaded onto the bot. “First, I need to sweep for countermeasures. It’s almost guaranteed…”

His display turned red—all the text, the interface, everything.

“What’s that?” Xohn asked, alarm in his voice.

“That… is a system countermeasure. My connection watchdog detected it. We have maybe five or ten minutes to find whatever it is we’re looking for and log off before their trace finds the bot. I just need to…” Lee’s fingers flew over the keys to launch a counter-tracer.

“Mirage? What’s that do?” Xohn asked again, nervousness still lingering.

“It moves through the system adding false ‘echo’ of virus fingerprints onto executables it finds all over the system. It’ll slow down the scanner and buy us some time.” He rubbed the sweat off of his palms onto his pants, stretching his hands before his fingers hit the keys again to launch another tool.

“Heimdallr,” Reeves commented in a low voice after seeing it appear on Lee’s screen. “From some ancient mythology, if I recall.”

“Well, in this case, it guards my connection against attack.”

“Attacks?” She said with alarm.

“Yeah, I’d like to avoid feedback attacks, like hunter-seekers or brain-spikes. There’s a reason I don’t use implants. Hacking high-security servers can be… physically dangerous.”

Reeves scoffed, “Even over wireless–”

“Yes,” Lee interrupted. He pulled his hands from the keys and looked over his shoulder. “Look, do you want me to explain everything or find the data?” With silence from both Reeves and Xohn, he returned to his work. He focused on configuring the search parameters for appointments, messages, and transactions. “Ok, I’ve spun up a process to find anything and everything. It’s going to take a bit…” The progress bar on the display didn’t appear to budge at all.

“What about the scan?” Xohn asked.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Lee shrugged.

Reeves put a hand up to rub at her temples, “That’s not encouraging, Mr. Sollinger.”

Lee cocked his head, “Sorry. How about, ‘we might get lucky’?”

The display terminal flashed red each time the anti-intrusion scanner found a false fingerprint. It was unnerving, but helpful for Lee to track its progress. It was too much for Xohn, who paced behind the flight chair. Reeves stood behind his chair with a stoic, unreadable expression on her face.

The terminal flashed red again.

“This is intolerable,” Xohn muttered behind him.

“And the scan is getting closer. It’s speeding up on the false signatures, not slowing down.”

Another red flash. The progress bar was still less than halfway.

“Is there anything you can do to speed it up?”

“I could try to kill the scan process, but it risks other sentries discovering our connection.”

“How does that speed things up?” Reeves asked.

“More cycles and I/O for our data miner, since it won’t have to compete for as many resources. That and killing it means not having to worry about the scans. I can shutdown Mirage, too.”

Another red flash.

“It seems worth the risk,” Reeves said. “What do you have that can kill it?”

“Hmm…” Lee looked through his tools. “Ahh, yes… VoidKiller. It coerces the process to execute code inside a null page with divide by null instructions.” He queued it up but hesitated over the key to run it.

“Ok, so run it,” Reeves urged.

The display flashed again.

Lee half looked back at her, keeping his hand above the key to launch it. “If a sentry finds it before the scanner calls the crash instructions… countermeasures could do some real damage here.”

“We don’t have the time to waste. Run it.” There was a commanding tone in her voice that put Lee on edge. She sighed and pushed his hand onto the control.

The display flashed red. Lee’s terminal showed output from VoidKiller. In mere moments the data mining process surged to 97%. Then his display rapidly flashed red over and over.

“What’s that?” Xohn exclaimed.

“Our connection’s been detected!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Lee’s fingers stabbed at the keys on the holo-board to disconnect from the server. “Computer,” he snapped. “Download the data packets from connection rtc/0.” His hands grabbed the flight stick and throttle. Shoving the controls, he moved the cam-bot through the office as fast as possible.

“What’s happening?” Reeves asked, a note of concern creeping into her usual calm.

“A sentry process discovered VoidKiller and is sending out countermeasures. I need to get the cam-bot out of the office as far from the server as possible, so it can’t…” His voice trailed off.

A gleam caught his eye in the bot’s field of view. He rolled past the door by a coat rack with the modern florid design of Imperials. It was what was hanging there that stopped him in his tracks. There, on the lowest hook of the rack, was the familiar pendant necklace his mother had worn. It all tied together in his mind. His memory connected the pock-marked troll his mother used to date to the older, still pock-marked and ponytailed Alden Duryss. The frame was frozen on the necklace. A sudden heat of anger engulfed him. It seemed to clarify his thoughts and guide his actions. He triggered an image capture of the necklace as fast as he could manage. Then he slammed the throttle forward as far as it would go to speed the bot toward the tall window.

Before the little cam-bot ball made it, a surge of electricity danced in the frame, overcoming the bot’s signal. The feed dropped completely and went black.

“What happened?” Reeves asked. “Where’s the feed?”

“We lost it, and they’ve probably traced our connection to…”

Surges began to arc around his display terminal. Lee snapped his hands back from the controls and shouted at them, “Don’t touch anything! It’s a shock spike.” The electrical ribbons danced across the control surfaces in the cabin and spread to the entire ship. Displays flashed as they failed from the surges, then reinitialized. Every button and holo-display flashed like a psychotic dance party.

The surges subsided, and Xohn, still frozen in place, asked, “Is that it?”

“Yeah, but authorities are likely going to investigate. Anyone hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Reeves said, seeming to brush it off.

“I’m okay, too,” Xohn sighed.

A sudden panic struck him to his core and emptied him out.

Zee!

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” he said aloud as he scrambled to his feet, moving as fast as he could. Time seemed to race, making him feel like he was moving in slow motion. He didn’t bother with the ladder and dropped straight to the lower deck. When he hit the floor, he ran full speed through the corridor to the starboard wing compartment. He found Zee completely still and crumpled over the structural plate she’d been working on.

He grabbed her lifeless body in his arms and gently laid her down on the floor. His mind raced. He had almost no medical knowledge. He felt the side of her neck but couldn’t find a pulse, and he could see she wasn’t breathing. Her face had a cold, dead look; the color drained. “Help me! Somebody! Help!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, standing over her, pacing frantically. “No, Zee!” He knelt beside her and put a hand to her face. “No!” He said with a soft whimper, tears creeping into his eyes, blurring his vision.

Reeves entered the room. Looking up and recognizing the person responsible, Lee shot an angry look at her. “Do something!”

Reeves ran back into the corridor as Xohn pushed through the door simultaneously. He gasped at the sight of Zee on the floor. In only a moment, Reeves returned with the onboard emergency medkit.

“Start chest compressions,” she ordered, rummaging through the pack.

Lee looked around. Feeling dumb and useless, he shouted, “I don’t know how!”

Reeves put down the pack, still keeping her cool. “Like this,” she placed her hands on top of each other and simulated the motion. “You have to push her chest hard, over and over, like a heartbeat.”

Lee nodded, beginning compressions while Reeves rummaged through the medkit. She pulled a compact defibrillator and an automatic respirator from the kit then moved beside Zee. Lee watched Reeves open Zee’s mouth and look around. Seeming satisfied by what she saw, she placed the respirator over her face and began to unzip her jumpsuit to get at her bare chest. Reeves placed the pads onto her chest and pressed the button to charge the capacitors. “Get back!” A distinct whining sound seemed to rev up. “Clear!” Reeves shouted and pressed a button.

Zee’s body made a horrific lurching motion at her chest but remained motionless after.

Reeves checked for a pulse but shook her head. “Again! Clear!” Reeves shouted, pressing the button and sending a jolt through Zee’s body. Her body convulsed again but settled back to rest. Reeves felt for a pulse. Lee watched her fingers, then looked her in the eye, waiting for any indication. She stared, concentrating for a few moments before her eyes softened. She nodded. Zee’s eyes slowly began to open, but her pupils were low.

“There we are, we have you, Zee,” Reeves said. She rolled Zee onto her side and pulled the respirator off. Fluid began to drain from Zee’s drooping mouth.

Lee felt simultaneous relief and lingering concern. He tried and failed to choke down his emotions to ask, “Will… will she be okay?”

“She’s stable, but we need to get her to a medical facility,” Reeves held a grave expression.

Zee began to cough, prompting Lee to hold her and make her more comfortable. Her eyes flared open amidst the coughs, and she tried to sit up.

Lee spoke softly to her. “Just relax. You’re okay, Zee. We’ve got you now. We’re gonna get you help.” Lee looked back up at Reeves and half-whispered to keep from disturbing Zee. “Where? Where are we supposed to go? It’s too hot here. That sentry program knows this ship now. We need to get out of here, or we never will.”

“We still need that data,” Reeves sat back against the hull reinforcement. Her eyes darted about the compartment as she appeared to work the problem. “You’ll have to take the data and Zee to Li Yong-Rui. I was going to rendezvous with him on the SCS Arbitrage at the Blue Crater Mines. It’s an installation in Tangaroa.” She had an urgent look, “Analyze the data en route and deliver it to Li Yong-Rui.”

“And how in Charon’s frozen cracks am I supposed to get on his schedule?”

“I had a meeting set up already. I’ll send word that you’re going as my proxy.” She shook her head. “I would have liked to have seen proof myself before sending you off. On the other hand, this keeps me at the frontlines. I’ll send for the reporter to join you.”

Lee nodded.

Reeves stood. “Xohn, help us move her to a rack.”

Xohn nodded, still standing in the doorway. Lee gently got up, and the three of them carefully handled Zee through the corridors into quarters with a sleeping rack.

“You’ll be okay here, Zee,” Lee encouraged while strapping her in. Zee only moaned a bit and closed her eyes. “Xohn, can you stay with her?”

“Of course,” he said, bowing his head.

“Lee, the fleet won’t be ready for a few more hours,” Reeves stood outside the room. “You’re going to have to break about a dozen laws and rack up some significant fines to break out of here.”

“We’ll manage. You just make sure they know we’re coming, and we’ll need emergency medical teams on standby.”

“Send me your public comm keys so we can set up an encrypted channel,” Reeves pulled out her datapad and held it in front of her.

“I left mine on the flight deck,” Lee pushed past her on the way up.

Up on the flight deck, they exchanged keys. Lee kept a hard look on his face. He resented her for forcing his hand enough that it caused him to question her motivations.

“You still don’t trust me, do you, Mr. Sollinger?”

He looked her in her eyes and said, “I rarely trust anyone. You’re not that special.”

“That may be Mr. Sollinger, but the only way we can save anything or anyone today is trusting each other.”

He pursed his lips but nodded. “In that case, good luck and good hunting, Colonel.”

Reeves gave a short bow of her head and left the flight deck.

Lee moved around to settle in his flight chair and fired up the systems on the Nightcrawler. It had been long enough with enough changes; Lee decided it was worth running a pre-flight sequence. About halfway through the checks, Xohn joined him.

“I thought you were staying with Zee,” Lee said, confused.

“Trisha is with her now. I told her what happened. I’m sorry, Lee.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I just hope Sirius Corp will help.” He turned on the internal comm system. “Alright, folks, we’re ready to depart. It might get bumpy…”

Outside the canopy, a small fleet of sentry drones entered the bay. The upper information HUD lit up with a message:

> Warning 1,100 CR bounty gained: Illegal Network Access.

“Correction, it’s going to get bumpy. Strap in.”

“Are they here for us?”

“Did you see the bounty? Yeah, they’re here for us,” Lee gritted his teeth, working his terminal. He dispatched an override virus to dock control. With all the other hack attempts going wrong, he half expected it not to work. Several seconds went by with nothing happening. After about a minute, Lee began to lose hope until they heard a loud but distant clanking. Lights began to flash around their pad. “We’re free!” Lee shouted with surprise.

He rebalanced power to systems and engines, then hit the ventral thrusters to rise off the pad.

His upper HUD display lit up again:

> Warning 400 CR fine gained: Unauthorized Launch.

Ignoring the fine, he eased the throttle forward until they were clear of the pad, then shoved it to full. The sentries moved across the hangar bay, closing the gap in no time. They surrounded the Nightcrawler in a claw-like formation and opened fire.

Lee was pleased with the performance of the upgraded shields considering an onslaught from more than a dozen sentries at once. Still, they were falling and were down to about 90%. He snapped at Xohn beside him, “Strap in below and get on comms!”

The shields fell faster, down to 61%. Lee swore under his breath.

Xohn’s voice came through his cabin, “Lee, I’m on comms. And it looks like it’s time to use some of the upgrades!”

“What’d you have in mind?” Lee didn’t touch anything, but suddenly, the shields jumped back up to 88%. “Hey, what was that?”

“Shields booster! But something is not right; we should not be building heat this way.”

A warning signal preceded the COVAS announcement, “Warning: taking heat damage.”

“We have more problems!” Lee snapped. He saw three ship signals approaching. “We gotta get out of here now, and we need to get our heat under control. Hey! Wait, where’d my heatsinks go?” The heatsinks that used to be installed were gone.

“That I can take care of,” Xohn said.

The heat fell, and a new engine pip appeared on his display. Then Lee remembered, the ThermARC! “Nice work, Xohn,” he said with a slight grin. He toggled silent running, hit the engine boost, then pulled back on the flight stick, sending them into a 90º climb from the ground. The Nightcrawler leaped through the line of sentries, quickly clearing the enormous complex of landing pads. The incoming fire was reduced to a few lucky hits as the sentries lost their firing lock.

The climb continued, and within mere seconds, they were out of range of the other ships heading their way. Silent running kept them off the system authorities’ sensors, giving them a mostly clean getaway.

With all the maneuvers, Lee worried it might have hurt Zee’s delicate condition. Hang in there, Zee, he thought. With the engines at full throttle, the Nightcrawler left the teal skies of Emen for the jeweled darkness beyond.

“Xohn, plot a course for us to Tangaroa,” Lee requested. “I need to focus on this data.” He made the request, and it dawned on him; it was the first time in ages he’d had a real co-pilot.

“On it, Lee,” Xohn acknowledged.

***

Lee paced in the medical ward room on the Blue Crater Mines installation, staring at his datapad. Movement stirred in the bed, and he stopped to look over the datapad. Zee adjusted her position in her RestLok bed but remained asleep. The gentle beeping and blinking of medical monitors in the soft lighting was a peaceful environment for him to work. Not to mention, he needed the comfort of being near Zee.

Her prognosis was good, with no ill effects from her near-death experience. She only needed careful observation and rest for the next couple of days.

He returned to the datapad, reviewing the data he’d analyzed in preparation for his meeting with Li Yong-Rui. Using his finger, he moved an item on the datapad to a new position, hoping to make the story clearer.

He’d never met a head of state before. For most of his life, he never had a second thought about people of the stature of someone like Li Yong-Rui. He found most government leaders too out of touch with the reality of most of their people’s lives. They didn’t care about him, so he couldn’t care less about them.

Now, he was attempting to convince the man with the highest net worth in the galaxy to spend money, workforce, and equipment. It was all for a worthy cause to stop the invasion and put Sylus Draden on trial. But it was up to him to prove it.

A lot is riding on this, he thought to himself. Who am I kidding? Everything depends on this.

If it didn’t work, life in the Hyades for him and billions of others would fundamentally change without their say. How in the bloody galaxy he ended up here was beyond him. Him, of all people—a nobody, abandoned to the streets, raised by a humble miner, who grew up to become a law-dodging smuggler. He was the one who had to convince an almost mythical success story of a man that he made a mistake. He doomed billions of lives by appointing “Alden Duryss” to the Hyades.

A notification appeared on his datapad—his shuttle had arrived. He closed his notes, pocketed the datapad in his suit, and walked to Zee’s bedside.

“Zee,” he said in a soft low voice. “I’ve gotta go. I don’t know what will happen or where it will take us, but I promise… no matter where I end up, I’ll find you again.” He put a hand on her shoulder. She moved slightly in response, but the medications kept her in a deep sleep. He didn’t expect her to wake, but he didn’t feel right not saying goodbye.

A young Sirius Navy soldier entered the room, “Hello, Mr. Sollinger. I’m here to escort you to the Arbitrage.”

He nodded to the soldier and took a last look at Zee, her red curls floating up about her peaceful face. Like the stars of the Milky Way across her face, her freckles made him sigh with contentment. It was short-lived, ended by the pain of leaving her. Leaning over her, he paused to take in her beauty as if storing it up for a lifetime, then moved toward her ear and whispered, “I still owe you.” He left her with a light kiss on her forehead and followed the young soldier.

The small transport shuttle left the Blue Crater Mines installation. After an initial course change, a hulking Farragut-class battle cruiser filled the forward view. Lee stood beside the soldier who piloted them, keeping his hands behind his back. Another maneuver for the final approach swung the canopy about, showing the scale of the Sirius Navy fleet. Lee saw two other Farragut battle cruisers parked in the distance—a cloud of ships of every variety surrounded each. There were small fighters like Vipers, mighty Anacondas, and Corvettes. The lack of uniformity revealed the Sirius Navy’s preference for making acquisitions based on necessity and, of course, the right deal.

The shuttle docked, and the soldier led him through the ship to a transit lift. Lee could feel the nerves kicking in. Why was he so nervous when he could usually remain calm under pressure? Lee tried to lighten his mood with some chit-chat. He looked at the soldier, “That was some smooth shuttle flying. How long have you been at it?”

“I’m not a pilot, sir. That was an automated transport. I only pushed the right buttons.”

Lee half-coughed, not expecting the answer. “Wow, they don’t give you basic flight training in the Sirius Navy?”

The young soldier responded with a severe tone, “I was trained to tear your aorta from your neck and choke you with it. I’m a soldier, not a pilot.”

“Okay, got it,” Lee said and stood in awkward silence for the rest of the trip. The lift arrived, and the doors opened, defusing some tension. His escort grunted and gestured for him to exit, then led him through another maze of corridors. They ended up in a room where two other Sirius Navy soldiers stood guard.

His escort told the soldiers, “This is Lee Sollinger, sent by Colonel Reeves to speak with the Chairman.”

The guards opened the doors and let them pass. They entered a lobby area. The rear partition wall was adorned with the Sirius Corporation emblem lit from behind. His escort put his hand up, “Wait here. One of the Chairman’s attendants will join you in a moment.”

After more than a few minutes, a young woman met him and took him back to an empty conference room. It was large enough for thirty or forty people to meet. A gorgeous polished oak table with soft under-lighting stretched across the room. The attendant left, and the glass doors etched with Sirius emblems closed in near-perfect silence.

Both ends of the room had soft glowing Sirius Corporation emblems floating in front of the walls. Along the other walls were a series of paintings. Lee ambled around the table, looking at the works as he went. The first couple of pictures depicted buildings of planetary outposts. The towers had a similar architecture, with Sirius logos aglow near the top. There was another with an Orbis station floating before a flaming red-violet nebula. At the center of the room, soft ceiling lights lit a large landscape rendition of a Farragut-class ship. It was the apparent focal piece of the room. Lee took a closer look and read the nameplate below the left corner of the art:

SCS Arbitrage, SN9-R79

A sound behind him made him spin around, and he watched as what he thought was another wall split open and became a doorway. An energetic figure entered wearing a finely tailored suit with an almost cloak-like jacket that stretched to the floor. He looked in his mid-fifties, yet Lee knew he was much older than that. The luminescent light-blue strips embedded in the collar of his cloak gave his face a soft glow. His thin, sharp eyes, wedge-shaped eyebrows, and angular features gave him a resolute demeanor. It was a bearing that lived up to his reputation as “the businessman of all business.”

Li Yong-Rui stepped up to the long conference table at counter-height between them and leaned over it. His fingers worked a datapad he held while keeping his forearms on the table.

“Mr. Sollinger,” he said while continuing to look at the ultra-thin transparent datapad glowing back at him. “Colonel Reeves sent you to brief me about the situation in the Hyades.” His voice was official and commanding, with no hint of pretentiousness.

“Yes, sir,” Lee stepped toward the table, his magboot steps echoing in the mostly empty chamber.

“Oh, no need to call me ‘sir.’ I’m not terribly fond of titles. What news do you bring me from the Hyades Expanse?” He flashed a practiced smile before returning to look at his datapad.

“Thank you, uh… Mr. Yong-Rui,” he said, uncomfortable without using some form of respect.

Another smile returned, and he met Lee’s eyes. “Just ‘Yong-Rui’ is fine. ‘Li’ is my family name.”

“Yes, well… I’m Lee as… well,” he shook his head with a sigh. He felt like he was botching the first impression.

Yong-Rui responded with a genuine chuckle, “Indeed, my friend. May I call you ‘friend’?”

Lee nodded.

“And what did Colonel Reeves find so pressing that she required a private meeting that she couldn’t attend herself?” He continued holding his datapad to his face but looked over it at Lee.

“Ahh, well, we have some information… disturbing information about Consular Duryss.”

“Very well, but first, perhaps you can introduce yourself. I was given very little information about who you are and your relationship to Colonel Reeves,” he said while tapping his datapad.

“I’m Lee Sollinger. I’m part of the Resistance from Thetauri.”

“The Resistance? Thetauri…” he said, looking up from his datapad with a distant expression. “HIP 20935. Duryss has briefed me about Resistance attacks against Sirius Gov interests. Tell me, my friend,” he said almost threateningly. “Why should I not call security?”

“We convinced Colonel Reeves of Duryss’s betrayal to Sirius Gov and the people of the Hyades. She would bring it to you personally, but Duryss ordered her to ready a fleet. Then there was the injury on my ship… She sent me with the evidence.”

“The maintenance woman they are treating,” Yong-Rui said off-hand and drifted back to his datapad. He began tapping on the datapad while speaking, “What of this fleet? Is it relevant to the betrayal you allege?”

“Yes,” Lee said with a nod.

“Then, by all means, share evidence for your claims against one of my most promising governors. Extraordinary claims must have extraordinary evidence, wouldn’t you agree?”

Lee pulled his datapad from his suit, held it still before him, and released it. It floated above the table in zero-G with a slow corner spin where a finger caught it. “All the evidence we have is on that. It’s a collection of information we… obtained from Sietae Corporation and a private server in Alden Duryss’s office.”

Yong-Rui raised an eyebrow and stopped looking at his datapad.

Lee continued, “Duryss is not Duryss.”

Yong-Rui cocked his head. “Explain.”

“We have evidence that Alden Duryss is, in fact, Sylus Draden.”

“That…” Yong-Rui said with a dramatic pause. “That is a remarkable accusation.”

“Actually, GalNet and your employment records corroborate it fairly well,” he said, snatching his datapad. He tapped the surface to pull up the records showing both side-by-side and held it out to Yong-Rui.

“Coincidental timing?”

“On its own, it looks like that, but here,” he grabbed the datapad back to pull up a series of new records. “These are donations made to the Find Sylus Draden Campaign.” He held the datapad back out for Yong-Rui to inspect. “As you can see, these come from Sietae Corp, from the Hyades Government, signed ‘with regards’ from Consular Alden Duryss.”

Yong-Rui’s face was implacable. He appeared to simply digest the information.

“That’s tens of billions donated over three years to his father,” Lee stressed. “Add to it the rise of Imperial enterprises in the region, followed by an influx of Imperial citizens.”

“I understand,” he said. “And you want me to detain Consular Duryss to put him on trial?”

“I think it will take a bit more than that.” He noted a datapad dock in the conference table. “May I?”

“Proceed.”

Lee placed his datapad into the dock on the tabletop, and a holographic interface appeared to pop off the surface. He used gestures to navigate the interface and pull up a map of the Hyades region. He pointed to a star system, highlighting it, then put his hands together, pointing toward it, and swung them apart. The star was pulled toward them, zooming into it, showing the planetary orbits.

“Alit—the home system of Senator Madius Draden. Two days ago, we got word of a fleet making its way across to the Hyades.”

A concerned look crossed Yong-Rui’s face, “I’ve heard nothing of this.”

“It’s a small fleet on its own, but…” He zoomed the map out to show star systems surrounding Alit. “Evidence recovered from Duryss’s private server shows several fleets in all these systems.” He highlighted almost a dozen star systems and paused to let Yong-Rui consider it.

“And you know where they are headed?”

“The server documents show they plan to meet…” He gestured the map to slide to another region and selected another star system, highlighting it in red. Then he drew course lines from all the other systems converging to the red highlighted star. “Here.”

“Chelum,” Yong-Rui’s thin eyes narrowed further in focused thought. He leaned on the conference table, still holding his datapad with his fingers, “It’s an invasion force,” he said with almost a hint of wonder. “Duryss has been misleading the entire Sirius Gov Consulate.” His expression turned more concerned. “And myself,” he admitted.

“I’m afraid there’s more.”

Yong-Rui stood back from leaning on the tabletop and crossed his arms to observe.

“A drastic population shift has occurred. The rapid influx of Imperials driven by their corporations taking over has given them a majority in the region. They’re beginning to drive independents out of Hyades and, along with it, your control.”

He zoomed out from Chelum to show a handful of neighboring systems, then drew a diagonal line from a star system above Chelum. “To counter this, the Resistance began random attacks on Imperial couriers and convoys in Chelum to slow their industry growth.”

Then, Lee gestured from the datapad to pull up GalNet reports. “And as you probably already know, almost four months ago, an outbreak of a disease known as aculosis began to devastate the system. But, you may not have known, it avoids the growing Imperial population. In fact, data from the health agency in Chelum suggests the only Imperials contracting it all are of mixed descent. Mr. Li, this all points to not just an invasion but a complete annexation of the Hyades, starting with the most populated system in the region.”

Yong-Rui stood stoic in quiet contemplation and locked his narrow eyes on the map. Then he picked up his datapad and spoke into it sternly, “Get me Admiral Hayashi, and convene an emergency war council.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Alden Duryss stood in his magboots on the flight deck of the Knight, his war-ready ship. The Python-class’s diamond shape made it versatile for multi-role configurations. The Knight was well-equipped for combat, and his first-class cabin afforded the comforts to which he was accustomed.

The onboard ThermARC hid their arrival in the system, despite an initial glitch bringing it online. They were able to transit the embattled system unnoticed by Resistance patrols.

Now he stood, impatient, watching through the forward-swept canopy while the ship finished docking. The ship matched the spin of Zamka Dock, one of four Orbis stations in Chelum. Its enormous dual habitat rings gleamed in the distance.

After docking and feeling the simulated gravity of the station, Duryss raised each of his boots onto their toes to disable mag-lock. The locking annoyed him to no end. He was always eager to disable it as soon as possible.

He would have liked to avoid the trip altogether, but it was necessary. His need to stand against Senator Draden, to bring his father to ruin, put him on this course. It was far too late to back down. Dictating mandates from his office in Sietae would not be sufficient to react real-time to the Senator’s offensive. There was also the matter of preparing Chelum’s authorities without alerting mass hysteria.

Duryss walked onto the station with his armed escort. A cluster of people had gathered at the bottom of the ramp to greet them. He recognized the station administrator in the group from his prior encounters within the system. The tall, bald-headed man with dark skin, wearing a taupe colored suit adorned with blue stripes on the shoulders, stepped forward to greet him.

“Welcome, Consular. I wish your visit was under better circumstances.”

Duryss bowed his head, “Envoy Palmer, thank you for your hospitality. We need to talk in private.”

“This way, sir,” he gestured and walked back toward the landing pad’s terminal building. The groups walked side-by-side following Duryss’s quick pace.

They boarded a transport to the central office complex. Standing beside Duryss, Palmer leaned his head toward him, to speak in a low voice. “Before we conference, you should know sporadic combat zones have popped up. They are especially concentrated around the third and fourth planets of the core worlds. The Resistance is ignoring independents, and focusing on Imperial corporate interests, especially convoys.”

Duryss nodded but stayed silent.

“The quarantine has been somewhat effective at controlling the spread of aculosis. Infection rates have dropped by 65%. Growth of the disease has stalled at around 100 million. Ahh, here we are.” The transport came to a stop outside the central office complex. “If you’ll follow me Consular,” Palmer said.

Duryss reflected on the information while he walked beside his host. 100 million was significant, even in a system population of 2 billion. But he knew Senator Draden expected a much more dramatic number of infections. The original plan was for the virus to cut the independent population in half. The lower infection rate gave Duryss a tactical advantage.

They entered a conference room in the office complex, leaving their guards behind. Palmer sat at one end of the table.

Duryss walked to the other side and leaned over it. “The situation is more urgent than you realize, Envoy Palmer. At this very moment, several Imperial fleets are headed to this system.”

Palmer’s eyes went wide, “Imperial fleets? Why in the galaxy would they…”

“My sources suggest Senator Draden is after more territory to grow his patronage. He appears to be making a power play to elevate his rank in the Senate. If he’s able to capture the Hyades, he will control the largest patronage in the Empire.”

“We are already fighting the Resistance and this wretched disease! The people of Chelum cannot stand for this,” Palmer snapped.

“I’m counting on it. And I’m counting on your support. I have a fleet en route from Sietae to support our position, but we need to raise support from our independent citizens.”

“We’ll marshall all our remaining armed forces from Lethem Barracks on CB2.”

Duryss nodded, “If we’re to survive this, we need every able bodied man and woman to fight and resist this invasion. We need all the independent pilots we can get on our side.” He paused and looked past the Envoy in thought. “Press. Media.” His eyes narrowed. “Yes, that’s it,” he said, the idea taking shape in his mind. “I want you to arrange a meeting with a reporter that can help me send out a call to arms.”

“I’ll see to it Consular,” Palmer said with a nod. “Thank you for standing with us in this trial. Our people have been suffering for far too long.”

“And what is the status of station defenses?”

“All our orbital stations have HRBs installed and operational,” Palmer reported with a pleased look on his face.

“Excellent,” Duryss responded as the datapad in his coat pocket blipped with a notification. He glanced down, only half pulling it from his coat enough to glimpse the information. He grinned and reported, “Colonel Reeves has arrived with my fleet from Sietae. Would you be kind enough to provide a tactical overview of the system so that I can order my forces where to go to be the most effective?”

Palmer worked the conference table’s holo controls bringing up a map of the binary system that glowed before their eyes. It centered on the giant primary star, Chelum. Orbiting at some distance was Chelum B, or “CB,” as it was labeled. Around it, six worlds orbited in measured distances from the smaller, dimmer companion star. Some distance beyond, orbiting both Chelum and Chelum B, were the Chelum AB outer worlds, a barycenter orbiting sub-system of three outer planets.

Palmer zoomed the map into the core worlds and highlight three of them. One was a planet in a position on the opposite edge of the system from the two other planets he selected. “My military advisors have informed me that these are the most strategic planets in the system.”

Duryss nodded, studying the map.

“This is CB2, it hosts our armed forces barracks for both our Home Guard forces and law enforcement.” Palmer slid the map over to the other two planets. “This is CB3 and CB4. CB3 is only strategic today because its orbital position puts it close to CB4. It provides a staging zone with support from Zalyotin City, the small outpost that orbits it. But, the water world of CB4, the world this facility orbits, is our crown jewel.” He adjusted the map to zoom further, “This is Project Aquilon. A terraforming process that’s been underway for the past decade and a half. The rest of the worlds here are rich in metal resources, but the habitability of this planet is the future of prosperity for Chelum’s people.”

“Thank you for bringing me up to speed, Envoy. I appreciate…”

A tone came from the doorway to the conference room, and an aide hurried in. After the door shut, the young woman announced, “Pardon the interruption, Consular, Envoy. An Imperial fleet just arrived in the system. Two fleet carriers, a Majestic-class Interdictor, and two dozen other ships are heading our way now.”

Duryss looked over at the station administrator. “Envoy Palmer, I’m officially exercising my authority to take operational command of Chelum’s armed forces as well. We must have a singular chain of command.” He locked eyes with him, almost daring him to challenge his authority.

Palmer stood firm, appearing to bristle at first. Then his shoulders dropped, “Of course, Consular. Our forces are yours to command.”

“Go now. Send in your military and law enforcement advisors. And make arrangements for the media interview.”

Palmer had a more obstinate look, a new tension in his demeanor, but he quietly bowed his head and left the conference room.

Duryss pulled out his datapad and composed orders for Reeves to distribute forces around CB4 and Zamka Dock. This is where the final stand will take place, he thought to himself. His father would finally see what he was made of—what he was capable of. He would learn that his son had every bit his political, strategic, and tactical mastery, if not more.

The quarantine efforts preserved the strength of Chelum’s armed forces. Adding to that, the Imperial fleets faced the Resistance, his Sietaen fleet, and the HRBs mounted to all the stations in the system. Suffice it to say, he felt he had every advantage, armed with the superior force. He was ready. How ready are you, father?

Tapping on the conference table controls, Duryss placed a call to the Senator’s office. After working through aides, the lion-like form of Senator Madius appeared on the holo-projection above the table.

“Sylus,” he said with a growl. “Why am I not surprised that you’d have the audacity to contact me on an open hyperspace channel?”

“You think you’ve won already, father, but your forces will face destruction this day,” he said, keeping his calm.

“Still so naive and reckless, Sylus. You are an embarrassment. You pathetic excuse for an heir to my house,” his weakened voice spat with contempt.

His anger simmered at his father’s words, but he managed to maintain a modicum of control. He snapped back, “Your ambition, as always, has blinded you, you old fool! I have countered all your machinations. You have no more tricks, old man. But today… today you’re going to see that Sylus Draden has always been the better man. Your dreams and schemes are dead. The Empire will abandon you, just as I have.”

A cackle emerged deep from the old man’s chest. “You haven’t a clue what you’re doing… boy!” The old man snarled, ”You’ve never commanded armed forces. I have six decades of command experience. I’ve lead fleets in intergalactic warfare in over 100 armed conflicts. I have the best Imperial trained pilots in the Empire and flag officers I’ve worked with for 20 years. Superior equipment, manpower, and experience. What do you have? A ragtag collection of ships, police forces, an untried reserve guard that has never seen battle, and a rebellion? Mark my words, you imbecilic offspring, I will erase my worst mistake from the galaxy today.”

Through gritted teeth, he spat back, “Give it your best shot, you arrogant windbag.”

The connection terminated.

Sylus Draden sat back at the head of the conference table, huffing at the encounter. It was necessary to ensure his father didn’t suspect his advantages. Thwarting the virus, the station defensive batteries, and the ThermARC equipped Sietaen fleet were significant. His quick review of his successes helped him restore his composure and return to his Alden Duryss persona.

There was another door tone before it cracked open enough that the young aide woman was able to lean her head through. “Consular, the military and law enforcement commanders are here.”

“See them in, please,” he said.

The door opened to a half a dozen people. A man in a decorated military uniform entered, followed by other military officers in similar uniforms. Another group followed, led by a woman wearing a different uniform, still highly decorated. She was accompanied by another woman and a man in matching uniforms.

The first man that entered gave some form of salute, raising a hand to the side of his face, then spoke with a heavy Irish accent. “Consular Duryss, I’m Colonel McHugh. I lead the Advanced Tactical Response teams in Chelum. These are my aides, and my associate…” He turned back toward the woman.

“Hello Consular Duryss,” she said, with a distinct lack of any discernible accent compared to her counterpart. “I’m Chief of Security Carter. I run Chelum’s system security service.”

“A pleasure to meet you both. I look forward to working with you. Envoy Palmer has informed you I’ve taken operational command?”

“He has, sir,” Carter replied.

“Then let’s get to work,” Duryss put his hands together in theatrical excitement.

Carter began to work the table’s holo interface, and the map shifted to a new, more tactical style that showed every ship tracked in the system. Duryss could see clusters of ships between the host star and the CB core worlds, and another grouping in front of CB4. Carter continued to work the map, “Sir, this is the most recent tactical update. We have defensive forces deployed around Zamka Dock and just outside the CB4 system.” The overlapping-circles logo of the Chelum system appeared above the ship clusters on the map.

Carter continued, “Sietaen ATR has taken up position alongside our system security fleets by CB4 as well.” A Sietae Corporation logo appeared above the cluster. “We are bringing approximately twenty-two more ships online once they are fueled and armed. The current plan is to send them from CB2 to CB3 to defend the outpost there.”

“The Imperial fleet has taken up a blockade position in the primary shipping lane to the core worlds.” An Imperial emblem appeared above the cluster of ships midway between the star and planetary system. Then a series of scattered target reticle symbols appeared dotting the core worlds all the way out to the outer barycenter worlds. “These are Resistance forces clashing with Imperial natives.”

Duryss continued to stare at the map, absorbing the information. As he did so, the map updated in real-time with two more large clusters. Moments later, the Imperial symbol appeared above them.

McHugh spoke up, “Two more Imperial fleets have arrived in the system. That’s three Interdictors in Chelum.”

“And where are your ATR forces, Colonel?”

McHugh updated the map to annotate it with a blue version of the Chelum overlapping-cirles emblem. “Each system security fleet includes four of my ATR units.”

“Where do we stand on the total fleet counts?”

“Ninety Imperial ships, five capital vessels,” Carter replied. “Two hundred ten ships combined in Chelum security, ATR, and Sietaen forces, and three carriers.”

“And how many do we have in reserve?”

“There are at most sixty more ships and pilots in reserve.”

“What about Resistance ships?”

“By our last sensor sweep, it appears there are about forty-five Resistance ships engaged in sorties around the system.”

“I see,” Duryss turned the information over. They had overwhelming numbers, but the Interdictors presented a real danger. He knew his father outright owned two Interdictors, but the third was a surprise. He cursed his donations to the Find Sylus Draden Campaign being used against him. Taking out the Interdictors was the surest strategy to crush the rest of the Imperial forces. “Our priority is to take out those Interdictors. We need to bait them.”

McHugh offered in his Irish brogue, “I can dispatch a dozen ATR units from Alpha and Bravo fleets to mount attack runs on the blockade. Bloody their nose a bit.”

“Sir,” Carter interrupted. “It appears the Imperials are redeploying. The second fleet is transiting the system on course for…” She worked the holo map interface. A solid line appeared behind the fleet from where it entered the system and continued with a dashed line along a computed path. “They’re headed for CB3. And the Imperial Third fleet has moved to the Nav Beacon. They now control entry into the system and the shipping lanes. We’re cut off from any outside support.”

Another door tone sounded and it cracked open. The familiar face of the Envoy’s aide popped in. “Sir, we have a GalNet reporter here for the interview.”

Duryss nodded in reply, “Thank you dear, I’ll be right there.” The aide closed the door, and Duryss stood from his seat at the head of the table. “Chief, Colonel, I want you to move the fleets from CB4 to CB3 to intercept the Imperial Second Fleet. Colonel, redeploy all your ATR units to CB4. We’ll have a surprise waiting for them here. I have another task to attend to.”

He left the conference-room-turned-war-room and found the aide in the hall who escorted him to another conference room. He turned on his political charm, smiling broadly and gave the reporter his statement:

Fellow citizens of the Hyades, a tragedy has befallen the Chelum star system. I, Consular Duryss, am here in the system to stand up to an illegal Imperial occupation. This invasion threatens Chelum’s independence and is a clear threat to the entire Hyades region.

I was wrong in inviting Imperials to our region to assist in establishing Thargoid defenses. I admit I am guilty of acting on my deep sense of honor and duty to protect the people of Hyades.

We must come together to fight this oppression and search for a peaceful solution. I call upon the Empire to denounce this heinous act. And I call upon all independent pilots in Chelum, across the Hyades, and the intergalactic community to rise up, and come to our aide. The people of Hyades are and will ever remain a free and independent society.

Upon returning to the briefing room, McHugh’s chiseled face held a serious look of concern. An ambient murmuring in the staff added to the increasing tension as the situation unfolded rapidly.

“Report,” Duryss snapped while returning to his seat to the head of the conference room table. He looked to the map and noted more Imperial fleets.

Carter delivered the news, “Three more Imperial fleets arrived in the system. The Imperial Fourth fleet is on a course to CB2. The Fifth and Sixth fleets are headed straight for us. Our Alpha and Bravo fleets are engaged with the Imperial Third. Resistance forces have joined combat zones around CB3.”

“So it has begun,” Duryss said in a low, serious tone.

“Our forces are holding,” McHugh added. “Eighteen Imperial ships have been destroyed. Ten Hyades ships and four Resistance ships have been destroyed.”

“How long until the Imperial fleets arrive?” Duryss asked.

“ETA is two minutes.”

“Bring Zamka Dock to alert. Prep the HRBs to repel the Imperials, and tell Colonel Reeves to ready their cloak attack.”

The Chief of Security and Colonel both acknowledged his orders. Each signaled their respective aides to dispatch the orders through the necessary chains of command.

Moments later an alert klaxon resonated throughout the station. The alarm echoed in the distance from around the enormous docking bay.

The klaxon was followed by an all station announcement that echoed in the same way, “Attention! We are initiating emergency protocols. All decks: emergency protocol. All citizens are ordered to proceed to shelters immediately.”

The map showed the Fifth and Sixth fleets had arrived at Zamka Dock both in attack formations coming from wide angle vectors of approach. Reeves forces were not equally matched, but their ThermARCs gave them a significant advantage. The tides were not as favorable as they had been, striking a chord of fear in Duryss. Ship numbers were now closer to equal, but he still had numerous advantages.

The Imperial Fifth fleet was led by the INV Valiant, the third Majestic-class Interdictor engaged in the conflict. The Sixth fleet included two fleet carriers that began launching waves of ships. The Valiant closed into a firing solution against Zamka Dock.

“Carter, how many Imperial ships are we tracking now?”

“Over 200, sir. 31 destroyed.”

Duryss grimmaced.

McHugh shouted, “They’re firing! Brace for impact.”

Carter gripped the edge of the table. The station shuddered from distant impacts. Sirens rang out, blaring with a new urgency. Another round shook the station.

“It’s railguns,” Carter snapped. “Station commander reports damage to the engineering section and life support.”

Trying to flush us out, Duryss thought. Smart move, father. “Tell Colonel Reeves to begin her attack on their rear flank. Once they’ve pushed the Valiant into position, give them a salvo of the HRBs.”

“Yes, sir,” Carter acknowledged.

“ATR on CB2 reports they’ve engaged the Imperial Fourth. Lethem Barraks is under orbital bombardment!” McHugh reported axiously. Sweat dripped from his wrinkled and furrowed brow.

Another attack rocked the station, the lights and table map flickered. Duryss zoomed the map to the conflict between Reeves’s forces and the Fifth Fleet. Ships were popping on and off the map, evidence their ThermARCs were working. Duryss watched a specific encounter of a small number of shielded ships that pulled Imperial forces away from the main conflict. The unsuspecting pursuers flew into traps of four and five Sietaen ships surrounding in a claw formation of destruction. One after another Imperial ships were lured away and destroyed.

As the count of Imperial forces began to drop the Valiant moved into position behind the habitat ring of Zamka Dock. It slipped into a parallel orientation so that its firing batteries were well aligned.

Carter held her earpiece and looked up at Duryss, “Firing HRBs, sir.”

“Show me,” Duryss snapped quickly.

An aide worked the table controls and a projected window displayed a visual of the Valiant’s broadside.

A modest shudder shook the room, followed by brief pause, then another shudder. Two large lights leapt onto the display, and each disappeared into the Valiant.

“Direct hits, sir,” Carter said while another shudder hit them. Two more large lights disappeared into the Valiant. The display showed evidence of explosions rocking the giant vessel. It began a slow turn into the direction of their attacks to minimize their attack profile. “Two more hits sir! The Valiant is being routed!”

The ship continued its turn and showed the opposite side, on a heading past the habitat ring of the station. Suddenly, and violently, all the railguns on the port side fired at once. The station shook and pieces of the ceiling in the conference room came apart, a light sparking above them. A dozen ships surrounded by a cloud of drone fighters flew toward the station, the display losing them as their range closed.

Renewed sirens were heard closer than they had been before.

Another hit rocked them all knocking the staff in the room off their feet as the deck below them lurched. The room exploded. Duryss was thrown forward and hit his head on the blunted edge of the table. His long hair was thrown across his face. The pain throbbed in his forehead. He reached up to touch the wound where he’d hit and felt wetness. Pulling his hand back he found blood on his fingertips.

More attacks knocked out the lights before anyone could recover. The holo display above the table flickered but stubbornly stayed alive. It became the only light source in the room beyond the flashing amber alerts in the complex.

People were shouting around him, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Duryss pushed through his headache and shouted over the chaos, “Report!”

Carter was nowhere to be found. McHugh pushed his way out from under a sheet of metal debris. The man stammered to his feet and worked the holo interface to display a representation of Zamka Dock. Areas lit up red across the station. The habitat ring had been left largely unscathed, but the rest of the facility suffered heavy damage. “Life support on the station is beginning to fail, down to 24%. It’s not enough to sustain the population. Four of five generators are offline. We have to…” his eyes were somewhat distant. “We have to evacuate.”

Duryss stood up, feeling weak in his knees. I need to evacuate, he thought to himself. “Bring the Alpha and Bravo fleets back to join Colonel Reeves forces here. Redeploy all your ATR forces here!”

“Aye, sir,” McHugh said.

Duryss pushed over the chair behind him and made his way out of the conference room. As he stepped toward the doorway, he found the lifeless bodies of Carter and one of her aides.

“McHugh, fire all the HRBs at will!”

He rushed out of the room and limped back to the docks. Debris filled the corridors. People pushed by him, going in a frantic scramble of different directions. Distant screams filled his ears just over the blaring klaxon.

The station continued to shudder around him, either from more attacks or the HRBs. An announcement distantly echoed, “Attention! This station is under an Emergency Evacuation Protocol. All citizens are to make their way to a landing pad to evacuate the station as quickly and as safely as possible.”

Duryss spat at his father in his mind, I’m not finished yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Lee punched the throttle and boosted, trying to maneuver to firing advantage. Almost! Come on! He tried to will the ship to pitch faster. Even the Nightcrawler’s enhanced maneuverability wasn’t enough to overcome the enemy’s turn rate at such a close engagement.

It was the third Imperial Eagle they had faced since they arrived with the Resistance fleet led by the Athos. The Eagle was still much faster and more maneuverable than the larger mass of the Nightcrawler.

He adopted a new tactic and boosted away from the Eagle. With the last of the increased maneuverability from the boost, he flipped the Nightcrawler around to wait for the Eagle’s approach.

As expected, the Eagle came straight at them. Lee pulled the trigger, lashing out with pulse laser fire. Then, he pressed the secondary trigger, timing the weapon charge with the enemy’s approach. The Eagle returned fire with a barrage of its own, pulse lasers eating away at Nightcrawler’s enhanced shields.

Lee glanced at the readout showing they were down to 24%, drained from combat in the first two engagements. The Eagle closed at a high rate of speed, revealing its intention to streak by them in a jousting run. Timing it just right, before the Eagle could blow past them, Lee let loose his charged secondary weapon. Four railgun slugs cut through the target at point-blank range, obliterating the Eagle’s remaining shields. Lee flipped the Nightcrawler about and fired another salvo. His aim was off. Still, half of the second round shredded critical systems. It set off a chain reaction causing the Eagle to erupt into an expanding cloud of debris.

“Nice shot, Lee!” Xohn crowed over the comms from his cabin below. “The heat—I’ll take care of it.”

The double railgun salvos spiked the ship’s heat to 121%, and the COVAS announced it with a warning. Xohn reenabled the ThermARC to absorb the heat and add it to the engines.

Their battle took place twenty-four klicks away from the primary engagement around Zamka Dock. Fortunately, the travel toward Zamka gave the Nightcrawler time to rebuild its shield and weapon capacitors.

They closed to within ten klicks of the station. Lee surveyed the battle zone and saw zero-G flames flashing across the superstructure of the giant station in the distance.

“Looks like they took quite a beating,” Lee exclaimed, almost breathless.

“Not quite as bad as that Imperial battleship, I think,” Xohn said.

Lee leaned over his console to see a Majestic-class Interdictor listing aimlessly. It looked disabled. Most of the lighting was out, and none of its weapon batteries were active despite the sorties still around it.

Lee grunted, “We’ve got a lot more to go.” He looked at the menacing site of two more Interdictors flanked by three fleet carriers.

“When will Sirius Navy arrive?” Xohn asked from his cabin below.

“No idea. They were pulling ships from other duties. It sounded like it was going to take a bit to mobilize and redeploy. When they get here, though, they’re going to end it. We have to hold the system until then.” Lee opened the secure comms channel, “Decimator, Para Bellum, this is Nightcrawler. We brought some friends, what’s your status?”

After a brief moment, Jackson Dekker responded, “Hey… nice of you… to join us.” His stilted speech indicated he was in the middle of combat himself.

“Sorry it took so long. What’s the story out here?”

Reeves’s voice joined the channel, “Commander Sollinger,” she acknowledged. “Good to have you and the rest of the Resistance. What’s the news from Yong-Rui?”

Lee smirked, “The Sirius Navy is on its way. They’re mobilizing a force large enough to rival the Battle of Achenar.”

“The evidence was that convincing?” Reeves asked.

“Alden Duryss has been sacked, and they’ve drawn up criminal charges for Sylus Draden,” Lee replied. “Of course, we still need to find him.”

“Our last contact from him was him directing Chelum and Sietaen forces from Zamka Dock. We lost communication with Zamka about an hour after that Interdictor engaged them.”

“So, what’s the tactical situation out here?” Lee asked.

“CB2 has been lost to Madius’s forces,” Reeves reported. “We held CB3, but the Imperials deployed their fleets to converge on CB4. The Imperial Second, Third, Fifth, and Sixth fleets have moved to take Zamka Dock. It appears this is the final showdown.”

“You’re… welcome to… join us,” Jackson said, his speech still broken between harsh maneuvers. “We’re hunting Spec Op pilots.”

“I have a small wing of pilots handling advanced Imperial units. I’m sending you targets now,” Reeves said.

“Right,” Lee replied. “We’re on our way, but our priority is Sylus Draden.”

“Understood,” Reeves acknowledged. “He’s in a ship called the Knight, a heavily armed Python. It has Sietaen military markings. It’ll be hard to miss.”

“Thanks for the tip, Reeves. We’re about six klicks out,” Lee cycled targets in range. “We’ll give you a hand with that Clipper.” Lee flipped to internal comms, “Get ready, Xohn!”

Lee adjusted the power balance across systems and cranked the weapons capacitors to the max. He punched the boost, closing the gap to the Imperial ship, and began unloading rounds of pulse lasers.

The Clipper was too busy focusing on the Decimator, and Lee was anxious to press the advantage. He charged the railguns as the Decimator swept before the Nightcrawler’s nose, narrowly missing them. He let off the pulse lasers until the Decimator cleared the line of fire, then resumed the pulse barrage. The railguns hit max charge and ejected with violent acceleration. The Clipper’s shields were stripped from the combined attack of the Decimator’s beam lasers and Nightcrawler’s pulse rounds. The railgun slugs pierced straight through the hull, ripping through the ship’s guts.

Lee watched the Decimator swing about and unload a substantial multi-cannon salvo that finished it off. The Clipper disappeared into a fireball right off the Nightcrawler’s bow. Fragments of debris bounced off of the recharged shields. The explosion dissipated, but the shield display still registered sustained hits. Lee checked the sensors and found two blinking red targets—the source of a new round of attacks.

“Under attack,” the Nightcrawler’s COVAS announced.

“Lee! We’ve got two more on us,” Xohn shouted from below.

Lee returned power to the shields to buy time and get his bearings. Then he cycled the targets and ID’ed an incoming Courier and Eagle attacking them.

Reeves signaled, “We’ve got the Courier, Nightcrawler.”

“Copy,” he replied, still trying to evade the incoming fire. Lee made a wild roll and pitched full, feeling G-forces build on his chest. Outside the canopy, Lee noted laser fire from other distant battles everywhere he looked. The Decimator flew past. Lee continued to pitch the Nightcrawler to put the large ship between them and their pursuers. The move paid off, cutting off the attack by flying in the Decimator’s shadow.

A glow flashed from the upper right of the canopy as the Decimator’s beam turrets glowed, unleashing an energy attack at the Courier. It scrambled from trying to re-establish a firing solution on the Nightcrawler to evading the attack.

Lee toggled a switch on his right systems panel, and he heard the dropping sound of the shield emitters powering down.

The Courier achieved a new position to re-engage them, but its pulse lasers scattered wildly.

“Silent running,” the COVAS announced.

Lee smiled at his cleverness.

“Try and hit me now, scumbag,” Lee shouted, knowing his enemy couldn’t hear him.

A stray pulse laser struck the hull, pushing them enough that the flight assist had to compensate. Lee switched targets to the Eagle and lined them up in his firing reticle. He pulled the trigger, and a swath of pulse laser fire peppered the Eagle.

As the heat began to build to a high enough threshold, Xohn called out from below, “We need the ThermARC to manage the heat. It is enabled.”

“Good call,” Lee acknowledged.

The Eagle banked and pitched into a tight arc that caught Lee off guard. He reacted too slowly and lost sight of it. He flipped the Nightcrawler over with a roll and pulled back hard on the flight stick to catch up with the Eagle. While pitching around, Zamka Dock loomed large in the canopy as the battle had moved them into a closer range.

An unmistakable high-pitched tinkling reverberated through the ship. It sounded to Lee like being caught in a metallic rainstorm. He checked that the ThermARC was still working, and it was. That led Lee to assume the Eagle pilot was using fixed cannons and found them without a computer-aided firing lock.

Okay, that’s impressive, Lee mused to himself while rolling to evade the hits. The damage was already mounting up.

The COVAS began shouting out failures, “Hull integrity compromised. Module malfunction.”

“Working on it!” Xohn snapped.

Lee focused on evading the fire.

“Nightcrawler, we’re outmatched,” Reeves shouted over the comms.

“What?” Lee said, confused.

Then he saw it in the canopy—the unmistakable shape of a large Imperial Cutter.

“Well, that’s perfect,” Lee said, still trying to focus on evading fire.

“Not quite,” Jackson’s voice burst over the comms. The Para Bellum swept past the Decimator.

“Xohn, buddy, we’re gonna need the shields back; I can’t shake this Eagle, and that Cutter will chew us up.”

“Module malfunction.”

Xohn replied, a weariness in his voice, “I am cleaning up the mess down here, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Lee performed another roll-pitch maneuver, putting them on a heading toward the damaged hulk of Zamka Dock. There we go, Lee thought. He dumped energy into the engines and hit the boost while aiming below the main superstructure of the Dock. Sporadic tinkling continued as his evasive rolls avoided some of the assault, the Dock’s spin visible in the canopy.

Lee brought the Nightcrawler under the main structure of the Dock and around it, putting it between them and their attacker to cut off the pursuit. Then he boosted again toward the habitat ring while following closely along the station’s main body.

“Where’s my bleeding shields, Xohn?” He snapped urgently.

“I’m trying!”

The Nightcrawler flew dangerously close to the rotating station. As it spun, the structural beams supporting the habitat ring turned into a position directly in their flight line.

“Lee!” Xohn said with drawn-out nervousness.

“I got it, I got it!” Lee held the stick, keeping the Nightcrawler low and tight along the structure. The tinkling resumed, confirming their attacker was still behind them. The station’s remaining defensive batteries came to life, aiming at their pursuer. That’s it, stay with me now, Lee clenched his jaw. He popped chaff not to disrupt the enemy fire but to distract his pursuer’s attention.

“Are you insane!” Xohn shouted in a panic.

Lee hit the boost again, barely clearing between the habitat ring support struts. With the remaining maneuverability from the boost, he flipped the ship around in time to see a cloud of debris at the base of the support strut. The Eagle was gone.

“You’re crazy!” Xohn shouted with a laugh.

“Alright, let’s take a minute to reset these systems,” Lee said while holding position in front of the mail slot of Zamka Dock. He watched the systems panel showing Xohn working frantically to reinitialize the ship’s sub-systems.

The ThermARC and silent running mode were disabled, and the shields began recharging slowly. Xohn rerouted power into ship systems to help speed it along.

Movement out of the corner of Lee’s eye came from the direction of the Zamka Dock entrance. He turned his head and watched a Python with a distinctly Sietaen paint scheme emerge.

“That’s Draden!” He shouted, then flipped to the secure comms. “Para Bellum, Decimator, I have Draden! I’m going after him.”

The targeting sensors confirmed the ship as the Knight registered to the Sietae Corporation. His instincts told him Sylus Draden had to be on board.

“Nightcrawler, we’re still tied up with this Cutter,” Reeves replied. The sound of multiple hits came across the channel.

“Para Bellum, where are you?”

“Busy kicking centuries of slavery out of these Imps,” Jackson almost laughed.

Lee couldn’t believe his luck—Sylus Draden was right there, in front of him, but he knew he was outmatched against a Python. Without help, he wasn’t going to bring it down, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him from trying.

Lee pulled back on the throttle to back away from the station. With a multi-axis flip-roll, the Nightcrawler came about to follow the Python. It accelerated from the station, forcing Lee to boost the engines to stay in range. No, you don’t; you’re not getting away.

Keeping the engines maxed, he rebalanced power from the shield systems to the weapons, then targeted the Knight’s FSD. After closing the gap to within six hundred meters, he took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. The Nightcrawler showered pulse lasers across the Knight’s shields.

The diamond ship reacted with a violent, evasive roll and dive. Lee managed to follow with the Nightcrawler’s enhanced maneuverability. The Nightcrawler stuck tightly with their every move and began making progress, draining the shields. Evasion, failing to avoid Lee’s attacks, the Knight boosted away, came about, and unloaded its large pulse lasers and a large beam laser.

Nightcrawler’s shields drained quickly under the blistering attack. Lee made use of the chaff to throw off their targeting sensors. He boosted past them to gain the firing advantage, but the pilot of the Python managed to keep trained on them, maintaining their attack.

Lee discharged several railgun salvos against the Knight’s FSD. He narrowly missed at first but adjusted to score a few meaningful partial hits. The internal damage to the Knight piled up despite the shields.

When the Knight’s shields were stripped to critical levels, it boosted past them, changing the head-on fight into a space joust. Both ships boosted past each other, came about, unloaded weapons, and boosted again as if an invisible rubber band tethered them together.

Lee fought to keep his weapons trained on the Python. He gritted his teeth, channeling his anger into the fight. His wrath was unleashed through the railguns over and over. The man on that ship took the life he could have had—twice. First his mother, then the only father he’d ever known.

“Warning: taking heat damage,” COVAS announced.

He ignored it, sending round after round. He couldn’t see anything but his target. There was no sound. Reality dissolved around him. It was the same sensory deprivation of a tank on Arber. He found himself held captive by an insatiable desire for vengeance.

Don’t get even, get ahead, Vic’s words echoed in his mind. He shoved them off thinking, This is how I get ahead.

Then he felt something, a pain searing through him.

“Stop, Lee! You have to stop! We’re burning up!” He finally heard Xohn’s voice.

The repeated railgun attack had superheated the Nightcrawler so much that the flight stick melted his suit glove. He reactively yanked his hand off the flight controls. When he fully came to, systems were sparking across the ship, the shields were down, and warnings were blaring in his ears.

The burning in his hand went deep. He yelled at the pain.

Off the bow, the Knight’s frameshift drive systems were destroyed. Its thrusters were offline. It had no escape. Both ships were slowly floating at a near standstill, facing each other.

Looking over the ship systems panel on his right, he saw that Xohn had activated the ThermARC. It was quickly cooling the ship. The heat still registered over 210%. Half the ship’s systems were offline. They had thrusters but no FSD. The chaff was gone. Weapons still worked, but the railguns were dry.

“Lee, are you okay?” Xohn crawled up to his cabin.

“Yeah, I’m–” He blinked. “I’m sorry, Xohn.”

“I understand,” Xohn replied.

“I think we’re going to need help.”

Xohn put a hand over Lee’s shoulder, “I’ll go work on some of the damage.”

Lee nodded and flipped on the comms, “Decimator, Para Bellum, the Knight is out of commission, but so are we.”

“We can get there in a few minutes,” Reeves acknowledged.

“Let me… finish this…” Jackson said with his in-combat broken speech.

“No problem, I don’t think anyone’s going anywhere; take your time.”

As soon as the words left his lips, a new contact appeared on the sensor display, dancing outside sensor range a few degrees off-center in front of them.

“Come on, who are you? Friend or foe,” Lee said to no one in particular. The blip solidified, and Lee trained the targeting sensors on it. As Lee began to make out a blurry form emerging from the deep abyss, the sensors updated—an Imperial Cutter.

“Okay, I take it back. We’re gonna need that help right now. Cutter incoming! We’re sitting ducks out here. We have pulse lasers, but the railguns are dry. The shields are offline. I don’t think they’re coming back, and–”

The realization hit him. We still have silent running! He flipped it on as the Cutter closed; its menacing shape became discernible.

The large ship took a course above the Knight and Nightcrawler, then delivered a massive assault on the Knight. Explosions rocked the ship, and Lee could make out escape pods ejecting from the ship.

“No!” Lee shouted. “He can’t get away!” Lee put his hand to the controls but hesitated, then grabbed the flight stick through his pain and fired at the Cutter. The Cutter broke off its attack from the Knight, and although it couldn’t lock on to them, several lucky cannon rounds tore through the ship. More systems blew, the canopy began cracking, silent running failed, and the HUD fluctuated. The sounds through the ship were deafening.

The COVAS spewed a stream of failures.

“Module malfunction.”

“Power plant capacity exceeded.”

“Thrusters offline.”

“Thrusters online.”

“Canopy critical.”

“Power plant capacity exceeded.”

“Thrusters offline.”

“Module malfunction…”

The Cutter flew past them in an arc that told Lee they were circling for another pass. There was nothing he could do; the ship controls weren’t responding.

“We won’t be around much longer if you guys don’t get here now!”

Reeves’s voice responded, “We’re on our way, Nightcrawler. Hang in there, just a few more megameters…” The transmission was interrupted as if muted. “Sorry, Nightcrawler, we’re being interdicted, we’re not going to make it…” The comm systems failed, cutting off the signal.

The Cutter turned about with a menacing profile, lining up for a final attack run. It grew larger as it approached, and three large laser beams converged on them. The light engulfed the Nightcrawler canopy in a painfully bright flash that blinded Lee. He crossed his arms over his head, waiting to be ejected.

But the attack abruptly stopped.

Lee peered up through his arms to see a new ship that swept into the path of the Cutter’s beams—the Para Bellum. It engaged the significantly larger Cutter with a tight orbital attack. The Cutter overpowered Jackson’s ship, but he had superior maneuverability.

Lee sighed in relief. It bought him the time he needed. He turned to reboot systems to see what he could get functional. “Come on, baby, don’t give up on me now.”

“Thrusters online,” COVAS announced.

“There’s not much else I can do here,” Xohn reported from somewhere in the ship. “It’s a cascade of failures. I can’t stop it. The power plant can’t generate enough for the ship to stay alive. She’s… she’s dying, Lee.”

Lee looked around the cabin. Wires hung exposed. Smoke hung in the cabin, causing him to cough. Steam emanated from the wiring and pipes exposed above his head. The HUD flickered intermittently. There wasn’t much left of the Nightcrawler to salvage. He caught sight of the ‘coward’s way out’ in the case at his feet. The glass of the container had cracked earlier from the heat. Figures that would survive, he thought.

He saw the Knight and a cluster of a few escape pods through the canopy. Panic struck him at the idea that Draden might escape and be rescued. “Come on, girl,” he encouraged the failing vessel. “You’ve got one more trick in you, right?”

He grabbed the flight stick and began maneuvering the Nightcrawler with the remaining thrusters closer to the Knight. Knowing what he was about to do, a sick feeling came over him. He pulled back on the throttle, backing the Nightcrawler to the rear of the Knight.

“Xohn, get up here. We’re going after Draden.”

“What do you mean we’re going after… Wait, what are you planning?”

“Suit up. We’re going for a walk.”

“A walk? You mean… spacewalk?”

“You’re a smart guy, Xohn. Anyone ever tell you that before?”

“Smart enough to know you use sarcasm often.”

Lee parked what was left of the Nightcrawler and unstrapped from his flight chair. He got to the door and stopped, turning around to look at the flight deck. The smoking consoles, open panels, and floating bits of random debris from the ship’s innards seemed to disappear. All he could see was the memories built in this cramped space. It gave him a nostalgic feeling that the moment’s urgency forced him to push aside. He continued back through the wrecked corridors to the rear airlock. Xohn stood by the airlock door, fully suited and waiting for him.

“I stabilized the power plant, but its output is minimal. It’s barely enough to keep the lights on. I had to fix silent running to generate enough heat for the ThermARC to run.”

Lee put a hand on Xohn’s shoulder, “You’ve done great, Xohn. Thank you. Thank you for everything, my friend,” He pursed his lips in a more emotional smile than he’d intended.

Torn metal fragments hung from the bulkheads of the rear airlock access, floating and bouncing with the air currents inside the ship. Thankfully, his harness was still intact. He swung it over his suit, fumbling with the fasteners, then grabbed a new pair of gloves to replace the half-melted set. He was so focused on the pain of putting the new gloves on he didn’t have time to worry about the walk. He brushed aside some fragments floating over the airlock panel. They staged themselves in the airlock, depressurized it, and opened the outer door. Lee signaled Xohn to follow him, holding the guide rails outside the doors.

The Knight was listing behind them, its outer running lights flickering. He locked his magboots to the outer hull of the Nightcrawler, looking over to make sure Xohn was securing himself the same.

Then he peered over the top of the Nightcrawler and saw the extent of the damage. Craters from large cannon rounds in the hull plating and severe scoring from lasers covered most of the outer hull.

“Lee!” Xohn shouted.

“What?” He looked back at Xohn.

“Lee! Look out!” Xohn pointed out in the direction of space above them and watched the huge Cutter making an attack run at the Knight. Jackson hadn’t been able to bring the Cutter down.

They were too close; if the Knight was destroyed, they were all gone. Adrenaline surged through Lee’s body. Attuned to every moment, time appeared to slow down.

The enormous white beast bore down on them.

A sleek silvery form entered Lee’s heightened peripheral vision. The wedge shape of the Para Bellum attacked the Cutter. Cannon rounds blasted pieces off the unshielded Imperials.

In a maneuver, Lee didn’t think Jackson capable of, the Para Bellum cut in front of the Cutter’s flight path while pitching to maintain the attack.

The two ships raced toward each other.

At point-blank range, an explosion erupted from the Para Bellum’s nose.

The Cutter erupted into a fireball on top of the Para Bellum, engulfing it. An enormous secondary explosion burst from within the Cutter’s cloud of debris.

When it dissipated, both ships were gone.

Obliterated.

On pure instinct, Lee shouted, “Xohn, get under the ship! Move! Now!”

Xohn scrambled, and Lee swung around the edge to hide behind the ship just before the debris wave.

Lee took heaving breaths. It was the only thing he could hear while watching the millions of death shards rain by in silence.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The silence was deafening. Jackson’s death happened so fast that Lee didn’t have time to process it. This wasn’t the time or place either. He had to keep his wits and focus on getting to the Knight.

Lee looked at Xohn, who had been crouching and covering himself with his arms to avoid the shrapnel. “We gotta get over there now,” he spoke through his suit comms.

Xohn looked up at Lee. His eyes were wide, and his face was ashen. He was shaken from the explosion or the sudden loss of Jackson.

Lee took labored steps over to Xohn underneath the belly of the Nightcrawler. Xohn stood beside him, visibly shaking inside his suit. Lee fastened a short tether from his harness to a security loop on Xohn’s flight suit.

“You okay?”

“He’s just gone, Lee,” Xohn said with a distant stare.

“I know,” Lee said in a low voice. His mind struggled to process it. The cocky, young screw-up paid the ultimate price to save them. Lee was at a loss. There was an avalanche of conflicting emotions brewing underneath his calm exterior. Regret and sorrow crashed against gratitude and a surprising sense of respect. Jackson had lived up to his promise.

“We have to keep moving, or we will be too.” He tried to bury his feelings to refocus on their immediate survival needs.

Xohn suddenly began to panic.

He put his hands on both of Xohn’s shoulders and said, “It’s going to be alright; we’re in this together. I like it even less than you do, okay?”

Xohn nodded inside his helmet.

Lee turned around, facing the Knight, “Alright, Xohn, release your boots.”

“Got it,” Xohn said from behind him.

Lee crouched, aimed his grappling tether, and shot it at the Knight. After connecting on the lower side of the maintenance hatch, he tugged at it to ensure it was secure. His hand held the harness near the controls and hit the button to reel themselves across the line.

Once on the Knight, Lee looked back at Nightcrawler, pitted with damage. There was sad respect for the ship that had been his home for two decades. Perhaps they could come back and salvage it someday, but with comms out and silent running, she would be impossible to ever find again.

If his life had taught him anything lately, it was that he just needed to keep moving forward. To roll with whatever the galaxy threw at him and not let the past hold him captive.

Lee motioned for Xohn to lock his boots and follow him across the underbelly of the Knight to the lower access hatch. He hoped his bet paid off that the ship was in better, or at least repairable condition. More than that, he wanted to recall the escape pods to keep Draden from escaping.

It took Lee a minute to figure out the emergency access controls. Every ship had one—the Pilot’s Federation required it. But Falcon deLacy took a different approach to their control layout than the Lakon-style he knew. The hatch opened with amber warning lights flashing inside.

Lee stepped inside carefully, feeling the tug from Xohn behind him. After both of them were inside, he found the controls for the emergency atmosphere. The air rushed around them, and he spun back to disconnect himself from Xohn.

“Keep your RemLok on. We don’t know for sure what made them take the escape pods.”

Xohn nodded, still shaky. “Lee?”

“Yeah?”

“That was my first spacewalk.”

“Now you know why I don’t care for it.”

Xohn nodded furiously from in his helmet.

“Okay,” he smacked his hands together, looking over at the door to the rest of the ship. “Now, the real trick. The inner airlock door is secured from unauthorized entry. Think you can help me override it?”

“I will try,” Xohn tilted his head while looking at the controls.

They worked to pry the access panel off to let Xohn analyze the circuitry. Over the next ten minutes, he went from scratching his head to experimenting to mapping out the Falcon deLacy circuits. A few minutes later, after some trial and error, he had the door open.

“I can see why you like this hacking,” Xohn said offhand.

Lee nodded, then peaked his head through. The corridor was hazy with a residual smokey scent but otherwise empty. There wasn’t near the amount of internal wreckage as on the Nightcrawler. He guessed it was the difference of age between the ships. This was a much newer ship, with next to no metal fatigue.

The only sound was from gases hissing somewhere. The corridor lights flickered. They were having power problems here, too. But why abandon ship so quickly?

Lee took careful steps through the ship. As quiet as he tried to be, the locking and unlocking of his magboots echoed loudly in his ears. He approached a corridor intersection, taking a quick peek in both directions.

Empty.

There was something, though—a noise. Lee turned his suit amplifier up and strained to make out what it was. Breathing? Yes, it was a slow, distant huffing, with a soft murmuring of someone’s voice.

Lee signaled Xohn to move with him. Together, they continued forward toward the bow of the ship. Loud footfalls followed them, echoing through the corridors. Lee had to readjust his amplifier to keep their footsteps from deafening him.

Along the corridor were two doors—one shut, one open. Light with a violet hue poured into the passage from inside the room. He motioned to Xohn toward the door and pressed himself against the wall beside the opening. Peering in carefully, he found empty first-class quarters. Lee adjusted his suit’s sound sensitivity. The breathing was coming from inside, somewhere.

He entered the room, looking out for any sign of movement. The first class quarters were elaborate. It had a large open space to relax, with a private galley. The decor had an almost Imperial flair. A beautifully decorated sword was mounted on a tabletop before the virtual environment screens. A serene rolling pasture of tall blue grass-like plants with otherworldly purple skies flickered on the displays.

A sudden loud sound startled him, forcing him to turn down the sensitivity of his suit’s amplifier. It came from the direction of the bedroom. It was a vacuum sound of some sort. It appeared most likely to be coming from the adjoining bathroom.

He looked over at Xohn to ensure he was still following and moved forward. Lights flickered in the bedroom, but the bathroom light was steady. Whoever it was in there couldn’t hear their footfalls from the noise of the shower vacuum.

Lee leaned around the bathroom wall into the doorway and saw a clothed figure crouched in the shower stall. They were furiously scrubbing and vacuuming themselves.

Lee spoke to get his attention, “Hello?” There was still no response; his voice seemed muffled in the helmet. But he dared not remove it without knowing if the air was somehow contaminated.

“Hello?” Lee said, louder this time.

The man shot up and turned around, his ponytail swinging in zero-G.

It was Sylus Draden himself.

The entire front of him was covered in blood. The left half of his pockmarked face was clean, blood staining the other. He squinted, trying to make out Lee’s face.

“Major?” He said, confused. He clambered out of the shower unit, still breathing heavily. “Major Tom? What are you doing here?”

Lee was shocked, angry, and confused. “Tom?” Then he remembered their last encounter. “Right. Consular Duryss, what happened here?”

“They… abandoned me, Major,” he cried with a whimper. “I– I tried to… but I couldn’t.” His eyes went distant.

“Tried to what?”

The blood-covered man was crouched over, holding his blood-soaked hands out. “They left me. Took the escape pods and left me…”

“Why didn’t you escape?”

“I tried,” he sobbed. Lee had a hard time telling if it was an act or genuine. “He fought me for the last pod, but I…” His voice trailed off.

“You what?”

He didn’t respond at first, then held his head down, staring at his hands. “I stopped him.”

“It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.” As much as Lee wanted to throttle him, survival was the priority. “Can you tell me why the crew abandoned the ship?”

“The attack,” his speech was still soft and stunned. “We were being attacked.”

“Okay, but what happened? Why did they need to escape?”

“The Imperial Cutter– Our engines were out. No shields, no weapons, no way to defend–”

“Alright, so no leaks or atmospheric contamination?”

Draden shook his head.

Convinced, Lee pushed the button to retract his RemLok helmet. He leaned back to look at Xohn and signaled him forward. “Alright, look, Master Xohn is here.” He turned around to face Draden. “He’s going to help clean you up. I’ll check the ship and see what we can get going again.” He stepped back to duck out of the bathroom past Xohn. As he passed, he leaned toward Xohn’s ears and, in a low voice, said, “Keep an eye on him for now. Bring him up to the flight deck when he’s cleaned up.”

Xohn nodded as he passed Lee into the bathroom.

Lee headed to the flight deck. Before the entrance, he found signs of a struggle. Along the bulkhead of the flight deck door were four escape pod racks. Three were missing, but the fourth was jammed. Outside the pod’s ajar door were the mangled remains of a man’s upper torso floating out of the partially sealed escape pod. Blood had sprayed out and covered the corridor.

The only way Lee could imagine something like that was for someone to activate the pod’s emergency seal while climbing in. Tried to stop them alright, Lee thought, disgusted.

The Knight’s flight deck was spacious compared to an Asp Explorer’s small tandem vertical cabin. The ship’s system panel told him what he expected. There wasn’t much left. Life support was stable, and the canopy appeared in good shape. Still, there were no comms, thrusters, FSD, weapons, or shields. He looked at the reboot control and shrugged. Worth a shot, he thought. A few millennia of computers taught humanity the importance of turning it off and back on to get things working again.

The reboot sequence did, in fact, bring back thrusters, comms, and even shields. The Knight was in much better shape than the Nightcrawler. Since they had been able to open the secure inner door, he considered docking to the Nightcrawler. It seemed worth being able to grab his things on board the derelict vessel. There was at least one item that was very important to him.

He maneuvered the Knight’s underbelly access port to docking position with the Nightcrawler’s rear port. The Nightcrawler had no comms, so he could not start the docking sequence remotely. It required him to force the procedure manually. Once a soft dock was established with the Nightcrawler, he mag-locked the systems together and ran back. On his way aft, he looked into the open quarters but didn’t see Draden or Xohn. They must still be cleaning up.

At the airlock, he toggled his RemLok and opened the port. He tapped into the manual dock sequence on the Nightcrawler’s outer controls. She responded and locked the two ships together in a hard dock with an airtight seal. Detecting the seal, the Knight’s airlock refilled with atmosphere. Once pressurized, the Nightcrawler’s systems opened the outer airlock.

He keyed in his access code to open the inner door inside the Nightcrawler airlock. The smoke from the rest of the ship rolled into the airlock. Lee decided it best to keep his RemLok on. He headed to his cabin grabbed his things, including his Leestian-hide jacket from Vic. He took a last look around, said a final goodbye, and went back to the Knight.

After stowing things, he returned to the flight deck, where he found Xohn at a workstation and a mostly cleaned-up Sylus Draden. His suit was still covered in splattered blood.

“Major Tom,” Sylus said, back to his politician’s tone. “I can’t thank you enough for coming back.” He stood in the middle of the flight deck, his hands together with fingers interlaced at his waist.

“Don’t mention it,” Lee said, unable to keep the sharpness from his voice. He looked to Xohn, “I got thrusters and shields back online.”

“I saw. I’m impressed. For not even an engineer, how did you manage it?”

“Oh, you know, the reboot trick.”

“Of course,” Xohn said with a soft smile.

“So you’re not a maintenance engineer, Major?” Draden asked.

“How about we cut the act? I’m not a Major, and you’re not a Consular.”

Draden looked confused and offended by the remark. “I assure you that I am. But then, who are you.”

“Look, you can just stop the game,” Lee snapped. His anger boiled up inside him, but he managed to speak calmly, staring at him from under his brow. “I’m your justice come due. For everything you’ve done to me and the people I care about.”

Draden smiled—his fake politician’s smile. “What I’ve done? Come now, really. There’s no need for dramatic grandstanding.”

“I know who you are—who you really are.”

“The question is, who are you? ”

“I’m the boy who had his mother ripped from him by a drug habit she picked up from an evil dirtbag.” Draden’s face had a genuinely puzzled look. “The same dirtbag that ordered an attack in Glist that killed my best friend. The same dirtbag that was trying to help the Imperials take over Hyades.”

“What? I’m the one who brought a fleet to support the fight against the Imperials!” He scoffed. “I sent out a desperate plea for aid. I’m trying to save the Hyades!”

Lee sighed. “You actually believe your own biowaste. Unbelievable.”

“This is a waste of time. I order you to take me back to Zamka Dock.”

“Order?” Lee laughed in his face. He had enough of the charade. “Why in Orion’s orifice would I take orders from Sylus Draden?”

Draden grunted, then coughed. His tell was obvious, but he tried to cover it nonetheless. “Sylus? Draden? Isn’t that the misunderstood Senator’s son that went missing?”

Lee remained stone-faced. “You’re not convincing anyone. We have all your secrets, Sylus. Your funneling of government funds to your father. Your support of Imperial contracts over independents. We have proof of your lies about Thargoid defenses, coverups, experiments, aculosis…”

Xohn piped up, “Your IP theft, secret agents, kill orders…”

“Who are you? How…?”

“We ripped it out of your private server.”

Lee watched in satisfaction as Draden’s eyes widened.

“Impossible!”

“Not for a kid who grew up on the streets skimming credits to survive, thanks to you. You were your own undoing.”

A menacing look flashed in his eyes, and his eyes began to dart around the flight deck.

There was a chirp from the console. Xohn was closest and turned to check it.

Draden locked eyes with Lee, “What do you intend to do?”

“If it was up to me—only me—I’d watch you die a slow, painful, agonizing death,” Lee said. “But, instead, I’m delivering you to justice.”

Draden scoffed, “No one will believe you.”

Xohn looked up from the console, “They’re here, Lee.”

“Who’s here?” Draden asked, looking between them both.

Lee just smiled.

“They’re broadcasting now,” Xohn said. He tapped a control, and a system-wide broadcast played over the intercom.

Attention: To all combatants and citizens in Chelum, this is Li Yong-Rui of Sirius Gov. I bring ample shipments of Byrox treatment. They are free to anyone with symptoms of aculosis.

I have come to the aid of citizens under my authority and to end hostilities. I hereby take command of the system of Chelum and its security forces.

The fleets of Senator Madius Draden will stand down and return to Imperial territory. If you do not cease your attacks, you will face the combined forces of the Sirius Navy, system security forces, and the Hyades Resistance forces. If you test me, your government and industry will face a trade embargo with all Sirius Corporation subsidiaries. The great people of the Empire will suffer economically. You have one hour to acknowledge and withdraw your forces.

To my forces and independent pilots, I require the apprehension of the man known as ‘Alden Duryss.’ A vote of the Sirius Gov Consulate has stripped him of his title for crimes against the people of Hyades and grave violations of Sirius Gov statutes. He is to be apprehended alive and brought before a Sirius Corporation board of inquiry for sentencing.

Thank you for your attention. Li Yong-Rui, out.

Lee gestured into the air and moved toward him, “You’re done, Sylus. It’s over.”

Draden took up a defensive stance opposite of Lee. They circled about the flight deck, Sylus trying to keep his distance. His angry scowl back at Lee contorted his pockmarked face. “No,” he said, continuing toward the forward canopy. “It’s not over.” He slammed the throttle forward faster than Lee anticipated for a man his age.

Lee raised out his hand and shouted, “No! Don’t!”

“Flight assist off,” the COVAS reported.

The ship thrust forward and shook violently. Creaking metal echoed throughout the ship. Draden ran around the flight deck, shoving Xohn on the way into the rear corridors. Xohn’s head hit the console, knocking him out.

Lee had no choice but to run for the controls, pull back the throttle, or risk the hard dock ripping both ships apart. Without sitting, he throttled back and checked on Xohn, floating unconscious in his boots. Lee cursed under his breath, then took off after Draden.

“Where are you going? There’s nowhere to go!” Lee shouted.

He looked down the corridor and saw Draden running out of his quarters with a sword in hand. Draden looked back at Lee over his shoulder but continued running farther into the Knight.

Lee cursed. He’s headed for the Nightcrawler. With a quick crouch forward, he pushed hard and repulsed his mag-boots to launch at Draden. His flight angle through the corridor required him to put a hand up to keep himself from hitting the ceiling. He softened the impact with his arm and pushed off, trying to redirect his trajectory. Sailing forward, he closed the gap, crashing into Draden from behind. “You’re not going any–”

A hand went into his face. The slender, bony fingers grabbed for the soft tissue of his eye sockets. Lee winced from the pain but wrestled on top of Draden to control the arm with the sword while fighting to get the man’s hand out of his eyes.

“You boy!” Draden spat. “You’ll not stop me.” He freed his sword arm and made a swipe as he turned toward the airlock. Lee pushed off of him, slamming his magboots against Draden’s head and shoulder. Draden crumpled forward but stumbled into a stagger, continuing down the corridor.

Lee flew into a corner of the corridor and scrambled for control of his momentum against the bulkhead. He adjusted his aim. Then, he launched himself back, feeling the burn in his legs from the effort.

Draden made it to the inner airlock door in the ‘floor.’ He opened it and scrambled to step down.

Lee flew at him as Draden began to descend into the airlock. Draden had positioning and swung the sword, the tip slicing across Lee’s face. He felt it cut his skin apart, shooting searing pain and floating droplets of blood spraying out of his peripheral vision.

He stopped himself at the ceiling, reeling from the pain. His adrenaline pumped.

“Sylus!” He shouted.

Draden looked above him with a sneering smile, “You were so close, little street thug. You’re Liana’s son, aren’t you? Little Lee Sollinger.”

The pain flared in his cheek with the blood rush. He held himself away from the corner with his hands above his head, poised against the corner of the adjoining corridor walls.

“Oh, don’t mind me. Wasn’t that what I promised you when you were a boy? Yes, I remember… ‘Don’t mind me. I won’t be long.’” He jeered.

Despite Yong-Rui’s wishes to bring Draden in, Lee knew he had to end this man.

Don’t get even, get ahead, Vic’s voice whispered in his mind. A sudden realization dawned on him. He knew what it meant. He knew how to do it. He pursed his lips, “Actually, you will, Sylus. You’ll be locked up for a long, long time.”

Lee used all his upper-body strength gained from penal colony labor to push himself with breathtaking speed and ferocity. Draden tried to put the sword in front of himself to block the incoming blow. Lee put his boots together and maximized the field. They ripped the blade from Draden’s grip, fastening it flat under his magboots. He rode on it like a hoverboard through the passage. With a fluid motion, Lee twisted himself backward to grab at and support the hilt of the sword with his hand to control its movement. It swung across, carving a horrific hunk of flesh from Draden’s cheek to his chin.

The flap of meat floated out from his face. Globules of blood sprayed and combined into bigger globs, undulating in the air around the wound. Draden grabbed at his face and let out an agonized scream that shifted from shock to desperation, ending in a raw cry of pain.

With the sword stuck to the bottom of his boots, Lee kicked off Draden’s chest, slamming him down to the back of the Nightcrawler airlock. Lee flew upward toward the Knight’s airlock and grabbed the edge of the port. Swinging his sword-armed legs into the Knight, he slammed the control pad next to the airlock to close the doors and release the docking clamps. Through the small window of the still-aligned airlock doors, he watched Draden’s clawed hands held toward the raw face he dared not touch. The man screamed silently in horror from the wound.

It was done.

He knew the doomed man hadn’t even realized his fate.

Lee’s hot breath clouded the window, then cleared up while he watched. With each view, he watched Draden and the Nightcrawler disappear into the darkness. Forever.

When the ship became nothing more than a glimmer, he gathered himself. He released the sword from his magboots and turned it in his hands, admiring the craftsmanship—a new memento of the end of Sylus Draden.

On the flight deck of the Knight, Lee checked on Xohn, who was tending to the sizable bruise forming at his temple.

“It’s over,” Lee declared. He sighed in relief.

Xohn winced, looking up at him. “Where’s Draden?”

“Lost.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s trapped on the Nightcrawler.”

“Can’t he just use an escape pod?”

“Doesn’t have one.”

“What?”

“I used it as a smuggling compartment. I never flew with an escape pod. That’s why we had to abandon ship to this one.”

“So he’s just floating there? Forever?”

Lee nodded. “Silent running has to stay on to give the ThermARC enough heat to keep life support running. It won’t show up on sensors, and there are no comms.” He paused and looked up at Xohn. “Sylus Draden is lost forever.”

Xohn whistled.

“Well,” Lee chuckled at a new thought. “He does have the ‘easy way out .’”

“The ‘easy way out’?”

“It’s a long story, but it’s kind of a poor pilot’s insurance. You never heard the tale of the ‘Easy Way Out’?”

Xohn shook his head.

“It’s a gun with a single shot in case you get stranded in space. Instead of starving to death, you…” He made a gun with his hand and pointed it at his mouth. “Based on what I saw of Sylus Draden, he’s too much of a coward to do it. He’s going to starve to death slowly. And the solution will be staring him in the face—taunting him. I can’t imagine a more suitable fate for a despicable being like him.”

“That’s… awful, but deserved, I think.”

“And in the end, I did come out ahead with a fancy new Python and an engineer for a co-pilot.”

Xohn smiled and nodded. “The honor is mine, Lee.”

Lee clapped Xohn on the back and walked up to the flight chair. He grabbed the back of it and gestured for Xohn to take the right chair.

They sat together, side-by-side, flying back to Zamka Dock.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Dressed in formal attire, Lee looked out of the enormous gallery windows of the SCS Arbitrage. The Sirius Navy armada spread as far as his eyes could see. There were several Farragut-class battleships and various support carriers at parallel station-keeping. Flying alongside the Arbitrage was the Resistance’s makeshift carrier, the Athos.

Lee was onboard with Xohn, both called to testify to the events they had witnessed. He delivered all the evidence, walking the assembled panel through the story he put together. He’d been waiting a couple of hours for Xohn to wrap up his testimony.

An enormous door opened, the unlatching echoing in the vast chamber.

“Commander Sollinger,” a young woman called for him. Her voice somehow carried despite the distance. “The committee has finished their deliberations. This way, please.”

He walked to the door and followed her to the large meeting room. The aide motioned for him to take the stand beside Vin Xohn.

The gallery chamber was filled with rows of people. GalNet press, Chelum, and Resistance leadership. Tarrek, Trisha, Dex, and Zee stood in the front row.

“Commander Sollinger,” Li Yong-Rui spoke from the center of a long curved desk mounted upon a dais. The Chairman was surrounded by Sirius Navy brass Lee didn’t know. But there were a few folks he did know. Colonel Reeves and Resistance leaders like General Warrick and Captain Becke were there. He stood beside Xohn on a raised circular platform lit to highlight them in the center of the gallery.

Yong-Rui continued, “Thank you for your time and for sharing this eye-opening information. The Commission has finished its deliberations and closed this inquiry into the matter of Sylus Draden’s conspiracy.”

There was a hushed murmuring among the crowd behind them. Yong-Rui tapped a sharp-sounding magnetic bearing onto a metal plate mounted to the desk before him to quiet the crowd.

“It is the finding of this Commission that Sylus Draden, operating under the alias of Alden Duryss, is guilty of crimes against the people of Hyades. We find him guilty of conspiracy, espionage, unethical genetic engineering, and genocide. Given that he has gone missing, we are issuing a forty-eight million credit bounty to anyone who can deliver him to us for sentencing.”

There was a raucous uproar of clapping from the gathered throng of people behind. Yong-Rui waited for the crowd to settle and struck the plate again.

“Before we close the record, the floor is open for you both to make a closing statement.” Yong-Rui gestured out to them.

Lee looked over at Xohn. He needed time to gather his thoughts. With a gesture, he offered the floor to Xohn first.

Xohn turned to address the crowd gathered behind them. His head was down, looking at the floor, “It’s been several years since I lost my beloved Azera. Her life was full of a fiery spirit that stirred my passion to make the galaxy a better place with my skills. Our lives together ended at the hands of Sylus Draden. I ask only that we, as a galactic community, always remain vigilant against leaders acting as thugs that believe they are above the law. This is an age of such wonder and possibility that we should abhor anyone abusing power through the deceitful manipulation of fear.”

The crowd applauded him politely. Xohn smiled and bowed his head, backing away to give Lee the floor. Lee stood forward before the murmuring crowd. He had never spoken to an assembly of any appreciable size before. Sweat built on his brow. He may have found something he hated worse than spacewalks.

“I uhh… I was just going about my life before all this happened… and I…” he searched for his words. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the people here, old friends,” he looked at Zee, who smiled and looked down at her feet. Dex stood beside her, grinning through his beard. “And new friends,” he looked at Tarrek, who gave him a formal salute. Then he turned back to look at Colonel Reeves, who nodded respectfully.

He turned back to the crowd. “But also, for those who have gone before us, killed or destroyed by this monster,” he said, looking up beyond the high ceilings. “I’d like to honor Xohn’s Azera, who died protecting his invention.”

There was a round of respectful clapping.

“And Tarrek’s brother-in-arms, the first victim of aculosis.” Lee looked Tarrek in the eye while the others cheered.

Tarrek took off his beret and held it over his heart. The half of his face that could emote remained solemn.

“Jackson Dekker, a stupidly brave pilot who sacrificed himself to save both of us—to save us all.”

The loudest area of clapping moved to a cohort of Resistance pilots in the crowd.

“My mother, Liana Mirren, deceived and destroyed by him.”

Lee waited for the clapping to die down, then waited for what felt like an eternity.

“And my old friend…” his voice caught, choked in the emotion. “Someone I will remember as the only father I’ve ever known, Victor Graves.”

The clapping grew louder. A tear stuck to the corner of one of Lee’s eyes, obscuring his vision. The applause died down until the chamber became silent.

“Look, I don’t have any fancy words like most people you heard from up here. All I can tell you is that going through all this, well, now I know how much we need each other.” He looked over at Zee, her soft smile encouraging him to continue.

“Trying to go it alone is choosing to live a hard life that’s hardly a life worth living. Trust me, I know. We have to remember we’re better together. We have to. Together—that’s real living. And when evil and corruption rears its ugly head, when we see things going the wrong way, standing up together to resist—as a Resistance—well, we can reshape the galaxy. Together makes all the difference.”

There was a roar of clapping with some yelling from a strong contingent of Hyades Resistance fighters in the crowd.

Lee turned back to the commission on the dais. Reeves, Warrick, and Becke were clapping for him. Li Yong-Rui placed the gavel ball on the plate, looked Lee in the eye, and clapped with a respectful, shallow bow.

He leaned over to Vin Xohn and whispered, “Remind me never to do that again, alright?”

“But perhaps you have a newly marketable skill,” he winked back.

Lee shook his head with a wry smile.

After the commission adjourned, people milled about for a time. It seemed a never-ending stream of people wanted to shake his hand. When his hand became numb, an aide approached him. Between greetings, she whispered, “Mr. Li wishes to have a separate meeting with you, Commander.”

“Ahh, yes… I’m sorry,” Lee said to the next person in the still sizable cluster of folks waiting for an audience. “Please, folks, you’ll have to excuse me. It seems I’m being called away.” He waved and turned to follow the aide out of the gallery.

He was escorted to a much smaller room with a floor-to-ceiling window. It appeared to be a simple viewing room. The fleet hung in the distance. The almost opaque obsidian glass double doors opened to Yong-Rui, who stepped beside him to take in the view.

“Quite a speech, Commander.”

Lee shrugged the comment off and continued to stare out at the fleet.

“I had a call with the Chancellor of the Empire. It appears you are more of a hero than you realize.”

Lee raised an eyebrow.

“This entire affair was an effort by the Senator and his son to annex the entire Hyades Cluster. It was a power play. A region of trillions of new subjects would have made Draden the most powerful Senator in the Empire.”

“I don’t understand; why was Sylus fighting his father’s forces? Some sort of ploy before he surrendered everything?”

“Hubris,” Yong-Rui said.

“Hubris?”

Yong-Rui smiled. “It’s an old story—a son eager to emerge from his father’s shadow.”

“Sylus was trying to beat his father?”

“Indeed. More than that, it appears he was trying to embarrass his father, out their plot, and cast blame on him. Had it succeeded, it might have made Alden Duryss famous, securing his political influence.”

“So all that anti-xeno stuff was just a ruse?”

“That’s how Sylus legitimized the build-up of military assets under his control.”

“But in the battle, Sylus used them against his father.”

Yong-Rui nodded, “Exactly.”

“So the ThermARC was never about fighting Thargoids.”

“Correct. My military advisors believe it was part of securing combat superiority. Unlimited stealth.”

“Right, that makes sense. They could have held any territory they wanted if they’d gotten it to work right. Good thing Xohn sabotaged that.”

“The Chancellor also informed me the Patrons of Madius Draden have filed a petition to challenge him. Given his newfound lack of support, I wager he will be out of office by year’s end.”

“I didn’t think replacing a Senator was possible.”

“It’s not a frequent occurrence, but in the light of a scandal, it happens. The Draden family drained their fortune to pull this off. Amusingly the old codger has announced he’s renewing the Find Sylus Draden Campaign. Somewhat ironic, I must say. If my data is right, it has a very low probability of success. You have to admire the stones on the man to try to double-dip that well.”

“Sounds like the move of a desperate man.”

“Indeed.”

They stared at the fleet hanging in the distance—smaller ships dancing between giant cruisers and carriers.

Yong-Rui broke the silence, “Magnificent, wouldn’t you agree, Commander?”

“Absolutely. It’s quite a ship you have here—quite a Navy,” Lee gestured at the ships beyond.

“I think so,” he said with a wry expression. “How much do you like it, Commander?”

“What do you mean?”

“Enough to join us with an honorary rank of Major?” he said, serious enough that Lee took it as a genuine offer. After a short silence, Yong-Rui added, “After some training and orientation, of course.”

Lee furrowed his brow, “Me in the Sirius Navy? I’m not sure I’m the military type, sir.”

“Lee,” he stopped, putting his index fingers together over his mouth. “May I call you Lee?”

He nodded.

“Lee, you helped stop a territory grab that would have altered the sociopolitical climate in a region affecting trillions of lives.”

“It wasn’t only me, sir.”

“Be that as it may, you delivered the report that made this possible. Your actions saved countless lives from more bloodshed and disease. Together, we ended this war before it could even start. Because of your intel, I didn’t even have to fire a shot. That’s the mark of superior tactics only made possible by having the right information at the right time. You made that possible. Sirius needs people like you.”

“I’ll at least consider it, Mr. Li.”

“That’s all I ask.”

He turned to face Lee. “Think about it. It’s an open offer.”

“Thank you, Mr. Li,” he offered his hand to shake.

Yong-Rui bowed instead. “Be well, Commander Sollinger. May your credits flow and all your landing pads be free.”

Lee smirked and watched Yong-Rui leave out of the double doors. Reeves stood outside.

“Commander, may I join you?”

“Of course.”

She stepped into the room and faced him, ignoring the view.

“Where to next, Commander?”

Lee folded his arms, “You’re not going to recruit me, too, are you?”

“No, no. Yong-Rui put me in charge of a Sirius Navy Marine division—a Thargoid task force. Don’t get me wrong, you’d make a fine pilot, but Thargoids would eat you for breakfast,” She said with a slight smirk. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

He let out a sigh. “Zee, Dex, Xohn, and I are headed back to Glist. I’m going to help with the repair efforts on Foden Dock. After that, who knows?”

“Ahh,” she squirmed. Lee could see she was uncomfortable about her part in damaging it.

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “Yong-Rui put up the funds to repair it. It’s been long overdue for upgrades anyway. They’re sending the SCS Free Trade carrier to help ferry all the repair materials.”

“Well,” she cleared her throat. “I wanted to come to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. If you hadn’t helped convince me about Draden… I would have followed blindly.”

“I’m glad we could convince you, too. Otherwise, I’d probably be back in jail somewhere. You turned out on the right side of this. If you’re ever in our neck of the woods… You should drop by.”

“Perhaps I will, Commander,” She put a hand on his shoulder and flashed a smile he almost didn’t think she was capable of doing. Then she walked out, leaving him to stare across the grand fleet floating over the blue terraforming world of Chelum B4.

***

Lee flew the refit Python, recommissioned as the Knight Walker with Vin Xohn in the co-pilot’s chair. Li Yong-Rui insisted the captured Python be reconditioned and outfitted to Lee’s specifications. Given all that he and Xohn had done, he tried to ask for a Corvette. Yong-Rui’s response was something about being “responsible with resources” or some other frugal nonsense.

In truth, Lee couldn’t be happier with the Knight Walker. It was well-equipped, and between Vin Xohn and Li Yong-Rui’s connection with other engineers, every system had been optimized to the limits.

In his heart, though, he’d always have a special place for the Nightcrawler. All its quirks, the COVAS giving him unhelpful advice, and the ability to outperform despite its age was just like Vic. He had to wonder how the Knight Walker might come to reflect him over time.

It was a fitting fate for the Nightcrawler, for the essence of Vic, to be a life-long floating prison for Sylus Draden. Lee could only imagine Sylus staring at the “easy way out,” taunting him every day for the rest of his miserable existence. How insane would that drive a coward like him?

“We are in range, Lee. I am dropping us now,” Xohn’s accented voice broke into his thoughts.

“What? Oh, right. Thanks, Xohn. I’ll let our guests know.”

“And you are still docking this thing. In the training simulations, I have not gotten that far yet.”

“Alright, I’ll dock it. Park us off the edge of the station, okay?” Lee shook his head, smiling. It was nice to have a co-pilot. It meant a higher chance someone was paying attention. It reduced the possibility of making a ’loop of shame’ when overshooting their destination.

Lee switched on the internal comms, “Zee, Tarrek, we’re here.”

They arrived at the tattered remains of Foden Dock in the Glist system. Lee, Xohn, Zee, and Tarrek joined Dex to rebuild the outpost. It took two weeks of cleanup efforts before they made enough progress to spend some time on Dex’s bar.

A Shot in the Dark had seen better days. There was more damage than anyone had expected. Although thoroughly wrecked, there was one thing that survived. The old digital jukebox was still in perfect condition, with its colorful lights and memory intact.

They all pitched in to help Dex clean up the debris. It took a couple of days’ effort to clear it all out. And another few days to install new furnishings, courtesy of Dex’s insurance policy.

There were also some new items donated by the Sirius Corporation from Li Yong-Rui, much to Dex’s protests. “I don’t want no fancy corporate spy equipment,” he had said.

He would only accept the new bar tops after Xohn thoroughly analyzed them for anything other than a mag system and lighting rig.

With most of the installation work done, only a few new GalNet displays to mount, and some tidy-up work; the bar began to look like a proper establishment.

They gathered around the new central bar counter. Lee leaned against it next to Zee and Xohn. Tarrek stood beside Xohn around the corner of the bar.

Dex took his customary place inside the bar ‘pit.’ He looked at them all gathered around and, misty-eyed, said, “I can’t tell ya how much it means t’ me for y’all to help.”

“That’s what friends do, big guy,” Lee said.

“Thank you, Dex,” Zee said. She had a sweet smile on her face.

“For what, darlin’?”

“For always giving us a place to get together. Someplace that, no matter how far we go, we can come back to and relax.”

“Aww,” the burly man wiped the moisture from his eyes with his normal arm.

“This deserves toasting,” Tarrek said, raising an empty cup.

Lee snapped his fingers, “That reminds me. Yong-Rui gave me another gift to give you once the bar was back up and running.”

Dex’s face dropped back into full argument mode, “Now, I told ya, I don’t want any of that fancy man’s corporate spy screb.”

Lee chuckled and headed to the bin in the corner of the bar, where he stowed the gift, “I think you’ll enjoy this one.” Lee loved every minute of it. In many ways, it was old times reborn, but now they were all more than friends. Everything they’d been through together, from the attack, the prison, the war.

They were family now—a family Lee chose.

He snatched a nice gift-wrapped box out of the bin. Returning to the bar, he offered the big man a beautifully handcrafted wooden box.

“What is it?” Dex said.

Lee gave a devilish grin, “Open it and find out.”

After hesitating, Dex reached out with his bionic arm to take the gift. He used his normal arm to pull the ribbon off and open the top of the box.

“Bless my stars,” Dex said, eyes wide in wonder.

“What is it?” Xohn asked.

Dex pulled out a bottle of Lavian Brandy. “2282,” he whistled, marveling at the bottle. “Nice to have rich friends.”

“Yong-Rui said it’s no big deal; the transmitter’s in the box.”

Dex cocked his head and glared at him.

Lee snorted back at him.

The bearded giant grabbed his expensive, clear, low-field glasses. Then he popped open the bottle and poured a round for everyone—himself included. He held up his glass, turning it in front of him, “To friends.”

“Friends!” They said in unison and took a sip.

Xohn tried to take a sip, and some extra brandy splashed across his face. The amount that made it in, he had no tolerance for and began coughing immediately. Lee smacked his back until his cough settled.

“Tell me that’s not your first drink of alcohol,” Lee snarked.

“That was my first drink,” his voice hoarse.

They laughed together and spent the night swapping stories. Lee told them about escaping Foden Dock and spacing Xohn out of the bay. They relived their time in the Arber Penal Colony.

Tarrek talked about training Jackson in the simulator. They toasted their fallen friend in a shared moment of silence.

Xohn and Lee told them the whole story of confronting Sylus Draden.

Zee shared some of Lee’s choice phrases under CO2 hypoxia. He would have been more embarrassed if not for the brandy.

Lee couldn’t take his eyes off Zee most of the night. He loved how she fit in with the boys. They caught each other’s eyes more than a few times that evening.

By midnight, Xohn was passed out. Tarrek, though also stumbling drunk, picked him up and carried him out of the bar.

“He better not toss on me,” he said, staggering, trying to keep his feet under him to support Xohn’s weight. Zee walked them out of the bar to keep them steady to the nearest lift.

Dex cleaned and wiped the glasses and the new glowing bar top. “Thanks for getting us all out alive. Anytime you need me, I’ll be your right arm.” He held up the bionic one.

“Thanks, Dex,” he grinned. “I’m not going far. I thought I might get in on the terraforming in Chelum. I heard there’s some decent money to be made bringing in the atmospheric catalysts.”

“Smuggled no less, I take it?”

“It’d be nice to avoid some of Yong-Rui’s tariffs.”

He smiled and winked, “That’s my boy.” He stowed the bottle of Lavian Brandy on a mag shelf and tossed his cleaning towel into a cleaning bin. “I’m gonna turn in. Spend some time with your gal, Lee. Enjoy the place, but lock up when you’re done, okay?”

Lee looked at the remaining brandy in his glass and nodded. “Sure thing, Dex.”

As Dex walked out, he pushed a few buttons on the jukebox, and a lilting melody of a lightly strumming guitar played as if from some distant land. A man’s falsetto voice “oohed” over a light guitar-like instrument and began to sing “Somewhere over the rainbow…”

Lee took in the words of the song.

“And the words that you dream of, once in a lullaby…”

The lyrics stirred up images of his mom. Her smile. Her hugs. The way she made him feel like he could do or be anything.

“Oh, somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. And the dreams that you dream of, dreams really do come true. Someday, I’ll wish upon a star. Wake up where the clouds are far behind…”

It made him think of Vic. He pictured the old man sitting on the edge of a pier on a lake outside of a quaint little cabin somewhere—like one of those old-time homes used to be. He sat with a peaceful smile, fishing his days away.

“Where trouble melts like lemon drops, high above the chimney top, that’s where you’ll find me…”

He could almost see the old man’s wrinkled face, smiling with pure joy. He took the last sip of his brandy, letting the words fall over him.

Then he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Zee smiling softly at him. In her, he saw his future, his rainbow, his wishing star.

He stood up without a word and pulled her into a close embrace.

And together, they danced.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Elite: Dangerous captivated me. The galactic scale made my imagination soar. Inspired by a colleague’s work on a novel project, I embarked on a journey to learn how to write a novel-length fiction story.

As anyone who has attempted a project of this scale can attest, it was an eye-opening amount of work. One of the first things I discovered was how many people are involved. While my name is on the title page, the product you have in your possession is the work of scores of folks in the background. I have a lot of folks to thank, but I also share this as encouragement that should you decide to try your hand at it, know that you don’t do it alone. Seek out the folks in your orbit who can encourage, support, and check your work.

With that in mind, I have to start by thanking my wife. She encouraged me when my energy for the project waned, pushed me to keep moving forward, and challenged me to hold my ground on the story I wanted to tell. My kids gave me a cornucopia of inspiration, from my daughter Anna’s creativity to my son Ian’s analytical mind.

Much of the desire to do this project came from wanting to share an Elite: Dangerous adventure with two close friends and fellow pilots, Justin Bellomi, aka Mule, and Seth Lee, aka Wiki. Many of their ideas were seeded into this story, helping the local space of Lee and crew come alive.

There were several other test readers and friends that helped along the way. Devin Rousso gave me copious notes from his early read. My immense thanks to John Wilander, a colleague, fellow author, and friend who inspired me to write and encouraged me to believe I could. Our many conversations helped shape a lot of my thinking on storytelling.

None of the resources that John introduced me to had as much impact as the Writing Excuses podcast. If you’re interested in the art and science of writing, I encourage you to lean into the wealth of knowledge from the weekly panels of incredible talent they assemble.

Another writer with fantastic insights, whom I’ve never met in person, is Brian Takahashi, aka Desperado. Whether intended or not, he became my volunteer editor for this project. His creative feedback and challenges made every scene better.

The Fatherhood, a community of pilots connected by a family bond of having fun in virtual space, supported the project by giving me a space to share the work in progress.

Thank you to Frontier Developments for the sandbox of Elite: Dangerous in which to play. This story is a love letter to the community of players and the pilots of The Fatherhood squadron. I hope it inspires you in a story of your own making.

And to you, dear reader, thank you for sharing your time with this story. May your credits flow and all your landing pads be free in the years to come.