Chapter 1

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.