

## AMP

(Vol. 1)

### Messenger

By

Stephen Arseneault

Published By:

Stephen Arseneault

Copyright 2014-2019 Stephen Arseneault. All Rights Reserved.

"We live on a tiny speck of a world, in a small galaxy, in this massive universe. Are we alone? In our lifetimes, will we be able to reach out and travel to a distant world? To interact with alien lifeforms? That which is physically impossible today, is always possible within our imaginations. Let's take on a new galaxy... shall we?" -- S.A.

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www.arsenex.com

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Novels written by Stephen Arseneault

SODIUM Series (six novels)

A six-book series that takes Man from his first encounter with aliens all the way to a fight for our all-out survival. Do we have what it takes to rule the galaxy?

AMP Series (eight novels)

Cast a thousand years into the future beyond SODIUM. This eight-book series chronicles the struggles of Don Grange, a simple package deliveryman, who is thrust into an unimaginable role in the fight against our enemies. Can we win peace and freedom after a thousand years of war?

OMEGA Series (eight novels)

Cast two thousand years into the future beyond AMP. The Alliance is crumbling. When corruption and politics threaten to throw the allied galaxies into chaos, Knog Beutcher gets caught in the middle. Follow along as our hero is thrust into roles that he never expected nor sought. Espionage, intrigue, political assassinations, rebellions and full-on revolutions, they are all coming to Knog Beutcher's world!

HADRON Series (eight novels)

HADRON is a modern day story unrelated to the SODIUM-AMP-OMEGA trilogy series. After scientists using the Large Hadron Collider discover dark matter, the world is plunged into chaos. Massive waves of electromagnetic interference take out all grid power and forms of communication the world over. Cities go dark, food and water supplies are quickly used up, and marauders rule the highways. Months after the mayhem begins, and after mass starvation has taken its toll, a benevolent alien species arrives from the stars. Only, are they really so benevolent? Find out in HADRON as Man faces his first real challenge to his dominance of Earth!

ARMS Series (eight novels)

ARMS is cast in one possible future, where Earth was nearing an apocalyptic event. Two competing colony ships were built, taking five million inhabitants each through a wormhole to a pair of newly discovered planets. The planets were settled and not long after the colonies looked to the surrounding star systems for ownership and expansion, which led to a centuries-long war between them. A truce was declared after the aggressor side began to lose ground.

Tawnish Freely and Harris Gruberg are genetically engineered Biomarines. Their lives have been dedicated to fighting the war. With a truce declared, they find themselves struggling to find work among a population that fears them. Work is found only by delving into the delivery of illegal arms to the outer colonies. Things go awry when they discover their illicit dealings may just be the catalyst that brings back the Great War. They are determined to prevent that from happening.

FREEDOM Series (eight novels)

After a period of domination over the lesser alien species of the galaxy, humanity finds itself enslaved for nearly five hundred generations. A highly addictive drug called Shackle has made Humans little more than drone workers. They are abused, sold, traded, and hunted, valued only in credits. But a mysterious virus is sweeping through the Human population, altering gut bacteria, making them immune to the drug that subjugates them. Humans are becoming aware of their condition. They will fight for their freedom.

Find them all at www.arsenex.com

### Chapter 1

### _______________________

It was not a journey of our choosing. In a single event, every Human was transported away from Earth to a distant galaxy. A galaxy dominated by beings bent on conquest. All references to our precious Earth and its location were wiped from our memories, the event itself largely forgotten. Man's origin became a thing of mystery and rumor. For a thousand years, our home had been an immense space station called the Grid.

The Grid was a globe-like structure, as large as Earth's moon. Who built it? We didn't know. It had the capacity to sustain a billion Human lives. Its ultrafast gravity drive was like none other in the galaxy, powered by hydrogen that had to be constantly mined and stored.

The first in our lineage did what they could to record all that could be remembered. A massive effort to archive our knowledge was undertaken shortly after our arrival. That undertaking was cut short after an attack. A hostile species wanted us dead.

We had done nothing to provoke their anger. We were forced to run. More of our knowledge was lost with each passing generation as we struggled to survive. After a thousand years, our history was limited to the study of the archives by our scholars or those looking for some other meaning in their lives. Our new history began with life on the Grid.

The archives contained references to four other stations of equal size. Three had been destroyed in early battles, killing billions of our kind; the fourth had gone missing, further fragmenting our knowledge of the past. We were wandering through a galaxy we did not know, while hostiles pursued us, threatening our species' very existence.

Since our arrival, we had been on the run from an alien species named the Milgari. They were bent on our annihilation, chasing us with a relentless rage. They conquered every species in their path as they pushed to extend their growing empire.

For a decade at a time we found peace in a new sector, but war always came again. And, like many times before, we were not prepared. Our politicians had grown lazy and corrupt. Spies for the Milgari filled our halls. Only those true to the Human cause could save us; courage and forethought were our only hopes.

The Grid was our home, our life, our refuge. We would fight to protect her from harm. We would fight for our species to survive. Our fate would rest with our own actions...

~~~~~

"Frig! Get that Bilson wrench over here!"

He was a good engineer, but sometimes easily distracted, deep in his own thoughts.

"I am bringing it now, sir. Just a moment..."

It was one of those irritating qualities that you had to put up with to have good, loyal help. Frigbimifier—I called him Frig—had a low forehead with bulgy eyes, and a wide mouth. He was of a species called the Gambit, which came from a swampy world we had come across in our travels.

I often wondered why he had left his people. I understood the allure of space travel to a planet-bound species, but I had trouble with the thought of leaving everyone and everything you knew to explore with those who were not of your kind, especially given the fact those other beings were constantly at war. The six other Gambits who had chosen to follow were aboard the Grid. Frig rarely socialized with them. He seemed to prefer the company of Humans.

"Here, sir, your Bilson wrench. I took the initiative to clean and oil it. You really should take better care of our tools, sir."

I looked up with a sarcastic scowl and then got down to the business at hand. The ionic power feed to the nav system was leaking. The ion leak, while of no danger to us or the ship itself, came with the problem of an automated system shutdown. That meant we weren't going anywhere at present. And if we weren't moving, we were prime targets for the first pirate vessel that happened our way.

Pirates had been a plague on our existence for as long as we had been in this sector. I had lost two friends in the last four years alone; both Messengers like me, both attacked when they had ship trouble at just the wrong time. And the pirate activity in the Mensa sector, our current location, was particularly bad. We had been in the sector for seven years. In my opinion, it had been seven years too long.

We were Humans, drifters really. Our home was a space station called Grid-4. As a species, we were in search of a planet we could call home, a planet where our children could play on firm ground, a place where we could build long-lasting defenses against the evil species that inhabited the galaxy.

Our history logs went back just over a thousand years. There was no record of our existence before that time. Rumors of our humble beginnings circulated continuously. Many were wild tales.

Some said we came from a green planet, covered in buildings with spectacular white spires that reached to the heavens. Others believed our ocean world had been destroyed when our sun transitioned into its red giant phase. And still others believed we had taken to the stars to escape the wrath of an invading alien species, much like the one that pursued us. Often, discussions on the subject led to heated exchanges. I made an effort to not get involved in the politics of it all.

Frig had been my engineer for nearly a decade. I had struggled through seven others in a year before finding him. His ability to keep the Swift together and flying was nothing short of a miracle. It was a bucket of rusty bolts that was constantly on the verge of breaking down. Only Frig's continuing obsession with keeping anything mechanical running had kept us from being killed or sold into slavery at some back-world pirate auction. Neither outcome held much appeal.

The Swift was an old Blevin-class Defender. It had been out of service for over a century before I acquired it from a junk dealer on the Grid. It took three years of scrounging parts from various sources, some not so reputable, before I had a ship worthy of taking into the Messenger Service.

The Messenger Service was a collective of private ships ferrying everything from sensitive diplomatic information to parts needed for the Grid's maintenance. Our destinations ranged from planets, to colonies, to the occasional hush-hush clandestine meeting with an unknown ship. I tried not to ask too many questions, as being nosy would only keep me from collecting a paycheck. The pay wasn't great, but being my own boss had its appeal.

Over the decade that followed, Frig and I had made many improvements to the Swift. Those improvements had saved our hides on more than one occasion. Even though her antiquated systems often plagued her with problems, she was a ship that I was proud of.

One such improvement was made to our ion drive. It had been amped up with quartz covered anodes, giving us a 15-percent boost in potential speed. And speed, in the dead of space, was the best defense. The drawback to the quartz anode was that running in boost-mode occasionally caused a crystal to fracture, interrupting the ion flow, giving you only a few minutes to change it out before any speed advantage was lost. Distance was king if and when a breakdown occurred.

We had scrambled through one such fracturing instance with pirates in chase. After a narrow escape, I swore never to use boost again unless death was imminent. Although not used, the quartz anodes remained in place and always at the ready.

A second improvement, adapted from technology on Frig's home world, was a signal inhibitor that would make us undetectable by all standard sensors, excluding visual. We were a small ship, which meant our visual signature was difficult to detect against the vast blackness of space. Unless you were close enough where you could physically see us, you had no indication we were there. Ion leaks however, were a signature that could not be masked.

The Swift had very little weaponry. We added a peashooter of a coil gun some years before, with the excuse of needing to blast menacing space debris in our path—an object the size of a marble could bring us a quick death. We traveled at 132 times the speed of light. A strike from a small stone could easily disable or destroy us, delivering the same force as a heavy ion cannon. The thin layer of tantric armor on the ship's nose and forward surfaces did well to deaden the impact of a strike, but its effectiveness would only go so far.

During my years in the Service, I had encountered two such strikes that rocked the ship to its core. Even though the armor had done its job of keeping the ship together, my confidence in our nav avoidance system had been shaken. It took six months of pay to acquire a military-grade sensor and nav computer link that would keep us safe at that speed. It came from a nefarious source, and Frig had done an excellent job of disguising its appearance, should we ever happen to be searched by the SCore.

The SCore was the Grid Security Corps. They kept their nose in everything related to anything, particularly when it came to the business of Messengers. Our interactions with other species were always regarded with suspicion, and rightly so. Twice there had been incursions on the Grid that had been enabled by corrupt Messengers giving up information on our defenses. Both captains, after lengthy trials, had been summarily executed by ejection into space. It was a cruel death, and with a helmet, it was less than instantaneous.

Our historical logs had references to four other Grid stations. Three were known to have been destroyed during pirate or hostile-species encounters, while the remaining Grid, Grid-1, had gone missing. Grid-4 had been our home, Man's home, for a thousand years. Life on the Grid was a constant struggle to survive. And on this day, our struggle continued.

The ion leak was coming from a coupler feed that was just at the far end of my reach. Frig had removed the deck plate closest to the problem coupler and I had stuffed my wide-shoulders through the deck opening, dangling upside down, with my right arm stretched out to its fullest. Every turn of the wrench was a painful exercise in space mechanics. It seemed the Blevin-class designers had made every effort to place the most-likely-to-fail parts just out of reach. On more than one occasion, I had cursed at Frig for having such short, stubby arms.

As I extended my arm in an attempt to make another turn with the wrench, Frig began to poke at my ribs with one of his bony fingers. "Sir, we have a problem. Sir..."

I reacted in a bad way, agitated to the point where I attempted to swat back at him. The result was a loss of my balance, causing me to drop further into the deck hole, striking my forehead on a cross member as I shifted. In anger I writhed and pushed until I emerged from the hole with an angry expression on my face.

"You better have a good reason for irritating me this morning. That leak already has me worked up. I'm real tempted to just—"

Frig cut in, "Sir, we have an incoming ship alert. I thought you would want to know."

I picked myself up from the deck and sprinted the eighteen steps to my console. A lone craft, almost double our size, was almost upon us. I tried in vain to restart the nav computer. Each attempt resulted in a failure. The ion leak continued to cause an immediate safety shutdown. With no propulsion, we were at the mercy of whoever was approaching.

I raced back to the cargo hold and pulled two blaster pistols from my locker. I tossed one to Frig as I again made my way back to the console.

I said as I sat, "Hope you remember how to use that. Whoever this is, they're coming in hot."

Frig tucked the blaster into his belt as he stepped up behind me to look at the proximity screen. "I remain proficient with a blaster, sir. Just as I was the last time I outscored you at the target range."

Frig had an extremely polite way of phrasing his responses that left you feeling like he had just smacked you in the face. I often found his delivery to be irritating, and at the same time I likened it to the sarcastic humor I loved.

"5509... 5509. This is Captain Michael Felix of the Deveroe. Are you in need of assistance?"

I rolled my eyes. Of all the ships to come to my aid, it had to be Felix. He was my nemesis in the Messenger Service, always plying for the good contracts and usually talking his way into them. He was the one person standing in the way of me making a good living as a Messenger. And he was always smug about it.

"Hello, Felix. What brings you to grid 144? I thought you would be out making baby-bottle runs to Amerex-6. Grid 144 is a bit of a tough place for a polished boot like you."

Felix was a stickler when it came to going by the book. Grid-4 protocol stated that Messenger Service pilots were obligated to assist stranded ships so long as doing so did not compromise their own safety.

I was certain Felix found it irritating to offer a hand to the one Messenger who had kept him from unionizing the MS. He had plans to get access to all the information that came to and from the Grid, and to control that information in a way that would only work to increase his power and prosperity. If anyone on the station was bent on a conquest of their own, it was Felix. He lived to control.

"Mr. Grange, are you in need of assistance, or am I wasting my time here? By the way, I logged four Rythium Snatchers in grid 143. As much as I don't care for you, I would not want the Messenger Service to get a black eye from a Rythium encounter. It would be an embarrassment to us all."

Rythium pirates were particularly nasty if you happened to be unlucky enough to fall into their hands. Their ships were large. A ship the size of the Swift would easily fit into their cargo hold. They were also heavily armed, but slow. And the Rythium themselves were not very bright. They did however, take immense pleasure in torturing other species. I had seen their cruelty firsthand, meted out on one of my two friends.

Mason Brown had been captured by the Rythium four years prior. After numerous beatings and other abuses, the Rythium captain sold him to the owner of their ship's lounge, who then chained him up to a wall. Patrons were charged a fee to fire tiny needles at him from across the room. The needles had just enough velocity to fully penetrate the skin, and contained a coagulant which kept him from bleeding out. Although it might take weeks, death was certain.

In this instance, the Rythium pirates had been so impressed with Mason's ability to survive nine weeks of needles, that they stuck him in a lifepod with a beacon and fired it into a sector where they knew he would be found. After doctors on the Grid removed twenty-six hundred needles from his body, an infection, planted by the Rythium, took its toll.

I said, "Thanks for the heads-up, Felix. We just stopped to take a tea break. We'll be on our way soon enough."

I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing we were broken down as our conversation was no doubt being recorded. Any issue was sure to be thrown in my face back on the Grid when negotiating for a contract against him.

"5509, this is Captain Michael Felix. Since you're not in need of our assistance today, we will be on our way. And good luck with that ion signature you're emitting. I hope it attracts the attention you deserve."

With that, the Deveroe turned and sped off toward its destination.

When I turned toward Frig, he was frowning. "It must be devastating for you to have that man come to your rescue, sir. He is the one man who seems to continually best you... sir."

I gritted my teeth as I restrained my fist from landing on Frig's wide, flat nose. I then walked back to the opening in the deck plating to continue with the task at hand. Half an hour later, the ion meter read "Clean."

The nav computer restarted without incident. We were soon on our way to the second moon of Malcon. We had a contract to pick up a shipment of refined tantric ore for delivery to the Grid. The ore was rare and expensive, and often difficult to come by. It was a required ingredient of most starship shielding. I was a bit suspicious when given the contract without the promise of an armed escort. The pay was lucrative, and, as always, I wasn't the one to speak up if it meant losing out on the equivalent of four months' pay for a three-week run.

When we arrived, I was swept through the colony's customs area without so much as a look at my credentials. The buyer of the tantric ore was supposedly a private shipbuilder who had close ties to the Grid military. From the looks of it, he also had connections throughout the sector that would do his bidding. As the ore was being loaded, I made my way to the local dive while Frig remained with the ship.

The Rubious Lounge was about as backwater as they came. The clientele were mostly deep-hole miners who had come from Malcon. They were anything but friendly. The red velvet over green satin wall panels clashed with the bright yellow vinyl that covered the stools at the bar and the booths lining the red dumachi gaming tables. The miners didn't much care, as most were colorblind from years of working the dimly lit ore shafts. I could only guess the bartender was so used to the explosion of colors that it no longer registered as offensive to his eyes. A crusty miner in the first booth glared at the tall Human who had entered his bar. I did my best to limit my curious gaze.

A quick DNA scan told the barkeep what liquors were compatible with a Human, and I soon had a red Brivad ale in my hand. The taste and consistency were more like cough syrup than ale, but the effects were the same. If not for my large stature, and the years of practice consuming almost every known concoction of alcohol, I would have been stumbling out of the joint after my second serving.

As I took a sip from my third glass, a Durian approached me at the bar. The Durians were a very secretive species. They wore dark gray cloaks, and it was rare to ever get a solid glimpse of their scaly blue faces. They moved quietly, and never stayed in the same place for any length of time. The timing of his approach and the nature of my cargo had me on edge.

The Durian said. "I understand you are a Messenger. If so, I may have something of interest to you... for a tidy fee, of course."

Of course there would be a fee attached any time a Durian was involved. Normally I was not a sucker for mysteries, but something told me I wanted to hear what it was the Durian had to offer.

We moved from the bar to a dark booth in the corner. I had to chuckle at the stereotype of a clandestine meeting in a dive bar. The encounter had every aspect of cliché written all over it. As I sipped on my ale, he rolled out a document with letters that translated to "EID" printed in bold on the front page.

He quickly flipped through the document to give me just a taste of its contents. "EID" stood for "Enhanced Ion Derangement." He claimed the document was for a ship's drive alteration, and that whatever it was that I flew as a Messenger could be greatly enhanced with the addition of a single EID to the ion recombination chamber.

His claims of nearly doubling my current speed had my full attention. The Durians operated outside the law—it was something that everyone knew—but they had the reputation of delivering on whatever was promised. That reputation was the reason their products and services always came at a premium.

As I began to haggle with the Durian, he became skittish when two Malcon guards passed the entrance to the lounge. I took it as a sign he was wanted by someone and was eager to leave the lounge as soon as was physically possible. I leaned in close, and despite his bad breath and decrepit smell, I made a lowball offer of 2,500 credits, the equivalent of about two weeks' pay. It was an attempt to get a base price out of him, so real negotiations could begin.

To my surprise, he pushed the document toward me and then held out a credit store in the palm of his hand. I punched the numbers into my own and then watched as the credits vanished from my account. The Durian quickly stood from the booth and moved over to the bar. Seconds later, he disappeared through a back door as the barkeep pressed a button behind the counter. I stuffed the document into the zippered pouch on my leg, downed the rest of my ale, and headed back to the Swift.

# Chapter 2

### _______________________

Frig had handled the placement and tie-down of the ore load in our hold and was prepping the Swift for departure. I asked for the copy of the manifest that came with every haul.

"Sir, I think we need to be going. There is no manifest, and the port captain stopped the customs agent as he was coming over to check the cargo. He seemed irritated at first, but after a word from the captain, he walked away smiling. I think it's in our best interest to leave quickly... sir."

I generally did not second-guess Frig's judgment. I rechecked the tie-downs and we soon departed from the colony spaceport, leaving just before the moon's dawn. As always, just after liftoff, I dropped a snapshot transmitter onto the moon's surface. It would relay a warning to us if any other ship left the port heading in our direction. It was a trick I had picked up from a fellow Messenger who would often take on cargo of a less-than-reputable nature.

Privateers found you to be an easy mark if they could snatch a cargo that would never be reported as stolen. I was transporting a load that was of more value than anything I had ever hauled. The contract paperwork looked legit; the job, however, appeared to be anything but that. And for our return trip, we had been directed to travel through grid 279, an area well off any normally-traveled path and at the edge of uncharted space.

As we cruised toward the outlying grid, Frig called out an alert from his console. "Sir, our snapshot shows that just over an hour after our departure from the colony, a second ship lifted off, heading in our direction. It has been shadowing our heading for the last six hours. Should I lay out decoys, sir?"

I turned back to my console and brought up the transmission data from the snapshot beacon we had dropped. The ship was a new Delta Runner class that could travel at nearly thirty light-years over our top speed, making our boost mode upgrade useless. The follower had superior shielding and an armament of four particle streams that would normally rip through the archaic shielding of a Blevin Defender. Even with the enhanced coatings I had purchased and applied to the Swift, she would only be able to withstand a handful of hits from the Delta's weapons. If the pilot of that ship wanted our cargo, the Swift would be no match in a fight.

"Send out a passive probe. Let's see if our signal jammer is having issues or not. We've made several course adjustments since we left the port. If we're being followed, they're following a signal."

Frig stepped back to the hold and placed a passive matrix probe into the side launch port. The matrix had top-of-the-line sensors that would detect a signal if our ship was indeed leaking one. A buzz, and flash of light from my console, told me when it was away.

Returning to his station, Frig announced, "I will scan all the standard frequencies for anomalies, sir. If a signal is coming from our ship... we will know."

I nodded my head in agreement even though Frig was not turned my way. If there was a signal coming from our outer hull, or from the 1,800-pound cargo container in our hold, Frig would find it.

As we continued on our preplanned path out to grid 279, I turned my attention to the document the Durian had sold me. It looked legit.

"Frig, you ever heard of an EID enhancement to the recombination chamber?"

I turned to look for an answer to which he cocked his wide head slightly to one side. "Why do you ask, sir?"

"I asked you if you knew anything about an EID. Do you know anything or not?"

Frig hesitated for several seconds. "The rumor of an EID has been making the rounds for several years now. It is said to have been stolen from an unknown traveler after he fell in with a Harken trader. The trader supposedly killed the traveler when he was told of the advanced technology aboard his ship. But no evidence of any such technology has ever become public, and no word of its existence has surfaced since the initial rumor. Again, I ask the nature of your inquiry."

I told Frig I had heard the same rumor, and to continue with his signal scan. I then got back to the study of the document and to thinking about what it would mean to a Messenger to break 250 times the speed of light. The highest known speed of a craft, 207 times light-speed, had come more than seventy years before, when a Mellian cruiser had used its ultrahigh temperature plating to swing in close to a brown dwarf star during a slingshot maneuver.

I was sure the Grid military had ships that would approach that speed, but a ship capable of the suggested EID speed would make its owner a very wealthy man. Contracts for almost every sensitive or premium cargo would be easily won, and with the speed in question, double the runs could be made. My mind ran wild as I thought of the possibilities.

Those thoughts were soon interrupted as Frig completed the initial phase of his task. "Sir, I have detected two instances of an encrypted microburst transmission originating from our location. It is at an extremely low power level, and the two broadcasts have come at an interval of several hours apart. If not for my photographic memory, I would not have detected the emergent pattern at that large an interval. I feel I can safely state we are indeed being tracked."

It was the news I was hoping to not hear, but I was glad I had. We'd had other contracts in the past, where the clients were of an unlawful ilk, but I always had an idea of who might want to have a crack at jacking my cargo. The stuff we were currently carrying... was something desired by everyone.

"See if you can focus the sensors back to where we just came from. Maybe we can get lucky and get a lock on our tail. Might be useful to know when they try to make their move. When you finish with that... well... I may have another task for you to tackle."

We continued on our course for three full days before reaching the edge of grid 279. It was a dead space with only a few star systems within it. Each system had been explored by probes without any returning with signs of life. The identified planets all had low-grade radioactive ore deposits, making them unfit for either habitation or mining.

I could only reason that grid 279 had been selected for our path home because there would be little chance of a pirate encounter. No one ventured there, as there was nothing to be had. That fact had made me all the more suspicious of our tail.

Grid 279 was on the edge of an arm of our spiral galaxy. The space beyond held an ionic wall of highly charged particles, then nothing but the black emptiness of space for millions of light-years. It was a scary place for a ship's captain. If a breakdown was to occur beyond the wall, there would be little chance of rescue as communications would not penetrate the highly charged interference it offered. Beyond the wall was truly a place of nightmares, a place of being alone. Our planned path was taking us right to the edge.

Frig continued to drop matrix probes every few hours. The third sensor tagged the Delta Runner with a visual confirmation, giving us a tail number. Frig ran it through our less-than-lawful database of ships.

"Sir, I believe we might have a problem with the Delta that is following us. The number displayed does not match up with the ship directory."

"And what does that tell us?"

Frig continued to peruse the data. "Well, sir. it generally means the ship is being used for another purpose entirely. We really only have one of two options. It is either owned by a wealthy individual who likes to take chances with his money by flagging the ship as something it is not, or it is property of SCore."

Again, I rolled my eyes. The job was getting worse by the minute. If SCore was involved, we would likely be heading to the Grid's prison. It was not a friendly place. If, on the other hand, the Delta was being operated by a crew functioning outside of the law, we were being set up for a good ol' galactic mugging. I wondered which game we were in for.

While Frig was busy with his observation of our tracker, I continued to dig deep into the EID document I had purchased. I entered the parts required to build the EID into the ship's computer. A quick inventory check had the answer to a question I had been asking myself: would we have the parts aboard required for its construction?

"Frig," I said, "I have a new task for you. This is something you're really going to enjoy. It's an enhancement that could make our troubles go away, if we're able to put it in place quickly. Have a look at this design and tell me what you think."

With that I handed the document over for evaluation. If there was an engineer in the galaxy who could pull off building the contraption in the document, that engineer would be Frig.

Grid 279 would take a full day to cross before reaching the outer edge of the galaxy. I settled in for a nice game of Bollox against the ship's computer as Frig disappeared into the hold. He would begin his study by gathering the parts on the list. That task would be followed by arranging them neatly on the floor in a pattern. It would give him insight as to how the device worked. I could almost see the little wheels turning in his wide, flat brain.

As he sat on the deck, I returned my focus to the task at hand. Bollox was a game of skill and timing. I flew a simulated version of the Swift through a number of scenarios where I was tasked with anything from gathering intel to fighting for my life. Frig never understood the draw of the game, but it was addictive. I sometimes played for hours on end when on a long run. Frig preferred to remain productive.

I attempted on more than one occasion to express to him that the practice I received while running the game would assist in the alignment of my thought processes should I encounter similar situations during our travels. He was not a believer in my methods.

As I lifted off from the Grid on my first Bollox mission, a proximity alert sounded, interrupting the game. We were only four hours from the ion wall, and a second ship was fast approaching.

Frig said. "Sir, initial sensor scans are pointing to a rather large vessel approaching."

I looked over my shoulder as I exited the game. "How big are we talking, container ship or battle cruiser?"

Frig hesitated before he responded. "Think bigger, sir... much bigger."

There were only two ships bigger than a battle cruiser. The first was a mining-colony ore hauler, the other was a full-on Grid military battleship... a Dearth-class Disruptor. A Disruptor was the flagship of each of the twenty Grid fleets. Its shielding, weapons, and speed were unmatched by any other vessel the Grid had previously encountered. The ship was expensive; only those twenty Disruptors existed. The fact that it was traveling hurriedly in our direction... was not a good sign.

I adjusted our course, placing us on a direct path toward the ion wall. I had no desire to enter the massive field of supercharged particles, but I would if I had no choice. The Disruptor quickly changed course to match our trajectory. The sensor information we had gathered over the few minutes of contact confirmed our suspicion that this was not a chance encounter. No flagship would ever travel without its entourage of support vessels. This Disruptor traveled alone.

When the next signal was emitted from the container we carried, the Delta Runner changed course in our direction and then slowed to a stop. It seemed the appearance of the Disruptor was not something they had planned for. They would remain in position, silent and unknown to the massive ship.

I walked back into the hold where Frig had an array of parts laid out neatly on the deck. "How's it looking? Did I blow 2,500 credits on a scam or what?"

Frig moved several parts and then picked up one in particular, holding it up in front of his face. "It is actually a fascinating concept, sir. The ionized particles are first fully eviscerated and then spread into a completely random arrangement before being forced into a collateralized matrix the likes of which I have never seen."

I replied, "Can you put that in layman's terms for me, you know, so the other people on the ship can understand?"

I was no slouch when it came to understanding ship mechanics; I just needed to have it spelled out in my own vernacular.

Frig responded, "We should be able to use one-third of the ionized particles to achieve the same output thrust we enjoy today, or we can send a full stream of particles through our gravity engines, yielding a threefold increase in speed, theoretically speaking, of course."

I leaned over, placing my hands on my knees as I looked over the arrangement of parts on the floor. "You have everything we need? How long do you think it would take to put that thing together and get it installed? And is there anything I can do to speed the process? Because I don't think we have a lot of free time left on our hands. That Disruptor will be all over us in a few hours."

Frig again moved several items around on the deck before picking another up. He stared intently at a part with one corner of his mouth turned down.

"I would feel comfortable with four hours. But we would have to shut down the ion transducer for at least half of that time. I'm afraid it will not be ready before we would be overtaken."

I gave the order to begin the work, and for him to do his best. It was a somewhat hollow add-on to the order, as the one thing Frig always did was his best. He would not attempt a job if he felt he could not do it in the best possible way. It was one of the traits that made him a great engineer.

It would be up to me to give him enough time to do the job. I felt comfortable coming up with an extra hour or two of freedom, but an hour of that would be with no engine, and I wasn't sure how I was going to pull that off. As I looked out the cockpit window, I hoped the ion wall in front of us held the break we were in need of. If not, well... I was not one to fancy the brig.

In the little time I had left, I decided it might be best to study up on our pursuer. The transponder code pegged it as the flagship of the fifth fleet, commanded by Admiral Michael Zimmerman. The data file on the admiral was a long one. Close ties to the officers of the SCore, our most heavily decorated war veteran, having taken out the Gurathian fleet at Dreble-3, and for toppers, he was the second cousin of the current Grid Vice President, Barns Roble. Zimmerman's creds were a mile long.

As I dug further into the data store about the admiral, I began to develop a fondness for his methods. He had a tendency to act first and answer questions later. His decision-making during battle, and his open and friendly nature during peacetime, had garnered the undying loyalty of his crew. It seemed everyone liked Zimmerman, regardless of his sometimes rash behavior. I was sure that having a politician such as Barns Roble in his pocket was not doing him harm either.

When the admiral's ship had closed to within a half hour of our position, we received a hail. "5509, 5509, this is the Grid fleet vessel Eldridge. Please bring your ship to a halt. You are in a quarantined military grid sector and are in violation of a number of Messenger Service and contract protocols. The cargo you are carrying is unregistered and therefore unlawful. Again, 5509, reduce your speed or be in violation of Executive Order 395-T."

I looked at the console for several seconds before closing the hail. To answer an order like the one that had just been given, and to then not follow it, gave the admiral a license to fire, or to take the Swift by whatever means he felt were necessary. I had no doubt he would do that either way, but I was not going to make it any more legal for him to kick my ass than it already was.

I again walked back to check on Frig's progress. "What's your ETC? We're less than a half hour before entering that ion field out there, and there's no telling if we'll be able to find a place to hide. Comm sensors will be useless, but I'm betting their visual arrays can spot and track a dirge bug from a quarter light-year. We're small, and the ion wall is as big a place as any, but we aren't that small."

Frig continued to assemble the parts as he squatted on the deck. "The device will be ready in one hour and seven minutes, in line with the estimate I had given initially. There are sixteen parts that will require a brush of 442-Resin during the assembly process. The resin takes three minutes nineteen seconds to properly cure. I have the parts set in the optimum order for assembly. It will be ready for installation at that time."

I was always amazed at how efficiently Frig was able to work. Every project was broken into the exact number of steps necessary for completion before it was ever begun. His estimates were usually to the minute for tasks lasting several hours or more. He was good, there was no doubt, but I would never sing his praises in front of him, as I feared his head would swell to double its size and then burst. He knew exactly how I truly felt and never asked that I show it.

The Eldridge continued to hail and I continued to ignore it. I racked my brain for a solution to our current problem. How could I make us disappear?

"Frig?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do we still have that case of inflatable pallets on board?"

Frig thought for a moment. "If you check the inventory manifest, it will show the location, unless you removed them after our prior run. I believe they were previously in compartment seven. I would be happy to check, but I am currently involved in a state of curing."

I pulled up the manifest on the console and then headed back across the deck to compartment seven. The inflatable pallets came in a slender tube about as long as my forearm. They had a timer for a delayed opening or an immediate switch if an instant pallet was desired, and a pressure sensor that would keep them inflated to the same height no matter the load. I was counting on that pressure sensor to do its job in the dead of space.

As I fuddled with my pallet plan, an alarm went off on my console. We had entered the ion wall. The Eldridge was now only twenty minutes behind us. I allowed another five minutes to pass before putting my plan into action.

I placed a pallet into the launch cylinder and gave it a three-minute delay before inflation. I pressed the launch button and the autopallet was instantly on its way. Once back at my console, I programmed in a new course, going deeper into the ion wall at a fifteen-degree angle.

"Sir. May I ask what it is that you are doing? Sir?"

Frig did not like to be in the dark. It had always been in my best interest to clue him in as soon as I thought it possible. If a decision was to be made, his input was always of value.

"I'm attempting to give the admiral and his boys a visual distraction of sorts. I figure that autopallet has just about the same size visual signature as the Swift. If we're lucky, it will race away from us at the speed of the ion field and they'll take the bait. It may not take them long to figure it out, or it may not work at all, but we needed to do something."

Frig was quiet for nearly a minute. "Sir, the autopallet as a visual will only offer a 47 percent signature equivalent. Might I suggest bonding two of the cylinders together? It may just be enough of a match for them to follow until their sensors offer full definition."

He was right, of course. Double the size meant a signature that nearly matched our own. I got busy bonding the next five sets of cylinders together. The admiral's crew would be highly trained at evaluating the data coming from their sensors, and the better a match, the better our chances. The autopallets would provide us with an 80-20 chance of putting a significant distance between us and the Eldridge, if they were effective. If that distance was significant enough, I felt we might be able to slip away.

I launched a pair of autopallets every five minutes until they had all been dispensed. I then watched as they disappeared from every sensor except visual. A final turn took us straight into the ion streams on a path parallel to what our course would have initially been. I crossed my fingers and made a wish for good luck. It was a tradition among Humans, and even though it was a bit superstitious for my tastes, I was all too happy to have a shot at a little luck now and again.

We continued in the same direction for several hours with no sign of the Grid battleship behind us. The pallet trick had worked.

# Chapter 3

### _______________________

After a check of all systems, I turned to Frig. "I can't believe we got away with that one. Zimmerman is probably raking his staff over the coals right now. I would love to be a fly on the wall on that bridge. From his file, it looks like he can have a good temper tantrum every once in a while."

"Sir, might I say that you handled that brilliantly for a mere Human."

I gave him a wink and continued, "What's the status on that enhancement? We ready to slap it on?"

"First, slapping it on would not be prudent, sir. This will require an intricate series of maneuvers on your part. You will need to exactly align the feed injectors with the chamber depressions. I have the required tools to perform this task laid out. The EID should be ready for your efforts in another four minutes."

"And why is it you feel I'm the one who's required to perform this task? If you know how to do it and you know which tools to use... why are you tagging me with this project?"

Frig tilted his head slightly to one side and let out a sigh. "Sir, how often do I have to remind you of the length of my upper appendages? This task requires another extended stay under the deck plating, and it's impossible for me to reach the recombination chamber with these arms. Really, sir. I am shocked."

Frig knew how to pull my chain, and he knew just how hard he could pull without pushing me over the edge.

"How about I take your short-armed torso and stuff it down through the decking with my boot? I bet if I jumped up and down on your ass enough times you would fit through that hole."

"Seriously, sir. you are in need of some new material. You have threatened to stuff me through that opening at least a dozen times in the last few months. Perhaps a kind word now and again would be more effective."

After shutting down the ion engine, I stepped over and removed the deck plate. I mumbled a few choice words to Frig as I leaned the grate up against the hold wall. When the four minutes had passed, I again stuffed my wide shoulders down into the hole while steadying myself with my left hand. Frig began to hand me the tools one by one as he gave concise instructions on what to remove.

The chassis around the recombination chamber took a half hour to crack open and pull free from the chamber assembly. Three fast latches then allowed the removal of the chamber's main body. I tugged at the assembly in question and then grunted as I pulled it up through the grate hole with one arm. The chamber's main body weighed forty pounds.

Frig then began the process of adding the EID to the chamber body. I always found it fascinating to watch him work. Every move had a reason, and every reason had exactly one move. The new EID was assembled and attached to the main body in less than three minutes. As I returned to my position in the hole, Frig slowly lowered the altered chamber until I had a firm grip on it with my right hand.

I again let out a grunt as I stretched and hoisted the new assembly into place. Feed lines were attached and the chassis casing bolted into place. Several minutes later I emerged from the hole with a smile on my face.

After nearly an hour in the hole, I was ready to go. "Let's give this puppy a try." I stood and walked to the console with Frig close behind.

"It will not be a simple start this time, sir. There are a number of status checks that need to be performed before applying full power." Frig reached for the console. "It would be best if I performed the checks, sir. Perhaps you can press the button when the process is complete?"

Despite his patronizing delivery, I knew the restart was a job that only he could safely perform.

I stepped aside and flung an open hand toward the console, adding some sarcasm of my own: "Be my guest, you were the one that did all the light work on this job..."

After a short hesitation, I made one additional comment. "I do want to be the one to press the button when you're done, though... just so you know."

Power was applied to the channel couplings. The recombination chamber sensors were soon spitting out data. After several minutes of stable transmission, Frig punched in a 1 percent burst. The ship's position monitors showed a slight move forward. The process was repeated until a 5 percent level was attained.

Frig turned to me with a wide grin. "The channel alignment appears to be optimal, and sensor data is heavily in the green. I believe we are ready for a test run, sir."

It was an exciting thought to have the chance to travel in a ship at a speed that had never before been achieved by anyone of our species. If the addition worked as advertised, I would be piloting the fastest known ship in the galaxy, exceeded only by the gravity drive on the Grid.

I put my hand on Frig's shoulder. "If this works, you and I are going to be very wealthy individuals, and very soon. I can't wait to see the look on Felix's face when we start taking all his contracts."

I was so excited I decided to let Frig run the test. He had earned it, just as he had earned my friendship. As he reached for the throttle, the proximity alert again sounded. The admiral had found us and was fast approaching.

Frig pushed the throttle to 15 percent and the ship lunged ahead with a smoothness I could hardly feel. The normal vibration that came from ramping up an ion engine was gone. Frig remarked that it was possible the alignment we had done reduced the harmonics of the recombination, but it was very likely the EID removed those harmonics altogether—he would have to study.

At 15 percent throttle, the admiral was still gaining. Frig moved the throttle up to 40 percent, and we had soon matched the speed of the battleship following us. We were traveling at 158 times the speed of light. The admiral's crew then pushed their ship to its maximum speed of 186 SOL until, again, they were closing quickly on our position.

Frig pushed our throttle to 60 percent and the ion engine responded quietly as it pushed our speed to 223 SOL. Faster than any known ship, again excluding the Grid, had ever traveled.

I grabbed Frig by the shoulders and shook his bulbous frame as I belted out a loud "Whoo-ha!" and laughed. "Eat that, Zimmerman!"

As I continued my mini-celebration, the console lit up with flashing red lights. The engine had gone into a safe-mode shutdown.

"Sir, I am afraid the feed couplers have overheated. It was a problem I thought we might have. The alignment of the ion paths does have the consequence of expelling heat."

I looked Frig in the eyes. "And you didn't mention this before because of why?"

Frig returned my stare. "I only knew it was a possibility, sir. Without a full analysis of the diagrams and without doing the alignment myself, I still believed the probability to be low."

We were dead in space. The military vessel that had been pursuing us was again gaining fast.

I said, "You better get your suit on. And make it fast. I'm dumping the cargo. If it's really what they are interested in, I'm hoping they'll just leave us alone."

Within minutes I was latching the helmet onto my extravehicular suit. When I heard the latch on Frig's helmet lock, I began to reach for the cargo controls.

Frig placed his hand on my shoulder and said. "Sir, I would advise against opening that door while we are riding in the ion wind. Our suits are not adequately shielded for such a situation. We would be cooked from the inside out before the container was fully released."

I replied, "Well, we can't just sit here. They're going to be all over us in a few minutes. What would you suggest...?"

Minutes later we moved ahead with our attempt at releasing the tantric cargo. It was not a comfortable situation, but it was our only choice. Frig pushed and pulled and the small door closed behind us.

"I can't believe we're going to get caught hiding in the can. I mean, if I'm going to go down in a fight, I don't want it to be from here... and if they decide to take the bait, I can't believe they would just let us go. I should have never let you talk me into adding the EID thing. Gonna get us killed."

Frig grumbled as he brought up the remote console on his suit-sleeve. The cargo hatch opened to a deafening roar. A metallic screech could be heard as the 1,800-pound container of refined tantric ore slid out into the rampaging ion field. My heart sank as I thought of the consequences of losing such a cargo.

It had happened once before with a cargo worth far less, the result of which was a three-week suspension from contracts and a dent to my reputation. The container had not been properly sealed, and the live-eel delicacy that I was carrying was dead before it arrived at the destination. I found the ensuing legal claim to be beyond my ability to pay should I have lost in court, so I settled on the suspension instead. I had not hauled a live cargo since.

When the cargo door closed and the chime of the seal went off, I squeezed back out of the john and popped off the grate covering. The feeds were still glowing red. I turned back to Frig to request a liquid nitrogen canister. He was standing behind me with one in his hand. The can was emptied of its contents, bringing the temperature down just enough for an engine restart. I energized the feeds and then slowly pushed the throttle to 30 percent.

Frig said, "Sir, at that throttle, we run a 68 percent chance of once again overheating. I did the math in my head as you were busy dumping our cargo. I believe we should limit the throttle to 24 percent for now."

I turned back to my engineer and pointed to the hold. "How about you go back and see how many cans of nitrogen we have? Keep an eye on those feeds, and maybe spend a can or two to keep them cool. And connect the empty to the enviro-recycler. It should be pulling that excess nitrogen out of the air in here as we speak."

As we sped away from the tantric container, I again set the ship's direction at an angle as we were heading toward the outer part of the ion wall. The ion winds were strongest there, and I hoped the admiral would lose interest in the chase once he had his cargo.

When we punched through the heavily ionized winds of the outer wall and into the clear, calm, empty space beyond, there was no sign of the Eldridge behind us. They had their prize; the two-bit Messenger that had escaped... was of no consequence.

With the threat of capture by the admiral over, I reduced the throttle to the 24-percent level as Frig had recommended. We continued on a course outside the ion wall. I was determined to travel as far as possible in the uncharted space before heading back toward the Grid. It was the safest route we had.

Frig launched several more of the matrix probes, with the end result being that our signature was once again clean. Whatever had been emitting the signal that had enabled the Delta Runner to follow us had been attached to the tantric container. It was a tail I was glad to be rid of.

As the hours passed, I settled in for a new game of Bollox. I had only just begun when the Swift gave out a tremendous shudder and my console once again lit up with flashing red lights. This time, the cargo hold began to fill with smoke.

Frig said. "Sir, here is your rebreather. I would suggest you make use of it immediately."

A fire on a closed vessel was about the worst thing that could happen. The air was soon toxic and acrid as we scrambled to contain the small blaze. Two of the ion feeds had ruptured due to the constant overheating and rapid cooling they had been subjected to. The system had performed another safety shutdown, but not before the ruptured feeds had set the surrounding structure afire.

Frig worked with precision. The flames were quickly extinguished. The enviro-recycler took ten minutes of constant running before the air was once again safe to breathe. The panic aboard the Swift had come to a quiet end.

I pulled the grate and stuffed my upper torso down into the hole to inspect the damage. It was a sooty mess. The shattered feeds had punched several holes into the surrounding structure, which included several pipes. I prompted Frig to pull up the ship's schematics so we could fully assess the situation.

"Sir," said Frig, "I have good news and bad news. The pipe on the left carries water from the shower to the recycler and back. The pipe on the right carries the waste product to the septic bay recycler. I'm afraid we will not be able to shower... or poop, for that matter, during the remainder of this voyage. The punctured pipes are out of reach for any repair out here."

That was significant damage, although my first worry was that we would have to remove the EID before we reached the Grid. No way could we chance putting her into a repair dock with the new technology fully exposed. I began to regret having purchased the mysterious technology from the Durian.

"So, tell me the good news."

Frig looked at me patiently for several seconds. "That was the good news, sir. The ion stream coming from feed number 2 has damaged our hypercomm system. We are now limited to standard RF comms. With a direct path, any emergency signal will take eighty-six years to reach the Grid. In addition, we're beyond the ion wall, sir. Our comms cannot penetrate the field that separates us from known space. If we broadcast, no one will hear us."

The news was bad. It would only get worse.

Frig hesitated, and then said, "The comm system is not our most troublesome issue at the moment. Two of the ion feeds have ruptured, and we do not have the parts needed to repair them. If we're lucky, we may be able to restore the remaining feed to working condition. However, without the balance of the other two, we will be unable to sustain more than 3 percent throttle. I've done the quick calculations, and it does not look good for our situation."

"How bad is it?"

"With that power, we'll only achieve 0.8 percent SOL. I am afraid our dead, cold bodies would not arrive at the Grid for another thirty-seven years beyond that which our emergency signal will take. Of course, that fact is rather useless, given that the ship's power system will only hold out for another nine months. It does put us in a difficult situation... sir."

I had no doubt Frig's evaluation was spot on. We were screwed, stuck in deep space with no way to contact civilization for help, and no way to get home. My dreams of gaining immense wealth while speeding through the galaxy had quickly come to a bitter end. We were stuck and going nowhere fast.

I sighed. "Well, let's get a move on cleaning up what we can. We might just get lucky and catch a break if we can put our heads together for a while."

I turned and reached for the handle on the toilet door. Frig was quick to remind me of our "good news" problem. Minutes later, I was everything but comfortable as I squatted on a five-gallon bucket in the back of the hold. A sheet from my bunk served as a makeshift privacy wall. I was thankful the enviro-recycler for the air system had not been damaged. Our trouble-plagued ship smelled bad enough.

Four hours after the rupture, I was replacing the deck grate. "That's about all we can do. Let's give her a slow power-up and see if she holds together."

Frig pushed several buttons on his console and typed in a handful of commands. The ion pump sprang to life and the throttle was slowly moved up to 1 percent. After the ship began to vibrate and move forward, the throttle was pushed further to 5 percent.

As Frig had predicted, our speed topped out at 3 percent, leaving us short of achieving light speed. Unless someone came to our rescue, it would be a long ride home, a ride that we would not be able to achieve in our lifetimes.

Our slow journey continued for two weeks before two objects appeared on the proximity screen. Deep scans determined they were rogue moons, adrift on the outer edges of the galaxy. They were lifeless and had no atmosphere. After a short discussion, we decided our best chance for survival would be to land, wait, and broadcast our emergency signal.

With that move our fuel could be extended for nearly a year, which was of little consequence, as our food supply would be exhausted long before our power. Five days later, we landed on the first moon and began to await our fate. Soon after our waiting began, the five-gallon waste bucket was placed in an air lock and hoisted down to the moon's surface for storage. The contents would freeze and the bucket would be dumped. Our stay would not be pleasant.

# Chapter 4

### _______________________

For three weeks Frig worked over scenario after scenario while I played Bollox. That play came to an end when an alert popped up on the proximity screen.

Frig pressed several buttons as he typed on his console. "Sir, we have a craft approaching from our starboard. I will have a signature analysis in a few seconds when the deep scan is complete."

My initial thought of a rescue quickly turned to one of panic as Frig identified the ship. "The initial deep scan shows the craft to be a Rudian class C3 Panther. Unfortunately, it's the mainstay vessel of the Rudian pirate fleet. They're not a pleasant lot to deal with, sir, as they have a fondness for torturing other species, or worse, pitting them against one another."

I knew just what Frig was talking about. One such unlucky Messenger had been captured while on a run with his two sons. The Rudians forced his sons to fight one another to the death as they watched and gambled on the outcome. When the fight ended, the victorious son was shot in the head, all while their father watched as he, too, was being tortured. He was released just before death to send a message to others who crossed the open spaces to which they laid claim. Messenger families had mostly been left at home following the incident.

Frig continued, "Sir, our shielding should be sufficient to counter the weapons of a Panther. Perhaps we can make use of the coil gun against them. A well-placed shot might send the right message. Shall I prepare for defensive fire?"

The order was given and the gun was sequenced and loaded.

I made a sweep around the hold and the bunk rooms, tying down anything that could bounce around should we take a hit. A direct strike from the pirate bolt weapon would be anything but pleasant.

I said, "As screwed as we are, I'm still glad I purchased this rust bucket. The Blevin class was top-of-the-line for shielding in its day. We're gonna to get knocked around a bit. We should survive any blasts, but you'd better hold on to your hat."

The Panther closed quickly, unleashing two ion bolts, which struck the ground hard just in front of the ship. A hail soon appeared on the console. "5509, you have entered Rudian space without permission. You have forfeited your right to your ship. Prepare to be boarded."

We were not about to hand ourselves over without a fight, and I soon gave them our answer as they hovered just in front of our cockpit. "Rudians, please accept our apologies, and out of respect, we offer this humble gift."

I pressed the red "fire" button on my console and a pea-sized tungsten pellet shot from our port coil gun. A small hole suddenly appeared in a tail cowling of the Panther. The Rudians turned and circled behind us as they fired their bolt blaster.

The Swift rocked repeatedly as the charged bolts pounded its hull. The tantric armor was holding against the low-power ion strikes. I attempted another shot which grazed their starboard side. Again, the Rudian ship swung around behind, continuing to pound our hull with a barrage of charged bolts. I strapped myself into the captain's chair.

After the third pass and a miss, I lifted just off the surface and began to spin the Swift in the direction of our attacker. When a second hole was punched through one of their tail fins, the Rudians turned and fled, dropping over a nearby crater rim. I had no doubt they would be back.

Frig said. "Sir, damage from the Rudian bolts is merely cosmetic. I have run several calculations given the power and impact of their weapon, and a correctly placed bolt could penetrate our hull in several locations. Our modifications to the aft bay door do not have the same shielding as the remainder of the ship. The launch shafts on our port and starboard sides are also vulnerable to a direct hit. All are modifications we made to the original hull."

My confidence had suddenly turned to a nervous wince. I thought of the horror of being sucked out into the vacuum of space if the bay door was compromised. With a precise strike, there would be nothing left for the Rudians to do but a salvage cleanup. It would be an outcome they would be quite happy with. We continued to blast out an emergency message as we set back down on the moon's surface, awaiting the next assault.

Nearly an hour passed before the proximity alert again sounded. Four pirates were on foot; coming just over the small crater wall we had taken refuge within. I was curious as to what they were planning, as their hand weapons were of no threat to the Swift's hull or our security.

Two of the raiders circled to the port side and began firing their hand blasters. It was absurd behavior, bordering on laughable as the pings from the output of their tiny guns could be heard on the outer hull. The remaining two then revealed their cunning plan.

As the distraction continued, the third pirate fired at the starboard side as the fourth raced toward the hull. I had a moment of nervousness, wondering what explosive charge was possibly about to be planted. That nervousness soon turned to laughter as the fourth pirate turned and ran. Jammed up under his left arm was our five-gallon waste bucket. Even the normally somewhat stoic Frig let out a wail; our toilet had been stolen!

With their prize in hand, the other pirates quickly departed, disappearing back over the ridge behind us. Ten minutes passed before they were back to circling our position in the Panther. I continued to laugh as the tears streamed down my face and I pressed the fire button. That laughter quickly turned back into anger and nervousness as the port launch tube took a near-direct hit.

The outer door was blown free, and the inner seal was now bleeding our precious air out into space. Frig was instantly on top of the situation with a portable welder in his hand. The leak was soon sealed, but only after we had gassed out 20 percent of our cabin air. If a second hit were to come on that particular launch tube, our troubles would be over and the pirates would soon have their booty.

Frig stood with our suits and helmets in front of their locker. "I suggest we get into these immediately, sir."

The pirates were relentless in their attack, changing tactics to stay out of the fire zone of our one and only weapon. After an hour of pounding our hull, the second launch tube was struck with a direct hit. The inner and outer doors were blown from their anchors, and our precious cabin oxygen spewed into space.

Frig sprang into action. "Sir, I'm shutting down the recycler and drawing the remaining air that I can into our compressor tank. We now have approximately seven days of breathable air between our suits and the tank. Should another round strike the open launcher tube, the ensuing concussion wave could knock out our power. Without ship power, our suits will only sustain us for about eighteen hours."

I turned to Frig and offered a scowl through my face shield. "You're just full of good news today, aren't you? Next, I suppose you're going to tell me they've stolen the pillows from our bunks?"

Frig's response was not one of laughter. Our chances of survival were only getting worse.

I walked back to the locker while steadying myself against the blasts with my right hand on the wall. I retrieved our blasters and returned to my chair.

"Well, friend, I think you're going to need this after all. Let's hope they at least attempt to come in for a fight and don't just wait us out. I never did picture myself as much of a turtle."

Frig replied, "A turtle, sir?"

It was an odd reference to a creature that only existed as a digital pattern in the Grid database. "A turtle... well, it's a small animal with a hard outer shell. And when something a—"

The proximity alert again sounded as a second craft closed on our position. The pirate vessel ceased its firing.

I watched the console as Frig did another deep scan. "I'm afraid it's not good news, sir. The second ship is a C4 Scallion. Our armor will only last for a handful of hits from its more powerful ion blaster. We will likely be dead within five minutes if they begin a full assault."

I again sarcastically chastised Frig for the delivery of bad news. It was a last effort to bring back a sense of normalcy to an otherwise chaotic situation. I was not going to panic in my final moments of life—a life who's continued duration could now be counted in minutes. The first round from the Scallion jerked the Swift violently, shaking us in our seats as it hit squarely in the top center of the hull. Two more rounds had us rattled to the core.

I turned and placed my hand on Frig's shoulder as the Swift reverberated from the fourth direct hit. "It's been a pleasure serving with you, my friend. Sorry to see we're going out like this. Not really the way I pictured it."

Frig began to return a response when the bay door was struck with a round and bent heavily into the hold, the deafening concussion nearly knocking me unconscious.

As I attempted to shake off the fog of the blast, I noticed the Panther crashing down to the moon's surface in front of us, its tail section a smoldering mess. The hits to our hull ceased as the Scallion fled. There was a new flashing light on the proximity alert. A third ship had come in hot, taking down the Panther with a single shot. The Scallion had quickly left the scene.

I looked to Frig for the results of a deep scan; he was unconscious, knocked cold from the bay door blast. I quickly pulled up the scan screen and smiled as a Grid military fast frigate came into physical view. It was a beautiful sight. One that was not expected.

"5509, this is Sergeant Jose Cortes III. You're now under the protection of Grid Force 3011-C. I hope we've come in time. You look pretty banged up down there."

I pressed the comm link on the console. "We're alive. And I have to say we're very happy to see you. I don't know how much longer we would have lasted down here... they stole our toilet."

The sergeant was quiet for several seconds before responding. "I would presume this is Donald C. Grange? The current registered owner of this craft?"

I shook Frig lightly until he began to move his head. "This is Don Grange, and I have to offer you a hearty thank-you there, Mr. Cortes. We were taking our last breaths here. One more hit and we were goners. Good timing on your part."

Cortes replied, "You're welcome... Don, and you can refer to me as JC if you like. The admiral decided you might be having a bit of trouble when you didn't return to the Grid. I'll have you a helping hand down there in a minute if you can hold out. We have a few pirates to collect from their downed ship before it will be safe for you to come out."

I watched out our forward portals as several shuttles from the frigate popped just over the hilltop and settled in front of the Swift. Marines in battlesuits poured out, surrounding the Panther.

We gathered what personal belongings we could and joined the sergeant and his crew on a shuttle to the Ranger. It was the newest model of fast frigate, with twin ion cannons and new reactive tantric armor.

The sergeant began a discussion as we lifted off. "Mr. Grange, er, Don, I've looked over your file, and I've been given authorization by the admiral to fill you in. Since hauling that first load, you're already in it up to your neck as the official records read. If thoroughly investigated, those records will show you knowingly arranged the ore transfer and then mysteriously disappeared with the cargo. The prosecutors will have a field day with the press mileage they could get out of convicting you. I'm sorry if we got you involved unwittingly, but the admiral believed you would be the right man for the job."

Cortes continued, further discussing my past, along with my current involvement, followed by sketchy details about what the admiral was up to. The delivery of ore was for an off-the-books project the admiral was heading up, staffed by many of his most trusted troops. Zimmerman was building a second fleet of ships with the newest technologies. The ships had capabilities well beyond what our current fleets possessed.

The work was being performed off station on the far side of a small moon, in an area of space that was sparsely traveled. Grid 1244 was a distant sector that was heavily guarded by the admiral's men. The semi-automated factories being constructed would be able to turn out a standard fleet of 126 ships every two years. The costs were tightly controlled and kept to a minimum by the use of automation and non-Grid-union labor.

Many of the workers were a species called the Krell, who were transported to the factory where they would remain and work on a two-year contract, never knowing the location or what the final product was. It was a tremendous undertaking that was run with precise, tight controls and the utmost of secrecy. And I was to be their new tantric runner.

I said. "Before I sign on, there's an important aspect of this whole thing I don't understand. Why is this being done? I mean, is a revolution coming? Why all the secrecy?"

The sergeant looked at me for several seconds before answering. "This whole operation is being conducted in the manner it is, because the Grid has been infiltrated, at almost every level, with spies for the Milgari Empire. You of course won't see the Milgari themselves, but we have managed to track and identify several dozen Humans, Plethians, Maris diplomats, and others who have directly transferred information to known Milgari agents throughout this sector. Their network on board the Grid is... well, shocking. Political corruption is rampant."

I knew there were always politicians who would twist the rules and bypass the laws of the Grid for their own gain. It was almost commonplace among those who seemed to repeatedly run for elected office. But I had no idea there were traitors among them who would sell out the station's security for a few extra credits. Such a selfish and idiotic act was hard to fathom. The Grid was our whole existence, our way of life, our only means of support as a species. Without it, Humans would quickly perish from existence.

The sergeant continued: "Admiral Zimmerman has been sticking his neck out for years. He's a patriot and a true leader. He sent me back to check on you. There was no sign of your ship, and I had a hard time believing any sane veteran pilot would risk coming out here. I came out anyway on a hunch."

I replied, "You lucked onto our location. We really weren't expecting anyone to find us. And with those pirates, I thought our time had come."

"Our comm and tactical screens immediately lit up with the emergency codes you were blasting out, and from the fireworks going off from their attack on your ship. I got here as fast as I could. The Rudians back there in the brig—we picked up six of them—may have some knowledge of the Milgari. The Rudians are active traders of information and goods. They don't seem to understand that if the Milgari Empire comes to this sector, there will be no more pirates. That's one of the first things they wipe out, as it's a way of life that often brings about rebellions. Anyway..."

Cortes continued to talk. As I listened I began to get a sense of patriotic pride welling up inside me. These were soldiers. They had taken it upon themselves to put their lives on the line for a cause they felt was being neglected. The defense of the Grid was in jeopardy, and they were willing to do whatever it took to ensure the corrupt politicians and greedy merchants on the Grid would not be its undoing.

The admiral's fleet was only in the early stages of production. The ship we were riding on, the Ranger, had been the first to roll off the line. The ion cannons that made up its arsenal were nearly as powerful as the megacannons on the main fleet cruisers, ships that were many times the size of the Ranger.

The reactive tantric armor on the forward edges of the ship had been expanded to cover the entire fuselage. The Ranger could take any number of hits from a weapon as powerful as its own ion cannon before surface fracturing would appear, after which it was as vulnerable as any other standard military hull. If a fight were to come its way, the Ranger could take a beating.

The ship's drives had been given some of the same balancing channel improvements that Frig had added to the Swift. The result was a ship that was capable of 212 SOL should the need arise. Fuel consumption was exaggerated at full throttle, but full throttle would only be needed under an extreme circumstance, such as during a fight.

The standard comm system, used throughout the galaxy by almost every species, had enhanced transmit and receive capabilities. It allowed a broadcast speed of 286 SOL while standard comm was limited to 244. The comms were also heavily encrypted and were undetectable by any known comm sensor equipment, allowing the admiral's hidden fleet of ships to communicate freely among themselves. The Ranger was also equipped with a signal inhibitor similar to the one on the Swift, which, coupled with the deep, flat black exterior and a lack of RF reflective surfaces, made the new ship extremely hard to detect. I was quickly gaining confidence in my newfound friend's abilities.

Frig sat in a chair beside me and happily took in the knowledge that Cortes had been bestowing on us. His occasional technology question was met with a raised hand and the sergeant telling him he didn't know how the gear worked, only that it did. Our trip to the moon in grid 1244 took eleven days.

When we arrived at the base, Sergeant Cortes dropped us off in a holding room. A lieutenant was soon dispatched, and after a short security briefing, we were loaded on a cargo hauler headed for the Grid. I was eager to get home, but dreading the fact I had no ship. Our time would have to be spent working up a plan for its recovery. My credit standing on the Grid, being as insignificant as it was, would not make recovery of the Swift an easy task.

# Chapter 5

### _______________________

Three weeks had passed without income. Frig was offered several temporary engineering contracts. He turned them down. If I was able to find a way to recover the Swift, Frig would have to be there. After ten years of coaxing every light-year of distance out of her, his own attachment to the ship was evident.

On this evening we were sipping liquor, sparingly, in a joint called "Jasper's on the Deck." It was frequented by Messenger pilots looking for short-haul contracts. Frig and I were passing the time when a rather attractive woman approached our table.

"Hi, sorry to be so forward, but I understand you might be in need of some work? Here is my card. My name is Ashley Elizabeth, and I would like to discuss a possible contract. Does that interest you?"

I had stumbled into contracts in the past, but had never had one come searching me out. And this Ashley Elizabeth was a stunner. Long, slender legs rose up to a very pleasing, well-proportioned torso before settling into a blue-eyed, blonde face that could easily fill the screen of any of the broadcast channels on the Grid. Her smile was difficult to turn away from.

I replied, "Well, that depends on the contract... Ms. Elizabeth. If you're looking for a skilled pilot and engineer, you've come to the right place. Donald Grange... a pleasure to meet you. If you're also in need of a ship... well, we're temporarily held up and in need of repairs."

I felt bad leading her on about the Swift, but this was business, and business was something we were in dire need of.

She smiled, "I can provide a vessel if needed; it will, however, be reflected in the pay scale. I believe the standard fee is 30 percent?"

I fumbled with my drink glass for several seconds. "My associate and I typically ask for 35 percent... given our level of experience. Veteran pilots are hard to come by on their own, but a skilled engineer too? That typically calls for a premium."

Ashley set her hands on the table edge before looking me straight in the eyes. "Hmm. I heard that you were available and in need of work, Mr. Grange. I'm offering 30 percent, and the work is a simple package delivery to grid 197. It is something that a more junior pilot could handle if you're not interested."

I again tried to play stubborn. "If you only need a junior pilot, why'd you come searching us out?"

I knew I was pushing my luck, but my question was valid following the statement she had made.

Ashley replied, "Let's just say the package has some sentimental value to me and that I want to ensure its delivery. The fee is 30 percent, Mr. Grange... final offer."

I looked around the room and then back up at the beautiful blonde standing before me. I paused for several seconds before answering so as not to appear too eager. It was a job we badly needed.

I cleared my throat. "Ms. Elizabeth, we will take your offer. Is there a schedule for delivery we should begin preparation for?"

She smiled before holding out her credit store. "Terms of the contract will be transferred to your store. Payment will be the standard 15 percent deposited upon your departure, with the remaining 85 percent upon confirmed delivery. The contract is for an immediate run, leaving within the hour; a ship will be waiting for you at slip 79D."

Before accepting the transfer of the contract, I attempted one final shot at upping the fee. "Such a prompt departure generally requires a bonus in the contract. Has that been included?"

Ashley leaned in close to whisper in my ear. The smell of her perfume was intoxicating.

"I believe you will be quite content with the fee, Mr. Grange. The package in question is very valuable to me, and as such, I placed a high sum on its secure delivery. The 2,200-credit fee is quite generous. I trust you will be discreet, as I do not want undesirables sniffing around."

I accepted the contract, rose, and thanked Ashley for the business.

As she left, I turned to Frig. "Go get a duffel. I'll meet you at 79D. And don't be late, we can't afford to lose credits over a contract departure infraction."

Frig replied, "Have I ever once been late, sir?"

I pointed as we hurried toward the door. "Just go!"

Forty-seven minutes later, we arrived at slip 79D. The contract super pointed us in the direction of the leased vessel, a Mobi-class general hauler. It was a fast ship for its size, but had the minimum of creature comforts. The shower was small and low-flow, the air recyclers were notorious for breaking down or just doing a poor job in general, and the seating was about as uncomfortable as physically possible.

The controls in the pilot's chair were prone to short circuits, earning the chair the nickname of "Old Sparky." It was the butt of constant joking among operators. Most pilots would bring their own replacement chair to bolt in its place. I could not afford the fifty credits for a chair at the salvage yard, nor did we have the time to spare. It would be a two-week journey with my back sticking straight up as I fumbled with arm controls that would likely not work.

Once our gear was stowed, we awaited delivery of the package. The item for transport came in a small box. A personal note was attached which read: I am entrusting this item to your care. Please be careful and see that it is delivered into the hands of Ms. Rita Spencer at the beta port of station 36 orbiting Marsoon-3. Mr. Grange, this is very personal to me; please ensure that the package is not opened before delivery, as the contents are of an intimate nature. If all goes well, I may have more deliveries for you upon your return. Ashley Elizabeth.

The Marsoon system was a gravy run. And the fee that Ashley was willing to pay seemed well out of line with what would be expected. A full load in a Mobi to that system would typically be priced around 900 credits. But I was not about to argue with the fee, as 2,200 credits would be a good start toward funding the Swift's recovery. Frig had estimated the needed amount of cash at 24,000 credits. We soon lifted off for the two weeks' ride to Marsoon.

The Mobi's computer system had the bare minimum of software installed. There would be little to no research material available to occupy Frig's time. And no game of Bollox for me. I was dreading the inevitable uncomfortable silence that was sure to play a part in the journey. Neither of us was skilled at making small talk, especially with one another.

Once we had passed the station transfer waypoint, I rose from the pilot's chair and headed to the cargo hold.

Frig said, "Sir, where are you going? Were you aware of the fact the ship's library has been scrubbed clean? I could not find the manual listings for the ship's systems either. That could make repairs difficult should the need arise."

I turned my gaze back and raised a hand as I walked. "Relax, my friend, I think I have something that might help you pass the time. It was given to me by my father when I was a kid. I don't know why I've been toting it around with me for all these years. It's a puzzle, a brainteaser of sorts. It might be just the thing to keep your feeble mind occupied. Might even offer you a challenge."

Frig gave an immediate response with a raised voice. "I would hardly call a Human child's toy a challenge..., sir. However, I am not in the position to decline your generous offer of entertainment. A thirty-second break from the monotony that is your friendship is thirty seconds I am willing to part with."

As I returned with the puzzle and placed it in Frig's long, slender hand, I smiled. "Now that was an unexpected zinger coming from an unexpected source. Makes me think you've been holding back on your sarcastic abilities all these years. It might make this trip tolerable if you were to come out of your shell."

My comment drew a scowl.

Frig took an immediate interest in the puzzle. "Sir, do you know what this is?"

I replied as I walked back into the hold, "Not a clue; haven't looked at it since I was a kid; was the last thing my father gave me before he left for the forty-second Milgari war."

I hesitated for a moment, thinking back on the time. A time when, once I was old enough, I would have been all gung-ho to join the Marines. It was a time when I took pride in my father and the stories he told when a telecall came in from the ship he was stationed on. It was my last time seeing him alive before the cruiser's captain surrendered the ship during a battle, a battle that the Grid fleet was winning.

The captain claimed a mutiny was underway and he had no choice but to surrender. He signed off and turned over the vessel, with its eight hundred crewmen and twelve thousand Marines, to the enemy. A battle we were winning suddenly turned in favor of our enemy. The crew of the Tantilis, and my father, were never heard from again.

Rumors had run rampant at the time. All who had been on the ship had been placed under suspicion. The puzzle sat idle in my room for the ten years it took me to reach adulthood. With the loss of my father and the teasing the incident brought with his name under suspicion, it was a difficult time in my life.

To compound my issues, when I was eighteen years of age, my mother fell ill to a virus brought aboard the Grid by a traveler. I had been without family ever since.

Frig said, "Sir, this is not a puzzle. It's an encryption cube. And the coding on the encryption is well above the current military grade. The message this contains must have been one of critical importance. The meager computers on this vessel, and even the one on the Swift, do not have the cycles required to decrypt this message. Since your father entrusted you with this just before his final departure, it may have something to do with why the Tantilis surrendered."

I brooded in thought over the object for several seconds. "I've carried that small cube around with me for twenty-three years. It's the only thing I have remaining of my father. Not sure why I kept it, as I have never had any compulsion to figure it out. If you think it can be cracked, then by all means have at it. But whatever you find, please keep it to yourself. It's not something I have any interest in. I've managed to put all that in my past and I'd like it to stay there."

The gaze coming from Frig made me uncomfortable. I turned and headed back into the hold to rummage through my gear. A deck of cards was soon removed and spread on the hold floor for a game of solitaire. It was a game that had been passed down from generation to generation. A game that was timeless when it came to passing time.

I had always been curious as to the game's beginnings. There was no evidence of kings or queens in the history of Humans contained in the Grid archives. I reasoned that perhaps it had been from some distant past, as the figures on the cards were Human. As I flipped the first card, it came up an ace. I nodded my head and smiled as I continued.

The flight out to Marsoon was long and boring. When we arrived at the beta port, I made a beeline to the local dive and ordered a tall brew. The Soonian barkeep had a sheepish grin on his face as I downed my first pint.

"Good, yes? I speak some Human. It not best, but we try. If you have interest, I can make date for you with Brissa. She my sister. She give you good fun."

I hesitated to have a look at what was being offered, but was overcome with curiosity. The Soonians had long faces that resembled that of a horse—we had been shown a drawing of a horse from the Grid archives in grade school. I took a deep breath as I turned to look.

The Soonians had wide nostrils that flared as they spoke. They had long arms and a torso that was shaped like the Gnarish pumpkins grown back in the food labs on the Grid. Their body features, and their smell, were anything but attractive to most Humans. It seemed however, that there were always an indiscriminate few who would... well...

I kindly declined his offer and then pulled Frig up beside me as he came into the bar. "This is my engineer, and I think he has a fancy for Soonians. Perhaps your sister can show him a good time?"

With that, I grabbed my beer and walked toward a booth with a snicker. Frig was a gentleman; he was polite and courteous to everyone he met. But he had pulled a similar stunt on me more than once, and it was time for payback.

The barkeep signaled to his sister, who came over immediately to shower Frig with affection. As I ordered my third round from a waitress, Frig glanced in my direction with a dirty look on his face. Dirty looks were difficult for a Gambit to manage. Frig had given it his best effort. Just as he was about to break away from his new love, Ashley Elizabeth entered the bar and stepped up to his rescue.

The barkeep quickly waved off his sister's affections as he noticed the blaster pistol on Ashley's hip. I suddenly had a newfound respect for my employer as she escorted Frig to the booth I occupied.

Ashley said, "I believe you left your friend in a bit of a difficult situation. The affections of a Soonian are not easily pushed away. They are quite persistent when it comes to business."

She turned to look at Frig. "I would recommend you speak up a bit more forcefully, preferably at the beginning of the conversation, if you are not interested. The Soonians are strictly business, and will quickly move on to the next prospect without taking offense.

"And Mr. Grange, I hope that drink you ordered will be your last. I have another package for you to deliver back to the Grid. If you should accept, your first contract will be designated as fulfilled with a high recommendation. The return package is worth 1,100 credits, if you are interested."

"I have to ask why you paid me to deliver a package and then you show up here at the same time. What am I not seeing?"

Ashley smiled, "I had a prior engagement that was canceled at the last minute. You had already left with the package, so I decided to follow for a visit with my friend."

I shook my head. "Not that I was ever one to turn down contracts, but I now have to ask why you can't run this package back yourself?"

Ashley again smiled, "The package is of a time sensitive nature and I may be delayed here for a day or two. If you aren't interested, I can find another Messenger who is."

I thanked Ashley, transferred the new contract to my credit store, paid for the drinks and headed back to the Mobi. The flight back to the Grid was again long and boring.

Upon arrival, I again made my way to Jasper's with Frig in tow for a much-needed break. We would wait for another contract from Ashley. After a week of visits, a new contract did not come. Two weeks later, I decided I had to again take matters into my own hands.

Michael Felix entered the bar. "Mr. Grange, imagine my surprise to find you in a bar. I understand you are still having a bit of ship trouble? You know, there is always a place for you in my employ."

Felix leaned in close. "I have a side business, you know. I manage three ships that are used for hauling refuse. I would think a man of your reputation and skill set would be wonderfully suited to piloting a garbage scow. Perhaps your little green friend here could keep a ship of that stature running for you, even if he could not accomplish that with your own."

Felix bellowed out a loud laugh as he walked to a private table with two of his henchmen following close behind. As much as I hated his guts, I knew my best chance for a quick recovery of the Swift was through a deal with Felix. He had the means to get us to my ship with a load of parts for her repair. The question was only one of what would he require in return. I had a deal in mind.

I stood and walked toward Felix's table with a smile on my face. "What do you want, Grange? You do realize the garbage scow offer was a joke, don't you? I have no desire to have you in my employ."

I placed both hands flat on the table. His henchmen began to move toward me when Felix raised his hand.

"Let him speak. I'm sure whatever he has to say will be short. Then he'll move on to whatever trivial task he has planned for his evening."

I nodded at the henchmen with a smirk. "I may have an offer for you, Felix. It involves the trade of some technology that I believe you will find quite interesting. In exchange, all I require is passage out to my stranded ship for me and my engineer, along with a load of parts for her repair. And I can assure you the technology I have to offer would be well worth your time."

Felix thought for a moment before he replied. "I'm not sure how to take that, Mr. Grange. The only offer of a deal I would have expected from you would be one of a blaster butt to the back of my head. A bit more information on this 'technology' would be helpful to build confidence in whatever scheme it is you have been cooking up."

I nodded, and asked that his henchmen leave the table. The conversation I had in mind was only for his ears. Underlings in his employ tended to be gossips. If word of the EID's existence got around, I was sure I would soon have a visit from SCore.

When the henchmen had moved to the bar, I gave the details of my offer. "I've come across a technology, a drive technology that could possibly give you one of the fastest, if not the fastest, ship in the galaxy. Does that pique your interest?"

Felix nodded and swirled his hand in a gesture for me to continue.

"I came by this tech through a Durian connection some time back. Frig and I have done some minor tests on it, and I can vouch for its validity. Unfortunately, before we had a chance to implement it in any meaningful way, we were attacked by pirates. The Swift now sits idle on a moon and I do not have the means to rescue her on my own."

Felix tilted his head and then asked a new question. "And why should I trust the one man who has been a thorn in my side for as long as I've known of him? For all I know, this is just some elaborate trap you have set up to take me out of the picture; perhaps to sell me into slavery?"

I leaned back in my chair with a smug look on my face. "Sell you into slavery... I like that. You can take it or leave it, Felix. The only proof I have is my word, and I can tell you this... you would not be sorry. Just think for a moment about what it would mean to your business if you could... let's say... outrun a Grid Falcon, or perhaps a Delta Runner. I have a hard time believing that avoiding unwanted searches does not interest you. If you are uncomfortable, or feeling threatened, you can bring your friends over there with you. Frig and I will be happy to travel unarmed."

Felix slowly sat back in his chair. I could almost see the little gears in his head turning. He clasped his hands together. "You said you acquired this information from a Durian?"

I nodded in agreement.

Felix continued, "And just how fast a drive are we talking about, Mr. Grange? Two hundred SOL?"

I again leaned in. "Two hundred SOL... plus!"

Felix sighed. "Spell out your terms in their entirety, Mr. Grange. I will take them into consideration. And if I find them agreeable, you will have your ride. But let me make one thing perfectly clear. If you intend to screw me on this deal in any way, unintentionally or not, I will personally feed your liver, kidneys, and spleen to a Rishak vulture, and they will still be attached and internal to your body at the time."

The next hour was spent hashing out the details of the contract. Felix continued to be a stickler, making sure he had all the i's dotted and t's crossed.

When he had finally run out of questions concerning the intended voyage, he stood and gestured to his henchmen. "I will be evaluating the details, Mr. Grange. I will let you know my decision in three days."

I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. "Three days? I'll let you know, I've made this offer to two other pilots and should be hearing from them by tomorrow at the latest."

Felix looked at me and again bellowed with laughter. "Please, Mr. Grange. You came to me because there is not another soul on this ship who would even consider such an offer from you. As part of my consideration, I am taking in the audacity of your request. You will have my decision in three days, no less."

Felix smiled and continued to laugh heartily as he left Jasper's with his henchmen in tow.

Frig joined me at Felix's table. "Sir, I cannot say I am comfortable with the long conversation you had with Captain Felix. Is there something I should be informed about? Sir?"

As I told of my offer to Felix, Frig had an apprehensive look on his face. Felix was a shark, and we were swimming in his waters.

"Sir, I understand your eagerness to get the Swift back online. But is it really wise to be dealing with the likes of Michael Felix?"

I ordered another round from the waitress and casually asked her to add it to Felix's tab. "We have to get that ship back before salvagers get a hold of her. She may be under our names on the Grid registration, but the rest of the galaxy doesn't play by the same rules. If we were to lose her, with all the work we have done, it will take us ten years just to get back to where we were. We need to get back out there and we need to do it now."

On the third day, Michael Felix returned to Jasper's with his answer. Frig and I would be flown to the location of the Swift along with the parts we needed for repairs. Upon arrival, Felix would be given a copy of the EID technology, which I was carrying on my person. Frig had taken the time to make a few minor alterations that would limit the speed benefit to Felix, but he would still have his prize of being one of the fastest ships in the known galaxy. A prize for which he was willing to deal with the man he considered the devil.

# Chapter 6

### _______________________

After loading the parts necessary for our repairs aboard the Deveroe, we lifted off toward grid 1244. I had the same conversation with Michael Felix several times during the journey.

"Mr. Grange, now that we're away from Grid space and Grid jurisdiction, I want to once again remind you of our agreement. Upon delivery of you and your engineer to the location of choice, you will deliver the technology for the drive to me. Any attempt at crossing me will be your last. Grid 1244 is a lonely place for a man with no ship."

I waved my hand and concurred with his statement each time it was brought up. He would have his precious drive adaptation when we reached our destination.

I then added a warning of my own. "Despite what you think about my reputation, I do have friends on the Grid—friends who are not all too fond of you, Felix."

I continued, "I left instructions, and access to the credits needed to carry out those instructions, with a number of those friends. I can assure you that in the event of my not returning, those instructions will be carried out. And I can promise you this, whatever they do, it will be very damaging to your ability to function as you have on the Grid. Our little deal here is a two-way street."

Felix huffed and turned back to his piloting duties. "I hear your threats, Mr. Grange. They are of little consequence to me. I will honor the letter of the contract, as my word is my bond. If you weren't already aware, I would just as soon sell out my own mother before violating contract terms. It is one of the tenets I am governed by."

When we arrived at the far end of grid 1244, Felix began to get agitated. "Where is the ship, Mr. Grange? I have business to attend to back on the Grid. I don't have the time to be chasing about because you misplaced your vessel."

I pointed toward the ion wall. "It's just through there. We'll be sitting on it in about four hours."

Felix turned with an angry face. "You made no mention of going out there! That is uncharted space. I don't want to risk damage to the Deveroe in crossing through that ion bloodbath to get to your ship!"

I took a small bit of pleasure as Felix squirmed in his pilot's chair. "Relax, Felix. It's just ions. You fly through them every day. True, it may be a bit more than usual, but it's all the same. I've been through there without incident."

Felix turned back and looked out the cockpit windshield toward the direction of the ion wall. "And yet your ship is not operational. I am not brimming with confidence, Mr. Grange. You should have spelled this out in the contract."

I smiled as I leaned forward in my chair. "Ah, Mr. Felix, I believe the contract terms state you will deliver the cargo and personnel to the site which I would later specify. Perhaps you should have been better in your wording of hazardous obstacles that might have to be crossed. Now, I am sure you will agree we have a firm contract. And I believe you just stated you were in some sort of hurry to return to the Grid? Time is money, Mr. Felix."

Felix turned back with another scowl and then set the coordinates for the next leg of the journey. Four hours later, I felt a sense of apprehension and a sense of relief as the small moon where the Swift had been left came into view.

As we moved in close to where the ship would have been, I stood from my chair. "No, no, no! This can't be happening!"

The Swift was gone, along with the small downed pirate vessel.

As we touched down, Felix turned toward me with his blaster in his hand. "I believe we had a deal, Mr. Grange. I believe this is an appropriate time to collect on my fee as stated in the terms."

The repair mission was a disaster. I had given up the one bargaining chip I had to get to the small moon. I reached into my jacket and retrieved the document Felix had bargained for.

"You kept your end of the bargain, Felix. Here's your prize."

As I stretched out my hand, Felix snatched away the document and immediately scanned it into his ship's computer. After several minutes of bickering with his engineer, he again turned in our direction with his blaster in his hand.

"You have fulfilled your end of the agreement, Mr. Grange, barring a full verification of this drive, of course. I have honored mine. If you would now please step over to the door to your left."

I looked in its direction. "That's a lifepod. What is it you have in mind here, Felix?"

He smiled and took a step closer with the blaster slightly raised. "Our contract, Mr. Grange, was for your delivery to this moon. That contract has been honored. You should take it as a sign of my generosity that I am willing to provide you with the use of a lifepod. They are not inexpensive, you know. But I feel it is the 'Human' thing to do."

Felix continued to grin and then motioned with the blaster as the door to the lifepod opened. "Oh, and as also stated in the contract, I will be leaving you with your parts. Even though I feel they would be an even trade for the use of my lifepod, I am willing to overlook it at my own expense. This is turning out to be a wonderful day, Mr. Grange... simply wonderful."

As the door to the lifepod closed, Felix bellowed out his trademark laugh. The pod disconnected from the Deveroe and fell gently to the moon's surface. The radio on board crackled to life as the Deveroe began to pull away.

"The pod is a little cramped for two, but it should keep you alive for a month, maybe a little longer if you are conservative with your finite resources. Enjoy your stay, Mr. Grange. Hahahahahaha..."

As Felix laughed, the Deveroe disappeared over the horizon and the radio went silent.

I leaned back in the chair and looked directly at Frig. "Well, Frig, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into. You should have seen this coming."

Frig responded with indignation. "Me! Sir... I believe it was you who organized and planned this event. If blame is to be placed, it belongs squarely on your shoulders."

I turned to the controls on the lifepod with a half grin. "Relax; I'm just pulling your chain. We should have planned for this, as we knew it was possible. The question now is, what can we do?"

We looked over the manifest of spare parts we had at our disposal. Even with the proper tools in an operational repair bay back on the Grid, we lacked the parts required to cobble together anything that would give us propulsion. The lifepod was made to drift until such time as it was recovered. Drifting would get us nowhere.

For four weeks we sat idle in the lifepod twiddling our thumbs. Our conservation efforts had extended our resource cache for an additional six days at most. The emergency beacon had been broadcasting our location nonstop, but we were beyond the ion wall. I had come to the conclusion that hope was a thing for fools and fairy tales. We were doomed to die, stranded in a place where no one could hear our pleas for help. Our breathing became shallow and our bodies weak.

In my mind I was preparing the final goodbye speech I would give to my best friend. "My friend, we have been through some tough times, but I—"

A crackle came over the radio. "Grid lifepod AN4479, this is 3011-C. Can I ask the name or names of those on board?"

I pressed the talk button and said. "This is AN4479. I'm captain of the Swift, Don Grange, and I have my engineer here with me. That's a Human voice I'm hearing, and it sounds familiar!"

The radio was silent for a moment. "Hang on for a few minutes while we tether you in, Mr. Grange. We can discuss pleasantries once you're aboard."

It was Cortes! Once again he had come to our rescue!

The pod door opened and the fresh air rushed in. I took a deep breath. I stepped out onto the deck of the Ranger with my legs shaking.

A corpsman grabbed my arm as I wobbled. "JC, once again you have plucked us from the jaws of death, man. Thanks, brother."

The sergeant stood in the hold doorway. "The admiral thought you might be paying this place another visit. He likes to cover all eventualities, and our people on the Grid were reporting you had not come back. We will be in need of your services in another month for another ore run."

Cortes continued, "Our intel made mention of a ship similar to yours being offered for salvage in grid 1253. The admiral has authorized me to offer assistance in whatever way I can, within reason, of course. It's up to you at this point, but if you want your ship, as I'm sure you do, we can make a run over to 1253 to see if that one is indeed yours."

I hesitated for several seconds before answering. "So... you're saying you've been authorized to help me recover the Swift?"

The sergeant nodded. "I have."

"Well, let's go get her then. That's the best news I have had in a month!"

Frig took the opportunity to get in a dig. "Sir, I believe that is the only news you have had in a month. And Sergeant, we are thankful for your assistance."

The orders were given, and the Ranger turned and sped toward grid 1253. It was a day-long journey, but a day in a real ship with plumbing, food, and all the other necessities of life. Our search for the Swift had begun.

After a long shower and much-needed shave, I joined the sergeant in the chow room for my first full meal in nearly two weeks. The Ranger had a cook assigned. The sergeant swore by his culinary skills, and he was right. When our meal was complete, I was again filled in on the progress the admiral had made toward his fleet goals. Two new fast frigates had rolled off the line and were conducting their first space trials. As the ships were produced, the supplies of refined tantric ore were beginning to run low, reinforcing the urgency of our recovering the Swift.

We landed at an orbiting space dock above the mining colony planet Bolo. The atmosphere on Bolo was heavily acidic, with winds that commonly raged to 130 kilometers per hour. On the surface it was a hostile and unforgiving place. By comparison, the city mines below the surface had tame environments, but the miners were a rough bunch. Mining on Bolo was a hard, grueling life, full of species that were anything but friendly.

Cortes led the way off the ship. "Mr. Grange, I would suggest you stay close and let my translator do the talking. They will recognize me as Grid military, and as such I will be given room and a bit of respect. I've dealt with the Nuez miners before and they can be quite difficult, as well as unpredictable. If you take a tough stance with the highest-ranking member in the room, the others will generally leave you alone. Just follow my lead and we will see what we can find out about the Swift."

From the orbiting space dock we hopped a shuttle down to the surface. Five other craft were waiting in the winds of Bolo for the bay doors of the mining city to open. Fifteen minutes later we touched down on the deck. The giant bay doors closed above us. When sealed, and the air in the bay filtered, the shuttle pilot released the hatch and stairs.

I stepped down onto the deck with my legs still a bit wobbly. The gravity on Bolo was 0.92 that of the station, but much higher than the small moon we had been trapped on for the prior month. We followed the sergeant through a large set of doors and into a crowded hallway of merchants and bars.

The hallway bustled with activity. The mines worked around the clock, with shifts being long and frequent. New miners worked the equivalent of sixteen-hour days until a supervisor decided they were deserving of a badge. Getting a badge was everything, as it came with reduced hours, increased pay, and shaft selection. The deep shafts were the worst; the natural heat from the planet made them extremely uncomfortable. Once a badge was earned, a miner's life became incrementally better. It was rare to see a new miner in the shops near the surface. Their off time was spent recovering from their day's toils.

The hallway activity was a mixture of travelers, badged veteran miners, merchants, and prostitutes. The latter were aggressive when it came to new faces on Bolo.

"Hey, Human, what do you think of these?"

The display of six breasts on a Debron hooker was anything but appealing to a Human. The cackling laugh that came with them would drive any normal man mad. Cortes leaned in and whispered something to her. She immediately turned and left the hallway.

The sixth alcove down the hall to the left held a salvage shop. According to Cortes, the owner would likely have connections to anyone and everyone in the salvage business on Bolo. We stopped in for a chat.

Cortes said to the Nuez proprietor, "Mrs. Challen, I understand you are well connected on this planet and have knowledge of the parts and materials that can be obtained?"

The old woman's eyes squinted as she looked at the sergeant. "You are Human. Don't get a lot of Humans in here, must be in need of something pretty bad, or... you are looking for someone."

The sergeant replied, "We are in need of a ship, and not just any ship, a particular ship. It's an old Grid Blevin-class Defender with the markings of 5509 on it. Information leading to her recovery could be looked upon favorably by the Grid. And of course, there is a healthy recovery fee."

The old Nuez looked at him suspiciously. "Suppose I have heard of a vessel fitting that description... tell me more about this fee."

"The fee will be determined by the completeness of the information given and is payable when the ship is in our hands. If the information leads to another individual for more information, the fee will be divided proportionately. If you choose to offer information or a name, then all else that is required is a deposit store where your portion of the fee can be securely placed for your benefit."

The old woman waddled over to the door of the shop, closing and locking it. "Follow me. I don't have the info you seek, but I might know who does."

We followed the old Nuez woman for several kilometers, passing numerous businesses, repair docks, warehouses and the myriad of bars and eateries that came with all three. We arrived shortly thereafter at a second landing dock. This one was larger and rigged for the handling and delivery of heavy machinery and supplies. It was adjacent to a third topside landing dock, where the giant ore haulers were loaded. The old woman led us to a dock supervisor.

She said, "Bizzo, these gentlemen are looking for something. You can decide whether or not you know anything about it. It might be worth your while to discuss it."

With that, the old woman turned to waddle back toward her shop.

Cortes said, "Mrs. Challen... your store?"

She stopped and smacked herself on the forehead. "I'm getting too old for this game."

She held out her store. A pending credit transfer was added to her account. She again turned and began the journey back to her shop.

Bizzo faced the sergeant with a smile. "You must be looking for something big for Huena to walk all the way out here. Perhaps an ion cannon from a salvaged Krell destroyer? Can be had for a good price. Or maybe a new environmental system?"

"We are in search of a ship," said the sergeant. "A Grid ship. Markings: 5509. Would you have any knowledge of her whereabouts?"

Bizzo looked around suspiciously and then waved us around a corner, out of the sight of potentially prying eyes. "I've heard of her. Was picked up a few weeks ago. But she's property of a nasty pirate named Vlok. His guild, mostly family members, frequents the area around Omrin-7. My guess is you'll find the ship near there. I have a cousin, Bazzo. He's the barkeep at a place called Fwellos in Port Giamma. He is sometimes a broker for larger products, such as ships. If your vessel is in the area, and for sale, he will know."

With that, Bizzo held out his credit store. Cortes loaded it with a pending transfer. We walked toward the shuttle port where we had landed. As we moved along, the shopkeepers, bar owners, and kiosk peddlers quickly closed their doors or pushed away their carts. I turned to see four badged Nuez miners walking the hallway behind us. Four more then stepped out in front, blocking our way. The Nuez were a short, fireplug-like species with powerful backs, legs, and arms. Their dark gray, scaled skin and rotted but sharp teeth gave them a sinister look.

As we stopped, their leader approached. "You have come here asking questions without having authority. Prying Humans are not welcome. The fine for a violation of our codes is five hundred credits. You will pay or you will not leave. And before you think of using that blaster, you should know that there are more of us than you see here."

Cortes slowly moved his hand away from his holster. "OK, we apologize if we have overstepped our bounds. No need for violence."

The Nuez leader took another step forward. "You pay now, five hundred credits. If you delay any further, the new fine will be six hundred credits."

Cortes shook his head in agreement. "OK, OK, we'll pay your fine. Show me your store and I will make the transfer. We don't want any trouble."

The Nuez leader again stepped closer. "You are wise to comply. Now, make the deposit and be on your way."

The leader held out his hand with his store.

Cortes nodded and reached out his own hand, suddenly grabbing the outstretched hand of the miner. "Can I get your name, so I know who to contact on our next visit?"

The leader looked at him suspiciously. "It's Domin. Ask for Domin and I will find you."

As the transfer began, Domin's face turned red with anger as he screamed out, "Your taking my—"

Cortes had his blaster up in an instant. The Nuez leader's chest exploded as the blaster bolt expanded into it. The leader fell silently to the floor. The other miners turned and fled.

Cortes calmly turned to me with a smile. "They really aren't very bright. If you take out their leader, they tend to panic and run."

He then looked down at his credit store. "Not bad, our friend Domin just made a 5,233-credit donation to the cause. He really should have had his outbound filter on. It's a simple setting."

He then replaced his blaster and gestured forward with his arm as the shops began to reopen. "Shall we continue? Omrin-7 is a two-day trip."

As we walked away, two of the assailants returned and began to drag their boss's body away. Whatever they could salvage from him was theirs to keep. Adherence to the law in the Bolo mines was at a minimum. If you could not defend yourself, you had no business being there. We returned to the shuttle without further incident. Thirty minutes later we were boarding the Ranger. The trip to Omrin-7 was uneventful.

# Chapter 7

### _______________________

When we arrived at Omrin-7, we were escorted to the space dock by two Omrin cruisers. The captain of the first ship was adamant about knowing the purpose of our visit. Omrin was a free system, and warships were looked upon with suspicion. After a credit transfer, the captain's objections disappeared. An hour later our shuttle set down in Port Giamma.

The atmosphere on Omrin-7 had a constant stale smell to it. The air was breathable, the temperatures tolerable, but the smell was almost overwhelming.

We hopped a cab to Fwellos and were soon in a conversation with Bazzo. "5509, I think I can safely say it is located in this system. I've had several offers from traders looking to make the buy. The ship is a little banged up, but it has a solid hull. Those old Blevin-class hulls are a prized commodity out here. Could easily get in a bidding war for her."

Cortes replied, "Bazzo, what are the chances we can get a look at her? As of this time, she fits a purpose for us, and we would like to be in on the bidding."

Bazzo looked around the room. "I see a few issues, Mr. Cortes. I can get you into the auction, but only after you have passed a security check by the auction house. If I was you, I would lose the uniform. Humans are not all that popular out here, and a Human soldier? Well, you would likely get turned away before even getting close. The privateers who run the auction would see to that."

Bazzo continued his conversation with Cortes. His auction assistance fee was to be 3 percent of the auction price. He felt the bidding would likely start at around forty-eight thousand credits. I took a step back in shock. Forty-eight thousand credits was a price I could never pay.

Cortes responded, "Consider yourself our agent, Mr. Bazzo. At that fee, I am expecting exclusive rights to you for the bidding."

Bazzo replied, "Exclusive rights will not be a problem. And there is no 'mister,' just Bazzo. Titles are reserved for a select few in our species, and Bazzo is not one of them. Don't worry about the security check. I will take care of the necessary paperwork. Let's see... I believe you are a trader from the Krown system, are you not? Yes, a Krown Mamis hauler to be exact. The Mamis is a nasty beast and as such requires a sturdy ship for transportation. Yes... Mr. Alfoos from the Krown system. Bids will be starting tomorrow. Meet me here and we will make our way to the auction."

After returning to the spaceport and the Ranger, Cortes began crafting our plan. "We'll need to lease a ship for a day, something that looks like it could haul a Mamis. And your engineer friend here has just had a name change. Good evening, Mr. Alfoos."

Frig responded with trepidation. "Good evening... sir?"

Frig would be doing the bidding; the final price was not important. We would win the bid and then force the turnover of the Swift when payment was due. Cortes would see to it the Ranger was ready for the task when the time came.

The plan was simple, relying on the strength of the Ranger and the experience of her crew to carry it out. There would be gunplay, as the pirate salvagers would not give up their booty easily.

I placed my arm around Frig's shoulder and then settled my hand in on the back of his thin, but rigid neck, shaking him lightly. "Mr. Alfoos, this all sound good to you?"

Frig replied, "I will do my part, as always, sir."

The auction was in a space dock of an old ore hauler that had been converted into a small station, no doubt run by the pirate Vlok. The Swift was fourth in line for bidding and looked to be in the same condition in which we had left her. The talk on the dock floor was that Vlok was reluctant to auction her off. He was entertaining thoughts of making her his own personal craft. But credits had a way of persuading him to let it go, and the Swift would bring high bidding.

The role of captain was a new one for Frig. He walked the deck with his wide chin held high, inspecting each craft that was soon to be for sale. I was impressed with his calm and yet seemingly arrogant demeanor. He played the part of a well-to-do captain flawlessly.

He stepped up to the information officer for the Swift and began asking questions. "Sir, what can you tell me about this ship? Is it flight-worthy?"

The officer shook his head. "I believe it had some sort of engine fire. Nothing big, but enough to have someone abandon her. Captain just brought her in last week. Been a lot of interest in her. Don't see many Blevins out here. Should sell pretty quick."

"I see. She has Grid markings on her. Is there any current claim to her there? Is she registered?"

The officer shrugged, "All I know is it was abandoned. When the captain found her there was no beacon, and the rules of the galaxy state a beacon designates it as a registered ship. No beacon, fair game. As far as Grid registration, who knows? Any paperwork would be up to the new owner to unscramble, just as with any salvage."

When the auction got under way, the first salvage lot went for eight hundred credits. It was a centuries-old wreck, recovered from a rarely-traveled-to planet. Its only real value was the tantric armor on its forward edges. It could be easily stripped away with the right equipment and then sold off to any number of ship manufacturers. Tantric was a valuable commodity.

The next two ships were clunkers; they had largely been stripped of anything valuable before being sold off to a scrap yard. But as always, one man's trash was another man's treasure, and the two hulls were snapped up in a flurry of fast bids. We waited patiently for the auction to move to the Swift.

"My name is Vlok Cambrier. I would like to welcome you all to the auction today. We will now get down to business on the main event. We have a Blevin-class Defender, formerly of the Grid military. The hull is in excellent condition except for a few minor bruises. The electronics are top notch on this one, and with a little effort she can be turned into a substantial and secure transport for her new owner. The bidding will now commence, starting at sixty-five thousand credits."

A hush went over the crowd. It lasted for only seconds as the first bidder stepped forward. "Sixty-five thousand credits!"

As we watched, a second and then a third bidder entered the fray. The bid quickly shot up to eighty-six thousand before the first of the bidders bowed out. The remaining two again escalated the price, and it soon topped one-hundred thousand. Vlok was all smiles. A bidding war would only help to line his pockets with more credits.

The bidding slowly came to a stop at one-hundred twenty-four thousand credits when the second of the bidders waved off any further bid.

As the lead bidder began to grin, Frig raised his hand. "One hundred fifty thousand credits."

The crowd murmured as it turned to see who the new bidder was. None of them had ever seen a Gambit, which only added to his persona. Who was this strange new being stepping in with such a high bid?

After a minute's pause, the first bidder again raised a hand. "One hundred fifty-five thousand credits!"

The crowd again bustled with low voices as the auctioneer banged his gavel and demanded silence. Frig had a stoic and yet confident look on his face. "Two hundred thousand credits."

The crowd burst into activity as the auctioneer banged his gavel. "I said silence! Anyone caught talking who is not making a bid will be immediately posted as the high bidder. As always, if you bid and cannot pay... you will be spaced."

The crowd again went silent.

The now angry and embarrassed bidder raised his hand. "Two hundred five thousand credits!"

It was evident from his tone that he had been given orders to come back with the Swift. Someone with deep pockets had taken an interest. The auctioneer accepted the bid and motioned back to Frig for a counter. Frig remained silent for thirty seconds as the crowd awaited his answer.

"Three hundred thousand credits."

Again the crowd broke its silence, as the Blevin-class Defender was now going for more than four times its estimated auction value of seventy-five thousand credits. The first bidder then crossed his arms and stood with a scowl on his face. When the final bang of the auction gavel came down, the crowd again erupted with chatter. I quietly followed Frig over to the auctioneer's table.

Vlok was all grins and eagerly awaited an introduction to the new owner of the Swift. "Mr. Alfoos, excellent bidding. I have to say, you do make it exciting."

Frig looked at the pirate captain with little emotion in his expression. "If you would be so kind as to have her moved over to the port door, I will have my associates collect her. I am a busy man, Mr. Cambrier. No time available for chatting. Please move the ship as I await the transfer of funds from my client."

Vlok barked out an order to his aide, who quickly turned and began directing the movement of the Swift. Frig stood patiently looking at his credit store for a transfer that would never come. When the Swift had been moved into position, two explosions rocked the converted ore hauler, followed soon after by the sound of blaster fire.

As the captain yelled at his crew to defend their ship, he suddenly went quiet. Frig was holding a blaster to the back of his head. "I suggest you call off your guard. We are only interested in the ship. No reason for needless loss of life. I'm sure your crew is expendable... but not entirely valueless to you, as I understand most are family members. Give the order, Mr. Cambrier, and we will soon be on our way."

Vlok's face was boiling with rage. We had come into his domain, his home, and made a mockery of his defenses. Should he ever capture us, the torture we would endure would be like none we could envision. It would be long and painful, perhaps lasting for years.

The captain gave the order and the blaster fire soon went silent. "You will be sor—"

Frig popped the captain in the back of the head with the barrel of the blaster. "I have no desire to listen to your drivel, Captain. It is in your best interest to remain silent until we have departed. Simple terms, if you will."

For fifteen minutes the deck of the captain's station was silent as the Swift was loaded into the Ranger's hold. It was a tight fit, but one we had planned for. Vlok was taken with us onto the Ranger and held until we were safely away.

After being placed in a lifepod, he made his final statement. "I will track you down, Alfoos. If it's the last thing I ever do... I will have your throat in my hand."

The pirate glared at Frig as the door to the lifepod began to close.

With only a crack to spare in the door, Cortes tossed something inside. We could see the interior of the pod filling with green smoke as it was shoved behind a lock and then ejected into space.

I asked Cortes about the smoke and received a smile. "Just a little gift for our friend. It's a Modrin environment adjuster. Any Modrin of caliber would not travel without a handful of them. He will be fine, as it is not toxic. But for the next few weeks he is going to have a heavy green tint to his skin and a smell that would rot your sinuses. He will lose a lot of the respect of his family, which should make him weaker for some time to come. Extremely angry, but weaker."

The pirates dared not follow after the Ranger, as it was far too powerful a ship for them to tangle with. Our trip back to the moon where our spare parts were located was smooth and easy. When we arrived and came over the horizon to the spot where the parts had been left, I was again angered to see that someone had been there before us. Our cache of parts and the lifepod we had occupied for over a month were gone. I sat back in my chair, dejected.

Frig placed his hand on my shoulder as Cortes approached. "I've just spoken to the admiral about your dilemma. We are in need of a new ore run, and as such he has given the OK for me to bring you and the Swift to our facilities. We should be able to find the parts you need, and the admiral has agreed that it can be taken out of your transport fee, a bit at a time. If you are in agreement, we can have you in and out of a repair dock within the week."

I concurred. We departed for the admiral's hideaway. The repairs went quickly with the tools made available to us. Six days after we landed, we were ready for our first test flight. Frig was paranoid about exposing our drive technology to the military. For my part, I thought it was sorely needed in the name of the Grid's defense, and something the admiral was worthy of.

We came to a compromise, giving the admiral the same level of tech we had given to Felix. If the admiral's team was to stumble upon the channel alignment improvement that Frig had discovered, then so be it. If not, we would keep the speed advantage to ourselves. If the time came for war, it would be an easy upgrade to offer our allies. In the meantime, I was glad to have 5509 once again flying.

Two days later, we departed for the mining colony on the second moon of Malcon. A new load of refined tantric ore was awaiting transport. The pickup went smoothly, and we were again followed out of the mining port by the same Delta Runner. It once again held its distance.

After an hour of thinking about the situation, I turned to Frig, who was happily monitoring his engine modifications. "Hey, what do you think about us using the drive to lose that Delta Runner? We don't want whoever that is to know where this ore is going. I say we head through the ion wall and then punch it up and zip back through before they know what happened. We could do that and still meet up with the admiral's ship for the drop. They would have no clue as to what happened to us."

Frig concurred, and we adjusted our course toward the wall. As we came through the other side, I pushed the throttle to full and watched in amazement as the indicator hit 306 SOL in less than a minute. We ducked back into the ion wall for another hour before returning to our prior course for a rendezvous with the admiral. The Delta Runner was nowhere to be found. The drop went smoothly. The admiral made a healthy deposit into my credit store, and we were soon on our way back to the Grid. I had a score to settle with Michael Felix. He would be paying dearly for his offense.

After arriving home I made my way to Felix's office. It was crowded with customers wanting to take advantage of his newer, faster service. Felix was on a run and would not be returning for two days. I left an anonymous note, supposedly from a Durian, about a high-paying, discreet haul I was interested in having him do. It was a message I knew would grab his attention. On the second day, I waited at the bar for his response.

Felix arrived at Jasper's after his return. He was looking for another Messenger when I stepped in behind him with my blaster pointed at the small of his back.

I said, "Shall we hit your favorite spot while I talk about blasting a hole in your spine for stranding me? It's a discussion we need to have."

Seconds later we were seated at the table. I ordered drinks for us both on his tab.

"Imagine my thoughts as you pulled away from that lifepod. I believe you were laughing at the time?"

Felix stared at me with a disgusted look. "Believe it or not, I did return to pick you up. You were gone, so I collected my pod and took possession of the parts so that salvagers would not make away with them. I have them in my warehouse if you want them."

I leaned in with a low and unbelieving voice. "And why should I believe you had any intention of coming back for me? You returned to collect your precious pod. We just saved you the trouble of having to clean it out."

Felix replied, "Look, you have no reason to believe me other than my reputation. How would it look if I was to be responsible for stranding another Messenger? It's against our code of ethics. I may not like you, Mr. Grange, but I don't wish you or anyone else dead. I left you in that pod so I could check out the drive technology, to make sure it wasn't a scam. It wasn't, and I returned to pick you and your engineer up. You weren't there, simple as that. As far as the laugh goes, well, I was just having a little fun at your expense."

For more than a month I had been contemplating what I would do to Michael Felix when I caught up to him. I finally had. I was now confronted with an explanation I did not want to believe, but I did. Michael Felix was driven by his codes and as he had said before, he would give up his own mother before violating them.

I stood and stared at him in disgust. "I'll be by the warehouse to collect my parts."

I turned and angrily walked out of the bar.

Instead of waiting for a decent contract to come from someone at Jasper's, I began going right to the source, to the main routing station. I began to win contracts that had been going to Felix with his newly improved drive. I offered faster delivery times and a lower rate. Felix was infuriated that someone else was winning the choice contracts from the blind auction process. It didn't take long for him to figure out who was behind the drop in his business.

He confronted me in the space dock. "Why am I feeling somehow cheated by you, Mr. Grange? You can't possibly be making deliveries in those times. It requires direct runs through the most pirated area in this arm of the galaxy. Even with my speed, I won't risk getting caught in one of their inhibitor field traps. You held out on me."

He was right, but I was not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing so. "Maybe I'm willing to risk it because I'm a better pilot. Maybe I have an inhibitor field detector."

It felt good to stretch the truth. "Maybe I've found a wormhole that takes me straight through. Hahahahaha!"

I walked away with a grin.

When the cargo was loaded I departed for our next destination. Three weeks later I was once again called into service by the admiral. And once again I had to give the Delta Runner the slip. My service had become the one of choice for the more lucrative contracts.

Within four months of the Swift's return to duty, I had paid off all my debts. Frig and I were living high, with profits going toward more ship improvements. The Swift was updated with a stealth ion cannon, and I had an agreement with the admiral to have the remainder of the hull covered with active tantric armor.

The admiral was ecstatic about the drive technology we had bestowed upon him. When time allowed, he promised to have some of the latest electronics added to the Swift. Our ship's computer and sensors would receive updates to the latest military grade. The Swift was fast becoming a ship that could hold its own in all but the most extreme of circumstances. With its new feature set, we could have fought our own small war.

# Chapter 8

### _______________________

With my free time on the Grid, and my newfound wealth, I had been spending time courting Ashley Elizabeth. She was a bit of a mystery. I could not find her in the Grid registry, which was not highly unusual, but she had no record of a pilot's registration on file. With as much as she traveled, I found it unlikely that she was being chauffeured everywhere she went. In spite of the mystery surrounding her, I invited her to dinner.

I selected a restaurant with a view of spaceport Alpha. There was something intriguing about sitting and watching the large freighters that constantly ferried supplies to the Grid. It was also one of the pricier restaurants in sector A of the Grid, which was near my new apartment. Life was looking up, and I was taking advantage of what it had to offer.

I was not new to the dating scene, but there was something about this woman that had me spending the day before the date with a barber and a tailor. The orange-and-blue flap suit I purchased and had altered... fit me like a glove. After a spritz of cologne, I departed for my first official date with the blonde bombshell Ashley Elizabeth. As I sat at the bar awaiting her arrival, I was filled with nervous anticipation. When she stepped through the doorway, she wore a shimmering blue gown and held a smile that could launch a thousand ships. All eyes were on her as I walked over to greet her.

"Ms. Elizabeth... one word... wow. You have a way of entering a room that draws everyone's attention. I would like to add that it certainly drew mine as well."

The waiter kindly took her wrap and gestured for us to follow. "Well, Mr. Grange, the Alpha Room... you do know how to treat a lady."

I grinned at the acknowledgment as the waiter gently laid her wrap in an adjacent chair. "Ma'am, sir. your server will be with you momentarily. May I offer you a complimentary beverage to begin your evening?"

I took the initiative and ordered a 320-credit bottle of Alpha Vineyards wine. It was grown in the Grid vineyards, from the root-stock of a Milinus variety of fruit. It had been acquired through trading more than four hundred years before, during a time of peace and prosperity. It was considered one of the finest wines on the Grid. It drew a coy smile of approval from Ashley.

"So, Mr. Grange..."

I interrupted. "Please, please call me Don."

Ashley smiled and began again. "Don, you seem to be doing very well for yourself. Is there a secret to your success?"

I leaned forward with my elbows on the table before realizing I was being rude. I pulled them back slowly. "Let's just say the Messenger Service has been paying dividends after many years of hard work. That, and a bit of luck factored in, seems to be working well for me."

She smiled. "I have heard rumors that you might be taking shortcuts through the pirate corridor. Seems you may be playing a dangerous game. Getting captured there can easily mean the end of the line. If I were shipping cargo, it would make me nervous to know that it might be lost. Are you a man who takes risks? Don?"

Her smile had a way of instantly disarming my response. My usually charming self was stuck for words. "I... should I be concerned that you have been doing a bit of snooping around? A rumor like that would normally only travel in close circles. Should I be flattered you've been checking up on me?"

Ashley again smiled, this time turning up the corner of her mouth as she gently rocked her glass on the table, swirling her wine. "I believe a lady should know what she may be getting into."

She leaned in close, almost whispering. "You don't know what secrets some people are hiding."

She leaned coyly back in her chair. "Do you have any secrets, Don?"

I confidently sat back in my chair and made an attempt to change the conversation. "We all have our secrets, Ashley. That's what makes us interesting. Speaking of interesting, that ring on your right hand... was your father in the last Milgari war? It is a service ring, is it not?"

Ashley held out her hand and admired the ring. "You flatter me, Don. The ring is mine. I was only a year out of school when I signed up for the Marines on a cruiser. Our ship saw action in the Wrath engagement. We took heavy damage, and many lives were lost when we boarded one of their battleships. Our commanding officer managed to bring some of us home after the ship's core was compromised. We lost a lot of good people."

I marveled at how such a beautiful creature had been involved in such a bloody battle. Her friendly smile and steady purpose gave the impression of a life of ease, one where others would offer a gentle hand of assistance for any troubles that came her way. Perhaps there was more to this Ashley Elizabeth than her comely exterior. My attraction to her only continued to grow.

The remainder of the evening was filled with banter about our lives. When the evening grew late, I walked her to the restaurant door. "I had a wonderful evening, Don. You have been quite the gentleman, and I want to thank you for that."

As she leaned in for a kiss, I puckered my lips only to feel a warm press against my cheek.

She said, "I'll be away from the Grid for a week or two. I look forward to seeing you again when I return."

Before I could reply she turned, looking over her shoulder with a gentle smile and a wink as she walked away. I was left standing with a smile of my own.

The Messenger business continued to grow at a torrid pace. We jetted straight for the Gonk system and the pirate stalking grounds. Once out of sensor range, we would turn, going around the hostile space, cruising at our top speed to make up for the time lost. To an observer on either end of the journey, it looked as though we were flying straight through the worst part of the system. Inhibitor fields were frequent around Gonk, sometimes stretching out a quarter light-year's distance.

After a four-day run to grid 987, a run that normally took three weeks, we were slated to pick up a delivery for the admiral. I grew uncomfortable when we arrived at the designated destination only to find a Durian ship waiting. A Durian warship, to my prior knowledge, had only been a thing of rumor.

The ship was jet black with features like an evil bird I remembered seeing in the Grid archives as a kid. It was a vulture with a nasty look to it. The four forward and two aft ion cannons were mounted on massive turrets that would provide the ship with coverage in any direction. The ship was the size of the Ranger, but her firepower was far beyond that of the Grid frigate.

We received orders to pull around to the port-side docking bay and were soon setting down on the deck. I had never seen a Durian soldier before. As the door to the Swift opened, four Durian Helgrons stepped up to escort us to our prearranged meeting with an officer of their fleet. The Helgrons wore jet-black, armored exo-suits and carried strange-looking ion blasters. The dark tint on their helmet masks was intimidating. Only an insane person would have interest in ever meeting a Durian in battle.

We were escorted to a conference room and asked to be seated at a table. The Durian officer came through the door several minutes later. His black uniform fit tightly on his tall, thin, but muscular, torso, giving the impression of someone who was in good physical condition. He sat down at the table, directly across from us.

"Mr. Grange, I am here as a representative of the Durian people. This meeting was not my choice. The High Council of Elders, however, thought otherwise. As I am sure you know, the Durian home world is not located in this sector. I am not at liberty to discuss that fact any further; however, the coming Milgari war will have an effect on our trade, and as such, has been deemed of a priority interest to the Council."

The Durian had an annoyed look on his scaly blue face. "We have been following the workings of your Admiral Zimmerman, and as a result of the coming war we've taken an interest in his... shall we say, success. I have been authorized by the Council to make a technology transfer to your Admiral. This technology will be immensely helpful to your species in the coming war."

The Durian pulled out a data cube and set it on the table in front of us. "This cube contains the plans for a charge-dampening system for your ship hulls. It will dissipate approximately half the charge from a direct hit of a Milgari reaction cannon, a weapon used against your ships in the last war with devastating effectiveness."

The Durian leaned toward us. "I am not comfortable with this technology transfer, Mr. Grange, but my government feels it is necessary to maintain a power balance. The cube is encrypted. Your Admiral has the codes to unlock it. If tampered with, the data will be corrupted to the point of being useless. We have also taken the precaution of adding a validity timer to it. In four days, the data will be scrambled beyond retrieval. Make sure your Admiral gets the cube intact, Mr. Grange. The technology will not be offered again."

The officer rose and left the room. The Helgrons gestured with their blasters for us to make haste back to the Swift. I felt a sense of relief when we lifted out of the port docking bay. The Durians were not a friendly people. I had the feeling the Durian officer we had met was on his best behavior for our visit. For relations toward Humans, that was not the norm.

Frig leaned over the console. "Sir, I think we may have a problem. The validity timer on that cube expires in ninety-six hours. I mapped the course to the admiral's facilities. At top speed, it will take us sixty-eight hours, twelve minutes."

I pushed the throttle to full and looked at Frig. "Well, there we go. We'll have one day, three hours, and forty-eight minutes to goof off, then. What would you propose we do with that time?"

Frig looked back with consternation. "Sir, our speed is not the problem. We will be passing through grid 1108, through the Fasture nebula. The Fasture nebula is known for its negative ionic fluctuations that sometimes emanate as a series of waves. Our engines, no matter how aligned, may stall if we were to be hit by one of those waves."

I turned back toward the nav console to plot a new course. "Well, fine then, we'll just go around." Frig waited patiently for my reaction. "Hmm. Looks like that will place us half an hour late. How about this way... hmm."

Frig turned toward me. "Is there a problem, sir? Perhaps we are going to have to alter a different part of the course?"

I looked over the waypoints Frig had entered. There was only one set that was not at the optimum, the set that traveled around the Gonk system.

I looked back at my engineer. "You have any other suggestions? I would almost rather take my chances with the nebula."

Frig shook his wide head. "I'm sorry; sir... the only way we can ensure we will arrive on time is through the Gonk system. I have been studying up on the inhibitor field, sir. I believe I can alter one of our enviro-sensors to detect it. The speed we will be traveling at, however, may cause a problem. By the time the sensor gain rises to a level I would argue means detection, we may not be able to correct our course in time. I have run the rudimentary calculations on the probability, if you would like to hear them... sir."

I punched in the waypoint alterations for a path through the Gonk system. "Of course you have run the calculations. It's what you do. What is it, 22 percent, 44.8 percent? Does it even matter?"

As Frig began to reply, I raised my hand with the palm facing him. "Don't answer. I'm sure it's not a number I would like anyway. Get to work on your sensor. We'll be needing it tomorrow."

The following day we entered the pirate stronghold. Our ride through the field-infested stretch of space would take us sixteen hours. Frig had worked feverishly on the inhibitor field detector, but was unsure of its reliability. We would soon find out if it would be effective.

Our sensors had picked up two small ships on the outskirts of the known pirate area, likely pickets, parked for the purpose of keeping tabs on all ships that entered the space surrounding the Gonk system. I hoped our signal inhibitor system had done its job in keeping us from being detected, as our visual signature was still small. We had not detected any broadcasts from those ships since our passing.

We journeyed into the fray for nearly two hours before Frig's sensor began to give readings. The numbers were unreliable and seemed to fade in and out as we moved forward. That is, until they went full tilt.

Frig yelled, "Sir, I suggest we bank hard left immediately! There is a field directly in our path with the capacity to halt our forward progress!"

I pulled the joystick toward a new heading, but the speed at which we were traveling made the turn a slow, wide arc. The numbers on Frig's sensor continued to climb.

"Sir, we are now right on the edge of the field. We will begin to see a reduction in speed very soon unless you are able to steer us away from this. The field appears to be wide, and we were about to hit it almost dead center. We should begin to feel the effects in five... four... three... two... one..."

The Swift began to slow rapidly as she arced into the turn. The field prevented the normal attraction of an ionic charge, which in turn made most engines useless. At the same time, the field worked to hold a ship in place due to a reversal of those same ionic forces. It was the pirates' most prized technology, and therefore their most highly guarded secret. Our science had not yet been able to understand how it worked beyond the most rudimentary principles. Our forward progress quickly dropped below light-speed, and we soon found ourselves at a full stop.

"This is bad, very bad, Frig. I hope you have a few more tricks up your short sleeves. If so, now would be a good time to use them. I'm detecting the movement of three pirate cruisers. It will take them half a day to get here, as they are using conventional engines, so we have approximately eleven hours to figure this thing out. Tell me you have some ideas."

Frig continued to work at his console as I got up and paced the cockpit floor. We were sitting still as the enemy approached. It was an enemy that was merciless, and we had invaded their space. Our ion engines and our stealth ion cannon were useless so long as the inhibitor field was enabled. Our only meager defense was the peashooter coil gun that we used for destroying small debris when flying at speed. I was not looking forward to an encounter.

I stopped and looked over Frig's shoulder. "What do you have for us?"

He continued to punch keys on his console. "I am attempting to tune the sensor modifications to better detect the field next time. If we are caught in it, as we are now, I can only assume they will move other ships in, and new fields will be established around us should we somehow escape this one."

I understood the importance of the detector, but I was unhappy with his reasoning. "So, you're working on the sensor while we sit here already trapped in this field? Don't you think it would be a better effort to try to get us out of this first? We have three cruisers bearing down on our position and we can't move. What am I missing here?"

Frig stopped his typing and turned toward me. "Sir, I do not have a solution to our current dilemma, because I do not have an understanding of how the inhibitor works. If I can improve my sensor, I should be able to gain some insight into possible fixes to our problem. But I first have to gain that understanding... sir."

Frig turned back and continued to type on his console keyboard. I returned to my pacing. First six, then eight hours passed without a solution to our dilemma. The pirate cruisers closed to within three hours of our position. They were now visible on our optical sensors.

"Those things don't look too friendly, Frig. Looks like they are packing coil guns and missiles while in the field. Those weapons are pretty useless except for extremely close range. But close range is exactly where we are going to be in a few hours. You sure we can't just throw these engines in reverse and back out of here?"

Frig stopped his typing and stared at his console. "Sir... are you suggesting we reverse the ionic charge of our engines? That would normally not be possible... but with the alignment and the feed modifications we added to her... there is a possibility..."

# Chapter 9

### _______________________

Frig turned back to his console and began to punch keys at a feverish pace. He was on to something, something that might just get our butts out of the sling we were in.

I replied, "Tell me what you got, my friend, tell me what I can do to help."

Frig stopped his typing. "You can start by letting go of my shoulder, sir. Your grip is a bit uncomfortable. As far as help, you can get six inverter coils from our parts stock. Separate the ones with the 12KV ratings, as they will not work. If we can reverse the ion flow by use of the inverters, we might be able to do exactly as you said, sir — run our engines in reverse. The power generated will be limited, but it should be sufficient to move us toward the field's edge. We won't know if we can reach that goal before the pirates arrive unless we have actually started to move. That is, if we move at all."

I ran to the parts storage and began to sort through the cabinets. "Frig! Where do you keep the coils?"

"Cabinet C, third shelf, right-hand side, second box."

I pulled the box and began sorting through the coils within. Three minutes later I had identified five of the necessary devices.

I yelled back, "We only have five of the inverter coils! Can we do it with five?"

"Sir, I show six of those 22F coils in my inventory. Please look again."

I dug into the box and removed the other adjacent boxes to continue the search. After another five frantic minutes, I looked up at the wall in front of me.

I again yelled, "Frig! I don't think we have six of the coils anymore."

Again Frig responded, this time with an irritated voice. "Sir, my inventory shows six. Please look again."

I walked up behind him with the five inverter coils in hand. "We only have five. It's been about six months, but I remember Mark Powell coming over while we were parked at Alpha Bay on the Grid. He was asking for a 22F. Things were going well, and I thought it might be a good gesture on our part to help out a fellow pilot. He was under a deadline, so I did him a favor. We only have five."

Frig let out a sigh and then turned back to his console. "We will have to improvise for the sixth. Get me four of the 12KV coils. We will also need about six feet of tunneling cable and a dozen 12G splices. Take those parts and set them next to the engine feed deck plate, along with my blue toolbox. You are going to have to stuff yourself down in the hole one more time, sir."

As I worked to remove the feeds, Frig welded the four low-level inverters into a single configuration. I passed each feed up to him and the inverter was installed within a few minutes. The last upgraded feed was bolted into place with only half an hour to spare.

I said. "The pirate cruisers are big. And they have fighters attached to their sides. I count about thirty per cruiser. If we don't get moving, they're going to be all over us."

Frig sat at his console, again punching keys wildly. "I have to reprogram the feeds for the inverse flow, sir. Without some automatic governance, they will overheat in a matter of minutes, leaving us without engines at all. One thing we have not discussed, sir... what do we do if they actually catch us? We cannot allow this drive technology to fall into their hands."

It was a point I had not considered — and it was not only the drive technology we had to protect. We had Grid military computers, active tantric armor, and a host of other updates that could give the pirates a formidable force. We already had one war to contend with. A second war would be one that we could not win.

I replied, "I'd rather not discuss that possibility at the moment. Don't want it to interfere with my thought processes. That decision can be made when the battle is over. With luck, we won't have to deal with that eventuality. How's that drive coming?"

Frig continued with his efforts. "We should have an answer in ten minutes, sir. The reversal will either happen and build up to a level that will allow us to move, or it will fail, and we will be faced with another engine fire... sir."

I sat in my pilot's chair and rocked back and forth as I swiveled. "Well, I guess we've done our best. Either you get us out of this fix... or we die. I would hate it if the last thing you ever accomplished was to get us killed."

Frig turned with indignation. "You always know just the wrong thing to say at the wrong time, don't you, sir. I'm doing my—"

I cut him off. "Relax. Keep your hair on. You've never let us down before, and you won't do it this time. Spin back around and finish the job so we can get out of here."

Several minutes later the modifications were complete.

Frig said. "Sir, please bring the initiator setting up to 12 percent. And set the coordinates for a waypoint to the closest edge of the inhibitor field."

I did as instructed and was soon rewarded with four green indicators on the console.

Frig continued, "Now, please move the throttle to 8 percent and monitor the temperature change of the feeds. If any temperature rises above 15 percent of normal, please let me know as quickly as possible."

The adjustments were made and the ship began to move... slowly. I let out a cheer.

Frig shook his head. "Sir, I would not be celebrating just yet. Unless we can achieve a significant enough speed, those cruisers are going to be upon us. When we exit the field, they will be able to return to their ion engines while we will have to reconfigure ours."

I reported status of the temperatures, and kept any further smart remarks to myself. I needed Frig's full attention on the task at hand if we were to have a chance. The temperatures remained in the normal range until we had reached the edge of the inhibitor field. I was then stuffed back down in the deck plate hole, attempting to undo the modifications we had only just installed.

I quickly had four of the six feeds reconfigured when Frig reported on the pirates' status. "Sir, we have sixty-five fighters bearing down upon our position. They will be within five kilometers of the Swift in fifty-two seconds. Please hurry, sir. we don't have much time."

I yelled back from the hole, "Well, buy us some time, then. We are out of that field, so make use of that ion cannon. We can suck up a few hits from those fighters. It's the cruisers I'm worried about."

Frig replied, "Very well, sir. You have approximately four minutes and eighteen seconds before the cruisers are in firing range. Please hurry."

"I'm on the last one now. Just buy us those few minutes I asked for. If I can just get this one bolt in... Grrrrr! Gaw! Dropped it! Get me a new number fifty-seven bolt! The old one is wedged just out of reach!"

Frig raced to the parts bin and quickly retrieved the bolt as the first of the fighters opened fire.

The pings from the coil guns soon turned to thuds from their small ion cannons. Our active tantric armor was more than a match for the fighters' weapons. But there was a problem. With each strike from a cannon, the hull of the Swift jerked hard, making it nearly impossible for me to place the final bolt in its hole.

"Frig! Clear those things off us! I can't get that bolt started with all this bouncing around!"

I heard the first of the ion rounds leaving our military-grade cannon. One of the fighters exploded, the others quickly scattered. "Got it! Hallelujah! We are back in business, boys! Give me five more turns and then punch it up."

"Go, go, go!"

Frig began pushing buttons on the console as the fighters converged for another attack. I slammed myself down in my pilot's chair and took control of the cannon. Seconds later, a second fighter exploded in a bright flash as the ion charge incinerated its hull.

As the Swift began to move, Frig said, "Sir, I'm afraid we are going to take some hits from those cruisers. Our charge is not going to build fast enough to keep us out of their range."

I blasted a second and then a third fighter as I responded. "You just keep that throttle at full and let me worry about those cruisers. If I can get in a few well-placed shots with this cannon, they're going to back off. I have a hard time believing they would risk a cruiser on a little bucket like this. If I can take out one of those—"

The Swift rocked hard and jerked violently as the first of the pirate cannon rounds impacted the hull. Smoke began to billow out of the enviro-recycler. Frig scrambled for the helmets as I fired off three pulses at the nearest cruiser. One was a direct hit on a forward turret. The other two sank into her hull, where the ensuing damage was not apparent.

The Swift continued to accelerate as a second round slammed into our hull. Again the ship shifted wildly, knocking Frig from his feet as he carried the helmets. His own helmet slipped from his hand as he tried to steady himself. It clanged hard as it bounced on the deck plating before starting its roll toward the back of the hold.

The ship's interior continued to fill with smoke from the damaged recycler. As I fired another ion round, Frig plopped a helmet in my lap and then returned to retrieve his own.

I snapped the helmet in place as a third pirate round struck the Swift. When the air in my helmet cleared, I turned to look for Frig. He had disappeared into the smoke.

"Hey, you OK back there? Frig?"

I snapped off two final rounds as our speed matched that of the lead cruiser. The first round struck her broadside, while the second clipped an array of antennae off her nose. The cruiser quickly dropped back from the battle.

Seconds later we began to pull away and were soon out of range of the remaining cruiser's weapons. We had escaped! I jumped up from my chair and raced through the smoke in search of my friend. I found him unconscious on the deck, his helmet in his hand.

"Hang on, buddy, I'll get this thing on you and you'll be breathing fresh air in no time. Don't worry about the repairs, that recycler isn't going anywhere. I can handle it if need be."

As the helmet snapped in place, the air behind the face shield quickly cleared. I was soon rewarded with the sounds of a live but coughing Gambit. I carried him forward and set him upright in his chair before returning to the hold to deal with the enviro-recycler.

The burned circuits were removed and I began the search for spares. Twenty minutes later the air inside the Swift began to clear. I set new waypoints and reviewed the calculated trip time. We would not make it to the admiral's facility in time. Our plans would again have to change.

After two hours of breathing fresh air, Frig was back to normal. With our new course entered and the time we had lost, we were set to be nine hours late. Our precious cargo would be worthless. We passed ideas back and forth, but came up with only one possible effort. Frig would have to attempt to decode the cube.

"Sir, there are a number of problems with our endeavor. First, we do not know how many layers of encryption there might be—that is, if we are able to analyze the outer layer at all. Second, if it is a smart encryption, which I highly suspect is true, if it detects an intrusion it will wipe the data, leaving only the encrypted shells. I will have to proceed with extreme caution."

I turned my chair back toward the console screen. "Seeing that I don't know a thing about encryption, I'll stay out of your way. I'm sure you'll do your best, because as of right now, that's all we have."

With that, Frig began his analysis. With nothing left for me to do, I turned my time toward a game of Bollox. I had thirty-eight hours to kill. I was sure Frig would work continuously on his effort. Gambits could go days without sleep.

Four hours into the journey, I grew bored with my game. I turned toward Frig to check on his progress. "Cracked it yet? First layer? Third?"

Frig continued with his focus for several more seconds before responding. "The outer shell is like none I've encountered, sir. The odds of my making it through that first layer are extremely low at this time. Might I suggest you spend your time looking for alternate solutions?"

He was right. I had blown four hours on gaming when I should have been working on a way out of our predicament. I rose from my chair and began to pace the hold deck as I ran scenarios through my head.

The first idea I had that made any sense had me rushing back to my chair. "Frig, I may have a solution. If we can notify the admiral, he can meet us on the way in his ship, cutting down the travel time needed."

Frig briefly looked up from his efforts. "Sir, how would you propose we notify the admiral? We are currently traveling faster than any of the broadcast channels. I'm afraid our signal would arrive after we would. It was a good effort, sir. Please continue."

I banged my forehead against the palm of my hand several times. Frig was, of course, right. My genius of a plan was scuttled. I again rose from my chair and returned to my pacing. I'd never understood why, but the minor activity had a way of helping me to focus. I had solved many of my issues aboard the Swift with just such a walk. Half an hour later I had another brainstorm.

"Frig; you said that inhibitor field worked by stopping the flow of ions, right? And the Fasture nebula has extreme waves of negative ions that can cause a similar effect? Would it be possible... possible to cut through the nebula with our engines once again reversed? You know, back through her or something?"

Frig looked up from his screen. "Are you suggesting that reversing the ion flow of our engines might allow us to travel through the nebula? If so, that is a brilliant thought on your part, sir. There is, however, one problem. The time gained by that shortcut does not equal the time we need."

I growled in frustration as I turned back toward my pacing. Then another thought hit me. "Wait... if the negative ions retard the normal ion engine, would that same negative ion charge boost a reversed ion engine? Would it add to the potential speed?"

Frig spun his head slowly around as he contemplated the suggestion. "Are you offering that we not only reverse the flow, but also reverse the charge of the feeds?"

I looked at the ceiling for several seconds. "Well... sure, if you say it will work, that's exactly what I am offering."

Frig returned to his console and began to type feverishly on his keys.

Three minutes later he turned toward me with a smile. "I believe we can do exactly as you suggest, sir. Reversing the flow of the feeds and the polarity of the charge should yield a negative ion engine. If we were to encounter enough of the highly charged waves of negative ions, we could possibly make up our time deficit."

Frig continued, "We would be at risk of failure from other reasons, but it would give us a chance to make up the time we need. I suggest we alter course for the nebula immediately... sir."

Frig had a wide grin on his face. It was almost creepy to look at, given his razor-sharp teeth. I punched in the new waypoints, and the Swift gently turned toward the nebula. My pacing had once again come through.

Frig said. "Sir, I've crunched the numbers, and there is one potential problem... overload. If we are running at full throttle and one of those supercharged waves hits us, there is a good possibility the drive chamber will become over saturated and rupture, the result being the Swift, and all aboard her, would be instantly vaporized."

I pondered the thought for only a moment. "Well, nothing is accomplished without risk. If we don't get this cube to the admiral in time, it will be a huge loss to our cause. Give your best odds of an overload."

Frig turned back to his console.

After several seconds of typing, he answered. "Our odds are 26.4 percent, sir."

I replied, "So, essentially one in four. I'll take those odds. Is there anything we can do to lower them?"

Frig turned back toward me. "I'm afraid you misunderstood, sir. It's a 26.4 percent chance of not having an overload condition. I have done a rough estimate, and each 5 percent reduction in throttle will result in a 10.2 percent reduction in the possibility of an overload, but it is at the cost of time."

I again stood and began to pace. "Have you run the numbers on the different throttle levels to see where our break even is on time? It sounds like if we can reduce throttle by 20 percent, we can increase our chance to 66.4 percent."

Frig returned to his console. "I'm afraid it is not that dramatic of an effect, sir. Five percent reduction on 26.4 percent is 1.32 percent. The next 5 percent reduction in throttle will yield 27.72 percent, and the next, 29.01 percent. A 20 percent reduction in throttle will push our odds up to 32.1 percent, sir. It is really all a moot point. We cannot determine a time because we do not know how many of those waves we will encounter, or the strength of each wave."

Frig continued: "If we continue at full throttle and do not encounter any significant waves, I estimate our arrival to be two hours short of what is required for delivery. We will have to make use of the charge from every wave we can encounter, sir. It is a risk we will have to assume if we wish to make delivery."

I stopped my pacing and crossed my arms. "Well, I guess the odds are against us, then. We're just going to have to live with them—or die with them, whichever the case may be. I guess if we gotta go, there are much worse things than instant incineration. Let's just focus our efforts on making this crossing happen. Everyone has to go sometime. Let's just hope this time is not our time."

Frig continued work at his console as I laid out the tools needed for an ion reversal of our engines. I removed the deck plate and practiced mock changeovers for when the time came. With luck, we would have the least amount of time offline. Every minute would count.

# Chapter 10

### _______________________

Several hours later we began to encounter the edge of the nebula. The building negative ion charge slowly impacted our speed. Frig gave the go-ahead and the engines were shut down.

I dove down into the hole and began the changeover, taking as much care as I could to follow the routine I had developed. After four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, I emerged. "Let's give her a try, shall we, time's a-wasting."

Frig punched in the numbers and pushed the throttle to full. The ion engine rumbled as the previous charge was eliminated. It then sprang to life and our rapid acceleration began.

As our speed hit 100 percent of rated, it continued to climb. The negative ion charge of the nebula was boosting our energy throughput, and therefore our speed. We quickly moved to 107 percent and stabilized.

Frig began to give statuses. "All channels are showing clear, sir. I have seen a few minor fluctuations in the chamber charge. I have begun the process required to alleviate those fluctuations, as a single one of those could lead to an overload if we allow it to grow out of control. Perhaps I can increase our odds a bit with a learning algorithm, following my manual adjustments. It should yield a faster adjustment time and therefore better control of the excess charge."

Frig had been at my side for nearly ten years, yet I continued to be amazed at his abilities. He had repeatedly been able to take a bad situation and change the odds of a turnaround in our favor. I could not imagine having a better first mate on the Swift during a crisis. Time and again he had proved his worth over the years.

Our journey through the nebula would take nine hours. An hour into the flight, we encountered the first wave of many.

"Sir, we have a wave coming in five... four... three... two... one..."

The Swift accelerated as the negative ion charge of the wave pushed more particles through the alignment channels. Our speed indicator shot up to 452 SOL. It far exceeded the fastest known speed of any ship in the galaxy, again excluding the Grid.

The first wave lasted for seven minutes, cutting our time deficit to one hour, forty-two minutes.

Frig reported on his fluctuation control program. "We saw fourteen events during the wave, and all fourteen were controlled within a 5 percent tolerance. That particular wave was a four on a scale of ten—a comparative scale done from past studies of the nebula, with ten being the highest recorded wave. I have confidence in the control program up to a level-seven encounter. There are too many variables that come into play at that level, placing the control algorithms at risk of overcompensating. That first wave was only a ripple, sir."

The strength of the ion waves continued to build as we pushed further into the nebula. The palms of my hands began to sweat as we entered the first level-eight wave.

"Sir, we have exceeded the basis parameters of the control algorithm. If I detect a building charge, I will attempt to add manual adjustments as I can. If that charge reaches 18 percent, I may no longer be able to compensate. I am manually tuning and holding at 6 percent now."

I felt helpless as we hurled deeper into the nebula. Frig had his control duties to keep his mind fully occupied. I was left with nothing to do but contemplate the madness of our situation. That madness only grew as we approached each new wave. My nerves were becoming frayed.

"Sir, this next wave is registering as an 8.9 and the one following it as a 9.7. We will know shortly how well I am able to control the fluctuations."

I looked down at our destination clock. We had gained another forty-seven minutes, leaving us only fifty-five minutes short.

I replied, "We need the time boost from these waves. Just do the best you can. It's all we have."

The 8.9 magnitude wave hit with a jolt. The Swift's engines pulsed and pushed the craft to a new high speed of 508 SOL. We were screaming along faster than any recorded flight known for an individual ship. Frig began banging on his keyboard in an effort to control the building negative charge. "We are at 15 percent and climbing. I am having difficulty compensating, sir. If this wave remains at this level for more than a minute, I don't think I can maintain control."

I was sitting with my arms crossed. "Is there any way to bleed off that charge? Another coupling or something that I can bolt on?"

Frig continued with his efforts as he responded. "There is nothing that can physically be done, sir. We cannot tie into those feeds while we are at speed. It would be an encounter that you would not survive. Our bodies can handle a substantial ion field. If we, however, encountered a stream as produced by those feeds, our cells would be ripped apart. The charge is now at 17 percent, sir."

Seven seconds later we exited the wave. The charge began to dissipate. We had survived another crisis, but a second wave was rushing our way.

"Man, I'm not sure I can take another one of those."

Frig turned to comment as the sweat dripped from his forehead. "If you wish to be of help, sir, I am in need of hydration. I have been losing significant amounts of liquids through perspiration with each new wave. I am very thirsty, sir."

I hurried back to the ship's fridge and retrieved a bottle of water. It was gulped down just before the next large wave arrived. Frig was again frantically punching keys as his eyes scanned a half-dozen graphs on his monitor. The sweat once again began to flow. I soaked a towel with cool water and placed it around his shoulders.

He responded with a nod as he continued to focus his efforts. "Thank you, sir."

The 9.7 wave came in hard, just as the wave before it. The charge reading soared to 16 percent in only a few seconds.

Frig scrambled to compensate. "Sir, we will be hitting that threshold in about fifteen seconds. Once it is reached, I cannot predict the behavior of the engines. We could have a rapid meltdown of the feeds and a rupture of an alignment chamber. If you have anything else to offer, now is the time."

I rose from my chair and began to pace, but the excitement of the situation and my growing anxiety were too much. I was soon standing over Frig's shoulder, watching as he attempted to prevent an ion overload. As the wave strength peaked at a magnitude of 9.7, I took a glance at our velocity meter. We were traveling at 628 SOL, again a new record. I glanced back at the charge reading and tensed up as I saw it was now at 21 percent. Frig continued to adjust and compensate for the charge fluctuations. Then, just as suddenly as the wave had begun, it dissipated, dropping the charge levels back to the norm. The destination clock now read as plus twenty-two minutes.

I retrieved another water for Frig and then plopped down in my chair for a rest. Frig had been awake for thirty-two hours straight, and I could see the stress of the situation was taking its toll. Our sensors showed a lull in the ion wave activity ahead of us. We had crossed through the densest portion of the nebula.

There was still the possibility of the errant wave, but that possibility was now far lower than before. I grabbed Frig by the shoulder and told him to go get some sleep. If another wave popped up that required his assistance, I would wake him immediately. He reluctantly stood and walked slowly to the bunk room. Only seconds passed before he was out cold.

For the next hour I sat in boredom, watching the occasional 5 or 6 magnitude wave pass by. We were now at plus twenty-seven minutes on our destination clock. I stood from my chair and began to gather and place the tools I would need for the change back to the original configuration. As I placed a Bilson wrench next to the deck grate, an alarm went off on my console. I rushed back to see what it was.

A 10.4 magnitude rogue wave was heading straight for us. I turned to run to wake Frig and was stopped in my tracks when the proximity sensor changed its tone. The wave was already upon us. I watched as Frig's algorithm attempted to compensate for the building charge. The graph quickly displayed 15 percent, then 20 percent, and then 25 percent. The speed indicator read an amazing 677 SOL. I had no way of manually controlling the compensation, so in a panic I did the only other thing I could think of. I slapped the all-stop button and shut down the ion engines. I then jumped to my feet and ran quickly back to the bunk room. Frig was fast asleep.

I tried repeatedly to wake him, but he was dead to the world. I then raced back to the console just as we exited the wave. I gave the engine a restart and quickly had the throttle at full. Our destination clock now read plus four minutes. And more importantly, we were still alive.

I let Frig sleep as the strength of the waves that followed continued to diminish. We had driven through the heart of the nebula, reaching a top speed of 677 SOL. In a little over sixteen hours, our journey would be ending—unless some other unforeseen event arose. When we had cleanly exited the nebula, I again shut down the engines and reconfigured them for regular operation. I was able to cut a full minute from my prior time, giving us a plus-five-minute buffer on the destination clock. I began to believe that we might just make it.

The flight had been peaceful for hours before Frig returned to the cockpit, a rested look on his face. "Should I assume that the remainder of the nebula was benign, sir?"

I turned toward him in my chair. "You could assume that. I didn't wake you, did I?"

Frig responded after looking at his console. "I see that our arrival time has dropped from plus twenty-seven minutes down to plus five. Is there something I am missing, sir?"

I replied, "Nope, everything was peachy. You got a rest that you deserved. I handled the rest of the nebula."

As Frig began to type on his console, he responded, "You do realize that I will be spending the next few hours going over the logs of what just transpired, don't you? I will know exactly what happened, and when it happened... sir."

I turned with a grin on my face. "Then I won't give you any spoilers. Wouldn't want to ruin your fun."

An engine alert popped up on Frig's console. The right alignment chamber was losing ions. Our speed was dropping, if only slightly. An adjustment to the destination time showed a deficit of three minutes. We were not going to make the delivery on time.

After several minutes pacing, Frig turned to me with a solution. Our repair room had an isolation chamber that would allow items to be taken down to near absolute zero. In deep space, any item attached to the hull had to be able to take extreme temperature fluctuations and continue to function. The isolation chamber allowed us to test those items before they were deployed.

"Sir, I believe we can place the cube in the isolation chamber and run the temperature to AZ. It might just slow the rate of the timer enough to give us a few more minutes. I am a little angry with myself for not having considered this earlier. It might have saved us more than an hour during our journey."

The cube was placed in the chamber and the temperature set to its lowest possible setting, absolute zero. We returned to the cockpit to wait out the remainder of our ride.

I said, "We've been blasting through our fuel for the last week. I'll be asking the admiral if he can top off the tank for us. Might get him to throw in some foodstuffs for us, as our stock is looking a little thin too."

Frig had no comment as he continued to scan the logs of the activity he had missed while sleeping.

We were soon decelerating from our top sustained speed. As we dropped through the speed at which a broadcast would travel, I blasted out a message to the admiral: We were coming in hot with his data and there were only a few minutes to spare. He should have a team ready to take and decrypt the data, data that could possibly save many lives when the Milgari once again returned.

We pulled into the spaceport and the cube was turned over to the admiral's men. They rushed off toward a lab as the temperature of the cube began to climb. Ten minutes later, we got word of the successful data download. The admiral would have his reaction charge dissipater technology. Our chances against the Milgari had just improved.

I slapped Frig on the shoulder. "Secret missions aboard a Durian warship. Never thought I'd be a spy. I might have to start walking with a swagger."

The admiral took care of our supply issues and made a generous donation to our credit store. As a show of support for his efforts to the cause, I decided to offer him our chamber alignment technology. It was over the objections of Frig, but I was growing leery of the influence I had seen being chatted about on the Grid.

Regular folk were talking openly about support for an alignment with the Milgari. It was typically the younger generation, who had not fought against our foe of nearly a thousand years. The talk was of joining with the Milgari Empire so we could live our lives in peace, something a mature mind knew was not possible.

I had lost my father and an older brother to the wars. I knew what being in their empire would mean to our freedom. As soon as our arms were laid down, we would become slaves, slaves that would be shipped off to work in their factories or mines, slaves that would live a miserable existence before our lives were discarded after being used up and burned out. Word of their cruelty had been documented time and again by other species we had encountered. The Milgari would never be our friends, and never our benevolent overlords.

The admiral graciously accepted our gift and in return offered to upgrade the Swift with the reaction charge dissipater technology we had just acquired for him. I accepted, and the Swift was taken into the facility repair dock for a retrofit. Frig remained unhappy about what he considered a "rash decision."

As we sat in the facility lounge, Frig began to speak his mind. "Sir... that speed advantage might have one day been the very thing that saved us from the admiral or his men. What if he decides we are no longer useful and have instead become a liability? What chance would we have of escaping from ships that are equally as fast but far superior to ours?"

The discussion continued for nearly an hour before I came to a decision on a subject I had thought about many times. "Frig, you've been my best friend for nearly a decade. We've gone from barely scraping by, to being wealthy businessmen who are involved in operations so secret we could not have even imagined them only a short year ago. Now, we are escaping pirates and cutting through nebulae. I think it's time we had a change in our relationship."

Frig glared at me with a strange look of suspicion. "What did you have in mind, sir."

I reached over and placed my hand on his shoulder, to which he withdrew with a nervous look.

"Noooo, no, no. It's nothing like that, man. I was talking about us being business partners, fifty-fifty down the line. I want to give you half ownership in the Swift. It's something I have been thinking about for a while."

Frig sat silent for several minutes. "I'm shocked, sir. This was not expected. I have always held in the back of my mind that I wanted a ship of my own someday, but I never imagined it would be like this, with this ship. You have been like a brother to me, sir, a brother that I never had. You have been my family since I left my world, a world that fell to the Milgari."

Frig again sat silent for several seconds before continuing. "I would be honored to accept your offer, sir, but I cannot. There is something about me and the other Gambits on the Grid that you should know."

I sat back in my chair and waved my hand in the air. "What could you possibly have to tell me that you haven't told me a thousand times over the past decade? You have a wife? Seventeen kids? Your name is really Bob? What?"

Frig looked toward the floor with a troubled look on his face. "I'm afraid, sir, that it is much different than any of those things. On my world I was an aspiring student. I sought out education on any subject I could obtain the documentation for. I read voraciously, consuming all I could find. My parents were proud of their son, and I of them."

Frig rustled in his chair. "At a young age I was spirited away to a school for the gifted, where everything was paid for and every technology and science was made available. There were twenty-two of us attending this new school. As the year progressed, we were introduced to things we had never imagined. Things that every Gambit would have been thrilled to know.

"Then, the teachers began to change their methods. Instead of being rewarded for our accomplishments, we were chastised for our failures. Threats were made of expulsion if we did not comply with every command of our teachers. I'm afraid a high level of psychological manipulation was applied to our learning. We were taught to hate the Grid and all it stood for. Lies upon lies about the Humans and what they were about were drilled into our minds, sir. It was a frightening and yet exciting time for a young Gambit such as myself.

"Over the course of the second year, we were indoctrinated into the Milgari cult. We believed that Humans were evil and their culture corrupt. We were told that Human thoughts and actions would soon infest our youth and infect our culture, destroying our way of life. Through the manipulation, we were even turned against our own parents, being told they were secret supporters of Man."

I sat forward in my chair, confused. "The Milgari what?"

Frig replied, "When our training was complete, we were given the opportunity to work for the Milgari, to rid the galaxy of the Human infestation that threatened our world. It was a mission we all eagerly accepted. A mission to be spies for the Milgari."

I sat across the table from my friend in complete shock. I had never expected him to say something like that, and would not have believed it if told to me by anyone else.

Frig continued with his story. "For ten years I have been living on the Grid, logging things I have seen and people I have encountered. The intel is edited and then graded for importance before being dropped on the Grid for pickup by others who are not known to me. I offered my service as a Messenger so my focus would be on the worlds we encountered. My reports have been about every species you and I have dealt with, sir."

I shook my head, still confused, "You've been keeping logs?"

"The next drop is to happen in two weeks. All that has happened here, our enhancements, our accomplishments, this facility, and the admiral himself, they are all in the report I was preparing to send. This new technology and interaction with the Durians, its divulgence would have been a devastating blow to the Grid and to the admiral's efforts."

A sat shocked. Unable to speak.

"I am telling you this, sir, because I have grown fond of Humans. Fond of you, sir. You insult and belittle me on a daily basis, but I know it is all in jest. And today, here and now, you have shown me what it is to be a true Human, a man of honor, a man who cares for and respects others. Those are not the Human traits we were taught to believe. Those are not the actions we were told to expect."

I sat with my elbows on the arms of my chair, my hands fingertip to fingertip in an almost prayer-like position just in front of my mouth. I was stunned.

# Chapter 11

### _______________________

After several seconds' pause, Frig said, "For nine years I have had little of substance to report. But that has all changed in this past year. I no longer loathe Humans, and I will no longer report to the Milgari Empire, regardless of the threats I have received in the past. I hope you can forgive me, sir. I wish to be turned over to the admiral at your earliest possible convenience. I am sorry, my friend, Don... I have not lived up to your expectations."

I was floored. Frig and the other Gambits on the Grid were all Milgari spies. He again called for me to turn him over to the admiral. I stood and began to pace the room.

After several minutes of gathering my thoughts, I finally said, "You have just thrown me for a loop, Frig. That whole tale... it's bizarre... it's not something I could ever have imagined."

Frig began to reply, I raised my hand. "You'll have to bear with me for a few minutes as I soak this in. A Milgari spy. A MILGARI SPY! I am just blown away! You could have taken down the whole Human species by yourself. That is real power, my friend. But you've somehow come to the conclusion that we are worth saving, a conclusion that was not forced upon you, a conclusion you were not tricked or cajoled into. Wow, this is... unreal."

I again held up my hand for Frig to remain silent while I thought for a moment. Was this happening? My best friend was a spy for the species that wanted us dead? As my shock slowly turned to anger I began to ball up my fists. I wanted to pound my little green friend into oblivion. My heart battled with my mind over what to do.

As I angrily gazed at Frig, I began to realize that the look of sorrow on his face was genuine. He had placed his life in my hands. And then something happened deep down inside me. My anger slowly turned to contemplation about the situation; I began to think of what life would be like without Frig. He had saved our butts a hundred times. Aside from his secret life, he had been nothing but a true friend. My thoughts soon turned to how I might turn this horrifying news into something that could benefit my species.

As I dropped my hand, I pointed to him and then to myself. "OK, here's what we're going to do. And you're going to agree to it, or I'm gonna beat you like there is no tomorrow before turning you over to the admiral."

I paused for acknowledgment and then continued. "When we return to the Grid, you're going to write your report and deliver it to the drop as scheduled. But there will be a few changes to it. We need to dumb it down to the same drivel you said you reported in prior years.

"No... wait! This is huge. We need to think big on this one."

I turned and continued to pace the room. "Is there anything we can come up with to report that would possibly convince the Milgari to leave us alone? Even a delay would work, something to give the admiral more time to build his fleet. And we'll need to do something to turn the other Gambits if possible. Oh! Imagine the fun we could have at the Milgari's expense!"

I looked Frig in the eye. "You are going to have to show me that you can be trusted, that you have truly turned. If you're serious about righting the wrongs you've committed, it's time to start working on your penance. They did teach you about penance, didn't they? About making right for what you've done wrong? I mean, I myself am not big on penance, just ask Michael Felix about that one. But there's a time and a place for just about everything, and I believe this is your time to set things right."

As we continued our discussion, Frig's mood began to change. He was adamant about making amends. I pushed him to accept the past and to move on to the future, a future where he would be supporting the Human cause as a double agent. We had much planning to do to get his next report in line with what would be beneficial to the cause. We talked of involving the admiral.

"I'm wondering if we should speak with Zimmerman about this. He'd have the resources on his team who could make the best of the situation. But I'm concerned that you might get caught in the middle while being used as a pawn. I'm not sure it's worth risking your life with someone pulling the strings who doesn't value you as an individual. And once we get them involved, there's no turning back."

Frig raised his head. "Sir, whatever you think is best. I am willing to participate either way. If I am to be used as a pawn and my life sacrificed, then so be it. I have years of disservice to make up for."

I again looked my friend in the eye. "I say we start that payback when we return to the station. Let's manage our own little part of this war on our terms. When we get back, I think it's time you began to associate with the other Gambits. It would be interesting to find out if any of the others feel the same way you do."

Frig concurred.

The admiral's men completed the upgrade to the Swift, and we immediately left for home.

When we arrived at the station, Ashley Elizabeth was waiting for me at the space dock. "Hello, Don, I heard you were on your way in, so I decided to come down to welcome you back."

It was a meeting I was not expecting, but a meeting I was pleased to have. Frig returned to his apartment to begin work on his report. I took the opportunity to spend some quality time with the woman of my dreams. We had dinner and then went for a walk along the outer decks.

We finally parted ways for the evening after a heavy make-out session, the likes of which I had not seen in a long time. I was quickly falling under her spell. It was a spell I openly welcomed. As I walked back toward my apartment, I had little hearts spinning around my head—until a comm call came in from the dock captain.

"Mr. Grange, you asked me to let you know if anyone was ever messing around in your slip. Well, there's a guy there now who is walking around and poking at the Swift. You want me to go run him off?"

I thought for a moment, then replied, "No, let him be, but keep an eye on him. I'm on my way there now."

I turned toward the docks and sprinted. The run was two miles' distance and I was out of shape. When I arrived, I had to take a minute to catch my breath. I walked into the dock captain's office.

"He's still there, Mr. Grange. He's had some little instrument of sorts out, poking about your hull with it."

I took a hard look at the captain's monitor. "Can't say I've seen him before. He look familiar to you?"

The captain shook his head. "No, can't say that he does. I've worked this dock for forty-seven years now and I'm pretty good with faces, but I don't recall seeing him around. Of course, with the number of people who move through here, I'm not going to see everyone."

The man snooping about the Swift soon departed. I thanked the captain for his assistance and dropped two hundred credits in his store. I asked that he use them to take his wife out to a nice dinner. He happily accepted my terms. I walked out onto the deck and over to the Swift. I checked her for tracking devices or any signs of tampering. None were apparent. I turned and waved to the captain before heading back toward my apartment. It had been a long day and I was in need of a shower and some sleep.

When I arrived at my residence, Alpha 2267C, I was angered to see the door had been jimmied open. I drew my blaster and checked each room for intruders. The apartment was empty. I stepped into the spare room I used for my office and was again angered. Someone had gone through my files, dropping contract papers on the floor as they had rummaged through them. The rest of the apartment was clean. It was evident the contracts were the item of interest to whomever had broken in.

I paced the floor of my office for several minutes as I pondered who might have been responsible. First the man at my ship, and now my apartment. Someone was taking a deep interest in my work, and I had no idea who. It would not be Michael Felix, as he always played by the book. If he couldn't screw me in a legal manner, he would not do it at all.

For the first time, I came to the realization that the work I was doing was of high interest to a lot of people. The Milgari spies would want to know, as it related to their conquest; the politicians on the Grid would want to know, as anything related to military construction was usually credits in their pockets; and the other Messengers would want to know because I was winning the most-sought-after contracts. I had enemies now. And my first mate, well, he had just admitted to being a spy for the last ten years...

I soon received a message from the dock captain that contained the video streams of the lurker. I played through the images repeatedly, but could not come up with a good image of his face—assuming it was a he. They wore a hood that hung out over their forehead, obscuring views of their face from the deck cameras.

I could only guess they had done similar tasks before, as their methods seemed particular and well planned. They had performed any number of scans of the exterior of the Swift. The extended tantric hull plating was the only obvious difference in her appearance. That was not highly unusual for an owner who had credits to spend, and of late, I had been one of those owners.

The following day I received an urgent message about a contract. It was from a Gambit on the Grid. He had a small package that required immediate delivery to a little-traveled location. I would meet with an unknown ship for the transfer of the package. I would normally have taken the job without a second thought due to the high pay, but I was now becoming cautious.

I met the Gambit at the dock lounge. He seemed jittery. He paid the full delivery fee up front, which was highly unusual. He then turned and hurried off, looking nervously from side to side as he went.

When I turned back around, Frig was standing behind me. "Sir, this is a trap. He would not entrust you with a package if he had not been told to do so. I believe the ship that will be waiting for us will be looking for more than a drop-off. I think you should cancel."

I thought for a moment before responding, "No, I think we're taking this one. I get the feeling there's something going on here that we want to know. We have a fast ship that has good sensors and a tough hull. If things get dicey, we can always turn and run. We may take a few hits, but they're likely to be light, as whoever this is will either want to talk to us or to get their hands on the Swift. Besides, the pay is good."

With that, I smiled as I turned to walk to the ship. Frig was not amused.

The Gambit's package was waiting with a courier when we arrived. He had a contract ready for our signature. Once it was signed, the courier turned, gave us a nod, and walked away. I took the package aboard the Swift and stuffed it in a locker.

Frig followed immediately behind. "Sir, are you not going to scan it for signals? It could be a tracking device. It would give away our speed to anyone who could listen for it."

I turned to Frig with a response. "You're a partner now. You don't have to ask my permission to scan the thing. Just take it, set it up in your lab, and do whatever you can without harming it. As part of your shared partnering duties, it has been decided that you will be our primary security officer."

Frig looked at me with an unsure gaze. He was not accustomed to making decisions on his own.

"I see, sir. Rest assured I will perform my duties as partner to the fullest extent possible. However, I may occasionally require assistance from time to time, until I am fully practiced at making decisions about the ship on my own."

As Frig went about his business, I sat in the pilot's chair and began the standard sequence for departure. "Control, this is 5509, we need a clean departure bay. We are departing slip A442. Destination direction will be an exit at eighty-six degrees. We have a package for delivery in the Schnell sector. Should be a total of six days until return."

The radio buzzed as the controller responded. "Roger, 5509, you are clear for departure bay A41C. Good luck with your travels."

I taxied the Swift to elevator A6, which took us down to level 41. From there it was a short run to bay C, where we aligned for launch. Seconds later, we lifted out into space as the Swift's ion engines sprang to life.

I loved the feeling I got from flying close to the station. We stayed tight to follow the contour of the Grid around to its far side. The giant, globe-like station was a thing of beauty. The massive gun turrets with their silvery barrels and hulls were impressive as we flew past each one along the circumference of the Grid. They had been well tested in battle, allowing us the distance needed for a fast run to a new system.

The Grid's best defense was its gravity drive. Fusion reactors powered massive gravity generators that could launch the Grid to a speed of more than a thousand times the speed of light. Once a jump was begun, there was no stopping until the hydrogen fuel had been exhausted. Our scientists and engineers had worked tirelessly to unravel the drive's secrets, but the technology it employed was beyond our grasp. It had come with the station we called home, from a past we didn't know.

As we rounded the Grid, I pushed the throttle to a normal high-speed level. Once out of range of her sensors, I would push the throttle to full.

Frig soon returned with his scan analysis. "Sir, it appears to be free of any combustive materials and signal emanation. As a precaution, I placed the package into an inhibitor chamber with a monitor. For anyone to track our location, they would need to stay close to us. I believe we are not in any danger from the package at this time."

The flight out to the Schnell sector normally took three days. We arrived in one. The rendezvous point was near a gas-giant planet in an uninhabited system. The blue star was only forty million years into its young life, leaving large disks of debris that had yet to coalesce. I selected an asteroid and planted the Swift firmly on one side. Frig launched a matrix probe to take care of our blind side. If any ship entered the system from any direction, we would know about it.

I mused: "I wonder what was so important that your friend was willing to chance it with us? To my knowledge, that's the first Gambit that has had anything shipped anywhere off the Grid. Were you able to determine what the package contains?"

Frig punched a few keys and a diagram popped up on his monitor. "The outer box is designed to look as if it's a gem carrier. There is, however, an inner box. It has been manufactured to appear as an Elgaris emerald if scanned from the outside. I was able to perform a deep scan and have uncovered a data structure dispersed throughout. The data is highly encrypted. I have had the ship's computer running in the background in an attempt to decipher it.

"I would like to add that the admiral was generous with our upgraded computer. It is at least three orders of magnitude faster than our old one. I have estimated the time needed to unlock this cipher at approximately forty-six point five hours. It has been running for twelve. With a bit of luck, we will have an answer before the arrival of our client."

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. "What do you think the Gambit was so eager to send? Was it us? Or was it the admiral and his mission? Defense plans of the Grid? It had to be something of importance."

Frig looked up from his console. "Yes, sir. I believe it to be something of high importance. In sending this directly, he would be violating one of the cardinal rules of what we were taught: never make contact without at least five layers of deniability in front of you. I would drop a report, not knowing who picked that report up. According to our training, they would then repackage and make another unknown drop. That individual would encode the data with a key and then transmit that package and key to two separate individuals.

"The key and data were then dropped to another unknown, who then decoded, repackaged, and dropped to the final courier. I have estimated many times that the process takes almost a week before a report leaves the Grid. It is an extremely time-consuming process, but the results of ten years without raising suspicion speak for themselves. I could not say if this Gambit is acting on orders or alone. We will, however, find out, if I can open that data structure."

Frig continued with his efforts to crack the encryption as I sat back in my chair for a game of Bollox. The cockpit remained strangely silent for the following eighteen hours. Frig had a challenge before him that he could not ignore. I made my way back to my bunk for a rest. I was soon dreaming of Ashley.

# Chapter 12

### _______________________

The following day a ship arrived in the blue star's system. It took up a position beside the gas giant as indicated in the contract description. Frig took a moment from his decryption task to perform a deep scan of the newly arrived vessel. His reaction to the scan told of his confusion.

"Sir, this cannot be correct. The scan is showing the ship to be a Gambit destroyer named the Galis. I remember the Galis, sir. She was freshly commissioned before the Grid's arrival into our system. I had been told that raiders had invaded our world and that all ships had been destroyed. The Milgari supposedly came to our rescue, but I have always suspected it was the Milgari who were the raiders all along. I am baffled by this ship's existence... and I am curious to know why it is here."

Four hours remained until our designated meeting time.

I replied, "I'm curious to know who they are too. Looks like, from the scarring on her hull, the Galis has seen some action. I say we take the time to finish your decryption before we drop that data off. Could be useful to the cause."

Frig agreed, returning his efforts to the task at hand. The rendezvous time was soon upon us.

"How much longer do you think you will need on that decrypt? We are ten minutes from delivery time if we go by the contract. I'm good with a delay if you need it."

Frig continued to tap away at the keys on his console without looking up. "I'm on the last layer of sixty as we speak, sir. I would estimate we should be done within two hours. We have a large data store on the ship, but I am becoming concerned the crystalline structure of this simulated gem may hold up to ten times what we have available. If so, we may need extra time to decide what we would like to save."

I began to pull up the details of the Gambit destroyer from the ship's archives. Since it had been commissioned while we were on friendly terms with the Gambit, the data had been filed in the ship identification storage unit, along with the standard data on more than 136,000 other military vessels.

I looked over the information. "You take all the time you need. If they get antsy and decide to leave, we can always signal or follow them. I'd like to know what's in that data."

Two hours passed before Frig raised his hands. "We are through. I'll have a summary of the data sections ready in a few minutes. From there, we can pick and choose what we believe to be of the highest importance.

"I have been contemplating additional ways to store this information, sir. It may be possible to transfer the data to another crystal. I took the time to scan the asteroid we have been sitting on, and it is high in quartz content. I believe I have located a sufficiently large crystal to replicate the data into, but it will require several more hours of our time, and the use of our ion laser, which in turn may give away our position."

Again, Frig had found a way to accomplish that which seemed impossible.

I hummed. "What if I can get this rock twisted around so we stay on the other side of it from the Galis? Would you be able to use the laser without detection?"

Frig thought for a moment. "I believe I would, sir. Please make that happen as I continue to break down the information."

I began the task of pumping the Swift's fuel from one wing tank to the other. I hoped the slight inertial force of the fuel moving would be enough to set the asteroid into a slow spin. If it worked, I would pump the fuel in reverse to bring the spin to a halt once again when the asteroid was in the optimum position. It was a simple solution that had every reason to work. I smiled and nodded to myself as I leaned back in my chair. I, too, had accomplished the impossible.

Our matrix probe continued to monitor the Gambit ship as the hours ticked by. We were four hours overdue when the probe detected a fluctuation in the Galis's engines. "Uh, Frig, looks like they are getting ready to leave. What's your status on that data burn?"

Frig scanned his console display. "We are 82 percent complete. We will need another eighteen minutes for the remaining transfer, sir. If you can find a way, get them to stay."

The Gambit vessel began to move, turning in the direction from which it had come. "We're out of time. I can buy us about two minutes of time by making contact now. If they jump to light-speed before that, I don't know if we can catch up without an exact trajectory. I'm sure we are faster, but we have to be aimed in the same direction to catch them. Tell me what to do."

Frig began to type on his keyboard with a flurry of taps. "I need four minutes minimum, sir. At that point I can store the remaining data in the ship's store. If we have to stop before then, some data will be lost. Do what you can to buy as much time as you can, sir. I will do my best complete the task."

As our sensors detected the ion emissions of a full burn, I sent a signal to the Galis. We were there. Several seconds later the ship changed direction toward our location. As I had predicted, she rounded the asteroid in just under two minutes. Frig cut his ion laser transfer and I lifted the Swift slowly from our hiding place.

We were given a visual signal to approach and land in a docking bay on the side of the Galis. I confirmed with a flash of my own landing lights and proceeded toward the dock. We touched down on the deck and I opened the rear hatch. A Gambit colonel was standing in front of me, waiting for the package.

"Mr. Grange, on behalf of the Free Alliance of Worlds, I thank you for your assistance. I believe you have something for us?"

The colonel was looking past me into the hold of the Swift.

"Is there something else I can help you with, Colonel?"

I turned, expecting to see Frig standing behind me. He had gone into the bunk room.

"Ah, let me get you that package, Colonel, so we can get out of your hair." I walked back, opened the door to the bunk room, and stepped in. "Hey, what are you hiding from? That's your people out there. I would think you would want to at least acknowledge them."

Frig looked at me with trepidation in his eyes. "Sir, I would like to greet them. But I have been a betrayer of my people for the past decade. It was our ranks who opened the doors for the Milgari slaughter of our citizens. I did not know it at the time, but the data in that crystal confirmed it. I am a traitor, and do not deserve to be looked upon."

The colonel called out for his package as I looked down at my broken friend. "I'll have it in a moment, Colonel! Be right out! Frig, the one thing you have not taken into account is the fact that you have come full circle. Everything you do from here on out will be for your people and not against. You are a soldier for the cause now. It's now time to stand up and be counted with the right side."

I turned from the bunk room and made my way to the package. It was soon in the hands of a thankful colonel. As I turned back toward the room, alarms began to sound on the Galis's docking bay. I ran back to my proximity screen to see a Milgari cruiser closing fast. The Galis shuddered as its engine went to full.

Frig was soon at his console. "Sir, that cruiser is far more powerful than the Galis. Our shields are solid. Might I suggest we try to draw fire to give the Galis time to escape?"

I had no desire to take hits from a Milgari cruiser, but Frig was right: our shielding might just give the Galis time to flee. Only because of us were they still in the system.

I replied, "OK, bring her online and let's punch out of here and see what she can handle."

I pushed the button for the external mic. "This is the Swift. We're gonna see if we can distract our friends out there. Best of luck to you. We're fighting the same battle."

We lifted off. With a precision move, Frig had us out of the bay as the blast doors began to close. We took an immediate hard turn directly at the Milgari cruiser, bringing our ion cannon online. As we approached, the Milgari launched a hundred fighters. They were fast, nearly as fast as the Swift, but we soon found their armor to be weak.

I yelled as I fired our cannon. "Boom, baby! Boom! These things are just target practice. We've taken sixteen strikes from their bolt weapons. That active armor and charge dissipater are awesome. We could fight these things all day!"

Frig pulled hard left on the stick as an ion cannon fired in our direction. The defense sensors popped up a 37 percent hit with zero damage.

I pulled up the targeting grid and let fly an ion pulse from our cannon. I could just make out the visual details of debris leaving the side of the Milgari cruiser as the cannon charge impacted her hull. I continued to fire as Frig flew us through the maze of fighters. The cruiser soon turned its sights on the Galis.

With a single shot, the Galis's port engine began to spew ions to the side. Her speed began to slow. Frig flew in close to the cruiser as I let out a hail of ion cannon bursts, ripping a number of holes in the Milgari's hull. But the damage was little more than a scratch to the exterior of the much-larger ship. The cruiser continued to close on the crippled Gambit destroyer.

A second direct hit took the Galis's port engine completely offline. They would not be making light-speed. I had the sudden realization there was no escape for the Galis. As a sign of valiant defiance, the ship's captain turned back toward the cruiser for a head-on encounter. The first blast from the Milgari ship only blackened the thicker hull plating of the Galis's forward decks.

Frig flew us within range of the cruiser's starboard cannon. I fired repeated pulses into the panels surrounding the turret and was rewarded with a number of minor explosions. The starboard turret had lost its ability to maneuver. The Milgari captain adjusted his course for direct volleys, firing two more bolts into the destroyer. The Galis shuddered as her forward plates buckled under the powerful charges.

Frig again circled in close to the cruiser as I unleashed another hail of bursts, this time taking the starboard cannon offline. But the Milgari had come to claim a prize, a prize that now maneuvered helplessly toward them. A final charge from the Milgari cruiser's port cannon ripped through the Galis from fore to aft. All decks were soon ablaze. An immense fireball could be seen reflecting off the Milgari cruiser as the hydrogen tanks aboard the Galis ruptured.

I yelled, "Frig, get us out of here! Before they get a shot at us with that other cannon. Our fight is over."

Frig countered: "I would like one more pass at them, sir. The Milgari captains are an arrogant lot. I am betting the bridge is right up there on top-forward where the captain can sit and watch the action. Prepare your cannon for one more series of rounds, sir. I will get you as close as I can."

The Swift made a hard bank, bringing us in upside down to the supposed Milgari bridge. I managed five ion streams, all aimed at a large forward view-port. The bolts ripped through the surrounding structure and I could see explosions going off within her. Frig continued the roll as he pushed the Swift's throttle to full. I took one final look back at the disintegrating hull of the Galis. The cruiser finished its mission with a final shot.

The Milgari were quick to change direction in pursuit of their new foe. The first charge from their cannon struck the Swift dead on from behind. Our defensive sensors shot to 96 percent, with 2 percent damage reported. As our speed increased and we continued to move away, the effectiveness of their weapon was drastically reduced. We were soon past light-speed and out of range.

I took a deep breath. "Wow. That was intense. I was not expecting to get caught up in something like that. Wish we could've done more for the Galis. They would've been gone if we hadn't dragged our feet."

Frig lifted his head and turned toward me. "Perhaps there is something we can do. Before they turned to fight, the colonel sent us an encrypted message. I'm working on decoding it now. I suggest we return to the asteroid and retrieve that crystal. The data on it might be somehow useful to us."

I took the controls and turned the Swift back toward the asteroid, slowing before our arrival to scan for the Milgari cruiser. It had left the area.

As we set down on the asteroid, Frig turned with news. "Sir, the colonel sent out the location of their next rendezvous point. A second Gambit ship will be waiting there for fourteen hours. We can make it in eight, but we need to retrieve that crystal from the asteroid."

The thought of a second Gambit ship had Frig excited, if a Gambit could be excited. A small repair bot was sent to the asteroid surface. The quartz crystal was retrieved, with all the data it contained. With the new destination entered into the Swift's nav computer, we lifted off and pushed the throttle full. In eight hours we would rendezvous with a second Gambit ship.

As we flew, Frig broke down. "I can't believe some of my people are still alive. For a decade, I believed the other spies on the Grid to be the last of us."

"We all deserve a second chance. With what we've done for the admiral, your sins have already been paid for."

When we arrived, a much-older Gambit cruiser was waiting. Frig forwarded the encoded message we had received from the Galis. We were invited aboard and the captain came to greet us personally.

"Mr. Grange, I am pleased to see you, but at the same time greatly saddened. Colonel Jeamus was a true patriot. He overthrew the traitorous Captain Renaud only hours before... well, before the Galis's destruction.

"He worked his way up through the Milgari/Gambit corps over the last eleven years. His death and the loss of the Galis and her crew are a heavy blow to us. The data you carried to him—were you able to capture the transmission he blasted out? We are not sure what information it contained, but it is possibly information that could be used to defend your Grid."

Frig stepped from the bunk room behind me. "Captain Sumrue, my name is Bartel Helbris. For many years I have gone by the alias of Frigbimifier. I would like to turn myself over to you as a traitor to all of Gambrel. I am one of the original Merfet spies. I have been doing the Milgari's bidding on the Grid for the past decade. I will humbly accept whatever punishment you choose for my transgressions."

The captain held his hand up to rub his chin. He then looked hard at Frig before responding.

"Son, you were not the only one they duped. We've been coming across Merfet spies for years. The galaxy is littered with them. You are one of tens of thousands that were cajoled and lied to, brainwashed into the actions you have taken. The fact that you are confessing here to me today tells me that you have seen the light. You now know who the true evil in the galaxy is.

"Jeamus sent you the entire recording of the battle just before the Galis was destroyed. You fought well, a fight that any Gambit would be proud of. But as you say, I am going to give you the punishment you are deserving of. I hereby commission you as an officer of the Free Alliance. Your punishment will be to serve the FA with all the character and heart you just displayed out there against that cruiser. We need soldiers, Bartel, and as far as I can tell, you are fighting for the right side now, so keep it up."

I could see Frig's eyes tearing up. He had never been one to show much emotion. I wasn't always sure he was capable of it. He slowly raised his fist to underneath his chin. The captain followed with the same in response.

Frig said, "Captain, we have your data. It is partially held in the Swift's store, with the bulk of it contained in this quartz crystal. We made a copy before delivering it to the Galis. It would have otherwise been lost. If you show me to your engineering lab, I can assist in the data retrieval."

Frig headed off with another engineer. The captain invited me to the officer's mess for a bite to eat. He began to pick my brain for information on the war readiness of the Grid.

"Tell me of the efforts on the Grid. Have you made any new allies? Any breakthroughs that could help defeat the Milgari?"

I nodded. "As usual, I think there are a lot of politicians who have their own interests in mind over those of the Grid. We even have some that are calling for us to join with the Milgari so the wars would end."

The captain sat forward in his chair. "Complacency seems to be a common theme that builds just before the next attack. The Milgari do not add other species to their empire. They enslave or eliminate. They have no interest in any other arrangements. My people, those who survived, and excluding the few drafted into their military, are nothing more than miners and factory workers, forced to harvest resources or build ships for their masters.

"They are merciless butchers. My wife and oldest son were killed in the initial raids, and my youngest son, Davin, is believed to be working in an ore mine... if he is alive at all. We only have a handful of ships at our disposal, and most of our time is spent running from the enemy. There is a large resistance out there, with many subjugated species involved, but our numbers pale in comparison to those of the Milgari, by a factor of at least thirty to one."

The captain again scratched his chin. "I am curious as to how Bartel came to be in your employ. We have managed only one turn of a captured Merfet agent since the Milgari took our planet. What brought him to his senses? Was he somehow wronged by his handlers?"

I told the captain what I knew about Frig, about how I had never suspected, and would never have suspected, he was a spy for the enemy. I could only guess his experience with Humans, in particular his experience with me, had somehow convinced him we were not the animals the Milgari had led him to believe. I told him how my offer of a partnership was the final piece of the puzzle he needed, and how he had seen the truth. He had come to his current conclusions on his own.

The remainder of the day was spent in discussions with the Gambit captain. I promised him I would relay his pleas for assistance to those on the Grid who could possibly help. We were on the same side in the war, and those who took up arms against the Milgari were our allies. Our fight was a good fight.

Frig returned with news of the data from the crystal. "Sir, the data contains the names of nearly three hundred individuals on the Grid who are spying for the Milgari. Myself, the Gambit who provided this information, and the other five Gambits on the station are all listed in detail. I can only guess that whoever gathered this information used it to force that Gambit to come to you. There are some dangerous games being played on the Grid, sir, dangerous to us all."

The captain made a copy of the data on the crystal before placing it in my hand. "Take this to whomever you trust with it. This is Grid information. I'm not sure how our contact there was able to get this, but I'm sure you can make use of it. If you find out who that agent is, take care to assist them in any way you can. Our eyes and ears are sometimes all that's keeping us alive."

I thanked the captain for his trust and his efforts. I would do what I could to further his cause—our cause. Frig said his goodbyes and we boarded the Swift.

"I should be fighting with them, sir. Those are the people who are willing to risk everything for our freedom, a freedom that I have worked tirelessly against for the last decade. I'm not sure what value I can be to the cause on my own."

As I pushed the throttle to full, I turned to my best friend. "Bartel, you are resourceful, skilled at everything you take on. You have saved our butts repeatedly. The best place for you to be right now is right where you are. We're taking this information to the admiral, and we'll continue this fight on our terms. The contributions you can make from that seat where you are sitting are far more valuable to this fight than anything you could do back there on that cruiser. Besides, where would I find another partner dumb enough to sign on with me?"

# Chapter 13

### _______________________

After giving the information from the crystal to the admiral's team, we headed back to the Grid. Just after landing, a private businessman approached with a substantial contract offer. He wanted us to gather information on a rival who was building a factory. It was a long distance from the Grid. He wanted all the information we could gather over a two-day period. I wasn't sure how a factory at that distance would be considered competitive, but it seemed like a gravy run, so I heartily accepted.

We were told the factory was being constructed on or around Kelvin-7. It was a five-month journey under normal travel conditions, a journey that we could make in six weeks. We reloaded our supplies and lifted off early after only a night's rest.

The flight to the Kelvin system was peaceful... and boring. We slowed as we came to the outer reaches of the system, sending a matrix probe in to do our dirty work. It would passively gather information for a day and then blast that information back to our location using a tight microbeam transmission. If the first matrix returned data showing the presence of a factory, we would send in two more probes the following day.

"Would you rather I call you Bartel or Frig? I mean, seems a bit strange calling you by a fictitious name now. Besides, even though you act like a Frig, you look more like a Bartel."

Frig glanced up from his console. "I'm not sure what you mean by that statement. You may decide for yourself that which you will call me. I believe you will do that regardless of my decision. While you ponder that, sir, I do have a more relevant topic to discuss."

"What do you have?"

"In my spare time I have been looking over the specs for the ion cannon given to us by the admiral. I'm wondering if we could apply some of the same channeling alignment updates to the cannon's recombination chamber. The cannon works on virtually the same principles, only the power is applied in a burst instead of a long, slow release. I believe an update to be achievable, sir."

Again, I had to remind Frig he was a partner in this endeavor and he didn't need my permission to do research. All I asked was to be informed if any action was to be taken that would affect us both. I did not require he ask to pump out the bilge, only that I be told it had been done.

Frig continued: "If my calculations are correct, we should see a—"

The data alarms sounded indicating a blast from the matrix probe was on its way in. Our monitors began to fill with information from the prior day's surveillance.

"Whoa! That is a big piece of machinery they are constructing there. I can't say I have ever seen a factory like that. What do you think that is? It's almost a hundred kilometers long."

Frig punched away on his keyboard, bringing up multiple simulated views. "I'm not exactly sure, sir. It does have multiple power ports along its axis. If my count is correct, that will give it the power equivalent of eight battleships. The only conclusion I can draw is it is some type of weapon. Extrapolating from the progress completed in a day, I would have to say it has been just over a year in production.

"And I believe those blips in the background are Milgari vessels, sir. We have evidently stumbled upon a forward base of theirs. I can't say I am fond of being here right now, sir. Not a good place to be caught spying."

I studied the images for several minutes. "That's one huge ion cannon, that's what that is. Look at the ports here and here, these four exchanges and that complex bridge at the end—that has 'cannon' written all over it. What are the implications of a cannon that size being used against the Grid?"

Frig punched away at his keyboard as he scanned data estimates. "I believe you are correct, sir. It is indeed an ion cannon. Only there are a few pieces I do not recognize. This one in particular troubles me. If they have achieved integration with a harmonic focusing apparatus, the beam from this weapon would remain near optimum power when fired from half a light-year away. The Grid would have no defense against it."

I placed a hand behind my head to stroke the hair on the back of my neck. "And look at the back end of this thing. That is a power system if I have ever seen one. They could set this beast up just outside of our sensor range and blast away at the Grid before we had a chance to run. We've taken solid hits from their weapons before, but nothing like the power this thing would expel. A hit from that could sink deep into her structure."

I took a deep breath. "I think we need to get this information back as soon as possible. It might be time to pack up and leave the Mensa sector. We can't defend against a weapon that powerful."

Frig then turned toward me, speaking in a calm voice. "May I suggest an alternate plan, sir? Perhaps we should stay here for a few more days and gather more information. That weapon will not be completed for months. With the right information, it might be possible for the admiral to devise a plan to destroy it, sir."

I continued to rub the back of my neck as I sat back in my chair. "I don't know if he could get in close enough to do any damage. From the number of ships I can see, it looks like half of their fleet is parked out there. If you noticed, they have pickets parked all around this system, monitoring almost every inch of space. Had we not lucked out and come in behind that asteroid field, we might as well have come in flying flags."

After a short discussion, I bowed to Frig's reasoning. The weapon was not going to be used tomorrow. And if we could gather information that would be useful for its destruction, it was worth the wait. I twiddled my thumbs while looking over the data as Frig continued his study of upgrading our ion cannon.

A dozen uneventful hours passed before I retired to the bunk room. I had only just dozed off into a sound sleep when a hand grabbed my shoulder and shook me.

"Sir, I think you will want to see this. I keep rechecking my calculations for an error, but I can find none. Our ion cannon, sir. I think we should begin the upgrade as soon as possible."

I rubbed my eyes and then blinked twice, heavily, as I sat up on my bunk. "You had to let me fall asleep, didn't you? I would have thought you knew by now that waking a Human just after they've fallen asleep is bad luck."

We headed back to the cockpit. "I don't see how me waking you is bad luck, sir."

I grabbed his shoulder as we walked. "Well, it was bad luck for me, and since you are trapped on this bucket now with a grumpy Human, I'd say it was bad luck for you. Now, what was so important?"

Frig pulled up an image of his modification for the ion cannon upgrade. It did indeed look similar to that of the EID we had added to our engines. What caught my eye was the new estimated power output.

"Sir, the EID addition to the engines yielded a linear power increase. In the instance of the ion cannon, sir, that increase turns exponential. With this upgrade, our cannon should be as powerful as the battle cannon on those Milgari battleships."

I again blinked several times to get the sleep out of my eyes. "Well, what's the holdup? Do we have the parts on board to make this mod? And... from that look on your face... there is something else you haven't told me. What's cooking up there?"

Frig pointed to the graph on his console. "Our problem is right here, sir. We do not have the power output on this small vessel to drive that modification."

I studied the graph intently. "So, you're saying we can build it, we just can't fire it. Seems like you already have the answer as to whether we do it or not."

Frig changed pages on his display. "Here, sir. I ran the calculations... we can fire the weapon, but it will require a five-minute recharge before we can fire it again. I believe I can cut that number down substantially if I can reroute the engine feeds directly into the cannon chamber, sir."

Frig had a way of doling out information a piece at a time. I was sure he took satisfaction from the fact that it drove me crazy.

I said, "If we can build it and if we can power it, then what's the holdup? Tell me what I can do."

Frig looked back at his monitor. "There is one more bit of information, sir. There is a 32.4 percent chance the diversion of the engine feeds would cause a flare-out. If so, we would have no propulsion for thirty-four seconds. As much time as it takes for a basic engine reboot, sir."

There was always a catch. However, I was never one who liked to play the odds. "OK, can we do this with what we have here, or do we need to visit the admiral or the Grid?"

Frig checked the inventory. "We have what is needed. My question to you would be, why we need to do this now?"

I looked out the view-port in front of me. "We need this now because I'm going to lay out a plan of attack on that weapon. If you can give me three shots at that thing... one here, one here, and here, I think we can push back its production by a good six months. Those exchanges are the key complex systems of that thing. If we can take them out, they'll almost have to start over from the beginning. I'll need those three bursts spaced about eighteen seconds apart. Do you think we can achieve that?"

Frig sat down with a troubled look on his face. He punched frantically on his keyboard and then turned toward me.

"With the power going through those feeds, and if we are able to achieve a 98 percent transfer rate, the best we can do is twenty-nine point two seconds per shot, sir. At that transfer rate, our chances of a flare-out increase to 61.8 percent. If we can't run, sir, we will be—"

I put my hand up for him to quit. "I know what we will be. Why don't you look to see how you could refine your diagrams there while I think for a bit?"

I stood and began to pace the cockpit deck while deep in thought. If there was a solution, I was determined to find it.

After three hours of pacing, I turned to Frig, still working fervently at his console, planning out every detail of the upgrade. "I got nothing. With twenty-nine seconds, we would only get off one shot before we had to turn and run. A hit on one of those exchanges might set them back what? A month? That's not worth our lives. I'm heading back to bed for a bit. When I get back, I suggest you get some rest yourself."

I was fast asleep in my bunk when Frig once again shook my shoulder. I squinted my eyes and rolled away from him. He continued to shake my arm.

I responded, "Aw! How much bad luck do you need? Please tell me you have something worth waking me for. I was just about to—"

Frig cut me off. "Sir, I believe I may have a solution to our firing problem. With the power increase of that cannon, our firing range will be increased as well."

I rubbed my eyes as I rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bunk. "Go on."

Frig continued: "If we come in at full speed, we can fire the first two shots while at a significant distance, saving the final shot for once we have reached the system. We will, however, take fire on our attempt at an exit. Depending on the response time of their crews, we could be taking the full force of one of their battleship charges."

I sat for several seconds, soaking in what he had said. "Have you thought about our accuracy at that speed and distance? Will we be able to strike a target that size while hustling along at 300 SOL?"

Frig nodded. "I believe I have a solution for that as well, sir. With the proper placement of three matrix probes, I believe we can attain the accuracy required for those distance shots by feeding live probe data into our firing computer.

"The probe positions may be compromised, but not before we have our firing data. I conclude that an attempted attack on the Milgari weapon has merit, sir."

I pulled on a pair of pants and headed toward the cockpit. I had some planning to do. And I was sure another trip down in the engine hole was coming my way.

I was running on only a few minutes of sleep in the last twenty-four hours, but it wasn't my first time at a late-night party. As I began my planning, I smiled at the thought of giving a good kick in the teeth to the Milgari. I pushed myself hard, and had the flight plan, shots, angles of attack and departure mapped out and verified within an hour.

Frig had been busy with his own task. He had a detailed installation guide ready for me to follow. I would be spending several hours of my time upside down in the hole. This time, however, it was for something that I looked forward to. We began the upgrade by pulling the parts he had listed on the manifest. The excitement of what lay before us had me grinning nonstop.

The parts were laid out on the floor in a pattern as specified in Frig's guide. Our engines would be taken offline, the feeds coupled back to the cannon power line, after which the cannon modifications could begin.

Following Frig's instructions, I was able to attach the feed coupling without error. The deck plates running down the right side of the hold were lifted. The cannon feeds and recombination chamber were modified in the same manner as we had modified the engines.

Two hours later, I replaced the final deck plate and looked up at my friend. "Let's do this, Frig. Get those probes launched. Then I say we take this thing out of range and do a test firing."

I turned the Swift and maneuvered slowly through the asteroid field back out to free space. When I was sure we were out of sensor range of the Milgari pickets, I pushed the throttle to full and headed toward the nearest star system. I had sweaty palms as we approached a small moon.

"OK," I said, "we're closing to the same distance as our third and final shot. Let's see what this puppy can do."

I took aim at the center of a crater and squeezed off the first pulse from the modified cannon. Other than the normal low hum emitted by a burst, there was no indication we had fired a pulse of energy at all, much less one equivalent to that of a full battle cannon.

Seconds later, a trench nearly a kilometer long appeared on the moon's surface, debris lifting from its low gravitational pull.

Frig came back with a damage report. "Sir, the target area sustained a hit that melted a trench in the moon's surface of 1,107 meters in length, with an average depth of 75 meters. I would say that easily qualifies as a battle-cannon equivalent or better, sir."

I raised my fist up under my chin as I looked at Frig and smiled. He returned the Gambit salute. On our way back toward the space factory, we looked over every piece of data we could find from the ship's system monitors. All systems had remained green. Our cannon modification was a success.

As we approached the factory, the attack plan was in place; it was time to do real damage to the enemy. I moved the Swift to the starting point of the plan.

Frig gave an inquisitive look. "Sir? Why are we stopped here? Is there some advantage to this maneuver?"

I replied, "No, it's just what I wrote up, so I'm trying to stick to that. Yes, it may seem stupid, but it is what it is. I wanted to do one last check of that original matrix probe before proceeding. That data should be in any minute."

Frig tilted his head to one side and returned his gaze to his own console. The data from the probe streamed in and filled our displays.

"Frig? Are you seeing what I'm seeing? That looks like the Ranger coming in there. What would one of the admiral's boats be doing meeting up with the Milgari? Something is very wrong here."

As we watched the video playback of the stream, the Ranger pulled in close to a Milgari flagship. Its numbers had been altered, but the makeup of the forward section was unmistakable. The new frigates had an alteration that made the Ranger's profile distinct.

A shuttle departed the Ranger and soon after returned. I was having trouble comprehending what I was seeing.

"What would Cortes be doing here... other than selling us out? Now I have to wonder about Zimmerman too. Have we been aiding the enemy for the last year? This just can't be good."

Frig typed on his keyboard for several minutes. "Sensors show the shuttle density signature changed from the ride over to the ride back. Something was delivered and left with that flagship, sir. It seems Sergeant Cortes may indeed be working for the enemy. And yes... this cannot be good."

The Ranger departed. There was soon a flurry of activity around the flagship. Numerous small transports were ferrying people or materials between a number of the other ships and the flagship. I took it as a sign to begin our raid. If the Milgari were occupied with whatever Cortes had given them, they would perhaps be slow to react to our attack.

I ground my teeth as I scowled. The Cortes deal had gotten under my skin. I wanted to show the invaders what a true Human would deliver to them. I punched up the throttle and put my plan into play.

"OK, my friend. At the points I have designated on the screen, I want you to give your best cannon bursts. They will quickly fall behind the ship, but the second one should catch up just as we fire the last round. We should hit the two outer exchanges, with that first bolt catching up thirty seconds later. If our aim is true, that massive structure will be crippled for some time."

The three matrix probes that had been left in the area came to life. The aiming algorithm pulled in the data. Micro-adjustments were made to our course just before the first shot was fired. The low hum told me it was away. The first two cannon bursts had been fired by the time we dropped below light-speed. It was time for the final run.

"Sir, we have weapons systems activating. I expect the first pulses to arrive here in five... four... three... two... one. Two near misses, sir."

I began to mumble to myself as the attack counter ticked down toward zero. "C'mon, c'mon... give me that mark so we can get out of here!" The time hit zero and Frig smashed his hand down on the fire button. The final bolt was away as I turned the Swift hard to port. A heavy bolt clipped our right wing, sending the Swift into a momentary spin. The charge inhibitor had done its job, keeping the tantric armor of the wing intact.

The second and final bursts from our cannon arrived at the same time. The two outer exchanges first swallowed the bolts and then exploded with a bright fury. We managed to evade two more enemy bolts before a third caught us straight on from behind.

"Sir, that last bolt nearly overwhelmed the inhibitor and our armor. We cannot take another hit of that magnitude. I would suggest a few slight alterations in our course to counter their projected aim."

I had already tweaked our path twice, but I was in no position to have a discussion about it. I made a third cut just as another heavy bolt arrived, barely missing our tail. Our first bolt caught up to us, striking its target. The third exchange on the massive weapon exploded in fire as the power store was compromised. The massive ion cannon had been cut into three sections, each burning brightly at the points of impact.

As we again accelerated through light-speed, a final Milgari bolt found its mark. The couplers to our cannon were incinerated and our rear tantric plating compromised. A further strike to any part of the ship would have been our undoing. We had escaped with our lives. Our efforts would set the Milgari effort back at least six months, but war was growing ever closer.

As we sped away from the Schnell sector, I was grinning from ear to ear. Our raid had been a success. But that grin soon faded as I thought about the admiral and Cortes. I began to wonder what they were really up to. Perhaps that whole stealth fleet was being built to overthrow the Grid and make us into subjects of the Milgari Empire. It was an outcome that I just could not fathom any Human supporting. And yet... there were known to be spies on the Grid that wanted that very thing, Humans who had no idea of what their payoff would really be.

We continued to swing in a wide arc away from the Milgari base, heading back toward the Grid. Our ion cannon had been damaged beyond our ability to repair it while in flight. The cannon was an unauthorized weapon on a ship that was supposed to be unarmed. We would not do repairs on the Grid. And after seeing Cortes at the Milgari base, a return to the admiral's docks was out of the question. Our options were limited to paying for the work at a third-world port, where few, if any, questions would be asked. I had one such port in mind.

"Frig, I'm taking us to Ios-4. They let us install that signal inhibitor on here without question. I believe we could repair this cannon there."

"I believe that be an appropriate action, sir."

The work had been done in a small repair dock. Ios-4 was a remote mining colony on the inner edge of our arm of the galaxy. The Ios-4 authorities had to report to no one but themselves. It was an ideal location for having upgrades done to one's ship, as the Iosics were fiercely protective of the secrecy of all undertakings. Gossiping workers had been known to be executed without trial. The ride to the repair dock would take four weeks.

# Chapter 14

### _______________________

"Ship 5509, you are clear for landing in bay 17. Proceed at the assigned speed to the deck and await further instruction."

We set down on the tarmac and taxied toward a hangar based on the signal on our monitor. Twenty seconds later, the massive hangar doors closed behind us and the airlock system engaged. I opened the back hatch and we stepped out onto firm ground.

"Feels good to be on something solid," I said. "Stick with her until I get the crew chief over here. After that, we can go kick up some dust and get some real food. If I recall properly, this place had a restaurant that served up a mean Boktor steak, definitely suited for Human consumption. You can go feast on those snails or worms or whatever it is you eat."

Frig replied, "It is insectoids, sir. We prefer insectoids. We are not disgusting carnivores such as you Humans. Perhaps a handful of Maruvian crickets would change your mind. Maruvians in a light crème sauce. With two dollops of Fruvious. A meal fit for a king."

I turned and looked at Frig as I walked away. "Fruvious? That regurgitated stuff? Want to talk about disgusting? You can keep your bugs."

I was soon in a discussion with a crew chief and dock foreman. They had the parts needed for external repairs. We only needed to negotiate a price with the general inspector. The cannon repairs we would be managing ourselves.

With the paperwork signed and a credit deposit made, we turned toward the market area and specifically restaurant row. There were all manner of aliens eating all manner of meals in a variety of establishments. The cooks were professionals and could make up a plate that looked and tasted similar to almost any meal available in the galaxy. You were best off just eating and not questioning what it actually was.

As I finished my steak, I leaned back on the leather-like booth bench with a full belly. "Now, that's a meal. Much better than that pablum we have to eat on the ship for months at a time. I wish someone would come up with a better system. I know reconstituted paste provides the nutrients we need, but it sure could be improved with a bit of variety."

Frig was gleeful as he consumed the final portion of his crickets. "Sir, I am hoping the repair to the cannon takes upwards of a week. I could get used to eating like this, for a while at least."

"I'm a little nervous leaving the ship in someone else's hands."

Frig sighed. "I agree. The Iosics are protective of their privacy, but a crew chief that sees a way to make a fortune off someone's technology; well... it might not take much for them to steal from us, sir."

Frig departed for the ship as I went looking for a room. With the multitude of credits in our store, we would be staying in a place with all the amenities, a suite with a view of the twin Ios moons. The suite included a concierge who would run around for those minor tasks such as snacks or a masseuse. And it came with expensive booze from all corners of the galaxy. Our stay on Ios-4 would be pleasant.

With a hotel suite acquired, I turned my attention toward the local dive. I would throw about a round or two of drinks to loosen up the tongues of any travelers. Sometimes that bit of information gained from a stray source could make all the difference in a bad situation. I had once learned of a planned pirate raid on a facility I was about to visit. It had likely saved my life.

"Give me a Durian Ire and set up a round for everyone at the bar. Whatever they're having!"

I looked around at the other species sitting beside me and soon had a conversation going with two of them. The Betazoid to my left had just arrived from Harmon. He was a fellow Messenger and had taken a few hits from the troopers at Malcon after not heeding their call for a boarding inspection.

It seemed the troopers had been looking for someone carrying a load of refined tantric ore. His cargo was private and he did not wish it to be known. He asked what I was doing on Ios.

"Well, first, I would like to know the name of who I'm conversing with. And, since you asked, I'm delivering a load of refined tantric ore."

The bar chatter became silent for several seconds before the Betazoid erupted in laughter. "My name is Xor. You can call me Xor!"

After several more rounds, Xor opened up about his cargo. He was hauling Methracite. It was used as an ion fuel extender for long journeys. A large ship could travel 2,500 light-years without refueling. His employers were preparing to move their entire business to a new part of the galaxy, a part where the Milgari shadow would not be constantly hanging over their shoulders.

Three other travelers soon joined the conversation. It seemed that talk of a Milgari war was starting to make itself known. The rumors that had been going around told of a fierce species that had superior technology and would stop at nothing to conquer all, and of a kind and benevolent species that was bringing with it technologies to share with the masses. I did my best to keep the conversation moving and was soon rewarded with a new rumor.

"I'm telling you that it is true. I have seen it with my own eyes: a Milgari ship almost the size of one of those moons out there. It has a dozen massive cannons on it that look like they could fry this whole colony. Friend of mine stumbled into a sector where they were test firing it and barely escaped with his life. They caught up with him three weeks later, but not before he had shown me a recording. I left the system immediately after. They got him the next day."

If the traveler's tale was correct, the Milgari weapon we had seen was being built for a much-larger ship, something that would rival the Grid in size. It would have weapons far more powerful than any we had previously been witness to. The speed advantage would remain with the Grid, but that speed ramped up slowly, giving an attacker time to do significant damage.

The massive cannon we had destroyed was not yet operational. According to the traveler, the Milgari had an entire ship that was. A single massive cannon bolt could penetrate deep into the Grid's structure. A dozen of them would be more than she could defend against. I was torn as to whether or not I should race the information to the admiral. I was no longer sure of whose side he was on.

After a number of drinks, I staggered out of the bar. I was heading back to the suite I had rented when I was approached by another Durian.

"Mr. Grange, I am here to warn you that your life is in danger. Be very careful, Mr. Grange, you are being watched. Scan your ship for a 1.337THz blip emission every fifty-seven of your minutes. Good luck, Mr. Grange. You will not see me again."

As quickly as the Durian had approached, he turned and left. The buzz I had been experiencing from letting loose in the bar quickly turned to paranoia. I hurried back to the room, locked the door, and sat on the edge of my bed. I laid my blaster out beside me. I had the sinking feeling that Frig was in danger as well. I stood, tucking the blaster into my belt before hustling out the door, headed for the hangar at bay 17. When I arrived, Frig was sitting in his usual chair as the repair crew continued to work.

"Sir," said Frig, "I wasn't expecting to see you again for another twelve hours. You haven't overdone it with the liquor again, have you, sir? I would rather not have to walk you to the room while repairs are underway. Perhaps you can just sleep it off in the bunk room?"

I looked intently at the two Iosic crewmen as they worked on the repairs before turning to whisper to Frig. "We have a problem on our hands. Someone is watching us and our ship may be bugged. I don't know how they found us out here, but a Durian just bumped into me on the street and gave me a warning. I think we may have gotten ourselves too deep into this spy thing. It's all starting to heat up."

I had been looking forward to stretching out on the big bed in our hotel suite. After an evening on the bottle, I was eager to get back and relax in style. But fate was not on my side, and I soon found myself crunched up and mumbling in my cramped bunk on the Swift. Minutes later I was fast asleep.

The crewmen working the repairs finished their shift and left for the night.

Shortly thereafter, Frig was standing over me shaking my shoulder. "Sir, I think you need to get up. There is someone snooping around on the deck. Our rear hatch is open, sir, as part of the repairs. Sir?"

I was dead to the world. The alcohol in my system had seen to it I would not be disturbed. Frig turned and pulled his blaster as he watched the intruder on the bunk room monitor. Whoever it was, they were taking their time before boarding the Swift.

The intruder moved slowly around the outside of the hangar, checking every entrance. They then began to move toward the Swift, a wide, droopy hat hiding their face. When they stepped up into the hatch of our ship, Frig was waiting with his blaster.

"Hold it right there. If you value your life, you will tell me who you are and what you are doing here. I'm counting down from five before I blow a hole in your gut. Five... four..."

The intruder raised his hand and began to speak. "Please, I am only here to deliver a message, a message for Mr. Grange from a friend. I was snooping around to make sure no one else was here. It is important that the message not be compromised. I need to speak directly with Mr. Grange."

"Mr. Grange is indisposed at the moment. I'm his partner. You can tell me whatever it is that you have to say."

The intruder began to squirm nervously. "I'm sorry, but my orders are to deliver the message to Mr. Grange only. You can shoot me if you want. I am probably a dead man anyway."

Frig gestured for the intruder to sit. "Well, I have time. Take a seat, and when you are ready to talk... I will listen."

Again the messenger squirmed. "Believe me, I wish I could just say it and go. The longer I am here, the more likely I will be discovered. Those in power on the Grid have spies everywhere."

Frig cautiously stepped over to the intruder and checked him for weapons. There were none. He turned toward the bunk room and was surprised that I was standing in the doorway.

"Sir, I tried to wake you, but you would not respond."

I rubbed my tired eyes and then frizzled the hair on the sides of my head in an attempt to wake up. "Who's our guest?"

Frig turned his gaze toward the seated intruder. "He claims to have a message for you, a message that can only be delivered to you."

I gestured for the messenger to remove his hat. He was a young Alvari, a hired delivery boy. It was unusual to see an Alvari this far away from his home world. They weren't much for traveling.

"What do you want? And don't worry about my friend here; you can say whatever you want in front of him."

The Alvari looked toward the open hatch and then back. "This message is from Michael Felix. He wanted you to know that a warrant has been issued for your arrest on the Grid and that your apartment has been seized. For whatever reason, the PRF political party has decided you need to be brought to justice. The charges are for the robbery and murder of a Gambit."

Someone on the Grid was turning up the heat. I wondered if word had somehow gotten back about the destruction of the massive ion cannon. Supporters of the Milgari would not be happy. We had flown right into the thick of war with our ship identifier clearly displayed on our hull. The Milgari knew who we were.

The messenger continued: "They also raided the apartment of your friend. You have both been accused of being spies for the Milgari, of selling out Humans."

The forces on the Grid had the media in their back pockets. We were now considered enemies of the Human race, and as such, bounties had been placed on our heads. We would have to be ever watchful of our surroundings, as our anonymity was certain to be a thing of the past. The messenger remarked that our images had been broadcast all over the Grid, and on the home worlds of several of our key allies. Our travels had just become restricted.

I said, "I'm curious as to why Michael Felix would go through the trouble to relay this message. That seems pretty risky for someone who hates my guts. What could he possibly gain from warning me?"

The young Alvari replied, "He said he owed you a favor after your last dealings. He said this warning was easily big enough to pay off that favor and place you in his debt. He likes having people beholden to him."

Beholden was right. Michael Felix would go out of his way to do small favors so the receiver of those favors "owed" him. And he generally expected more in return than he gave. In this instance, he was undoubtedly looking to establish a large debt. I was sure he had an angle worked out as to how Frig and I would have to repay it. He always stayed one step ahead of everyone else.

I gestured to the Alvari. "You can go. And tell Felix thanks and that we are even. That should at least get a snarl out of him."

The young Alvari rose and exited the Swift. He slipped out a side hangar door and disappeared into an alley. I turned my attention back to Frig.

"It looks like we are fugitives on multiple worlds. I'm heading back to bed to sleep on it. Oh, and on a tip, scan the ship for a blip at 1.337THz, comes every fifty-seven minutes or so. We probably got tagged by that snooper back on the Grid. That kind of tag ain't cheap, so whoever that was either had a lot of power or a lot of credits. Watch the monitors just in case we get another visitor or two."

Frig nodded as I headed off to bed. The alcohol in my system still had my head in a fog. When I got to the bunk I threw my leg over the side to keep the room from spinning. I soon fell fast asleep, staying that way for twelve hours.

The workers returned in the morning and our ship repairs continued. Frig had located the offending tag and moved it to a courier ship in the next hangar. Our trackers would be wondering what we were up to. By late afternoon the crew chief was doing his final inspections. We lifted off a day earlier than planned, and I tipped the chief heavily for his excellent work.

Shortly after our departure, we were contacted by the admiral. He was unhappy we were now under suspicion and was asking if Michael Felix could be trusted. They were in need of a new vessel and crew for their tantric ore runs. We would draw too much attention to the cause. I was hesitant to offer an opinion on Michael Felix. He was fully capable of making the runs, but I was not sure of the admiral's loyalties and eventually declined to support him for the position.

With our faces plastered across monitors on the civilized worlds, we were left with few options. I set a course for an outer grid in a far sector. There was a small planet there with several thousand assorted colonists who had fled what they considered oppressive governments on their home worlds. The inhabitants were friendly, but were leery of travelers; travelers often brought trouble.

I had hopes of setting up camp on the outskirts of their main village where we would attempt to lay low. "How long has it been since we visited Bullwort? Five years? Six? You think any of the same people would still be in charge? We made a delivery for one of their councilmen, and I remember he was pretty happy with whatever it was we brought."

Frig nodded. "Five years, four months, sir. I believe I speculated on the crate's size and weight as possibly indicating a personal thermal generator with a laser drill. It would easily power his home and that of a few neighbors. It would also serve as a formidable defensive system. He did seem quite excited over its delivery."

The journey out to Bullwort was uneventful. We had taken several side trips to uninhabited star systems, where an effort was made to practice using our repaired ion cannon. In addition to the fixes, Frig had added a low-power multipulse mode to its programming. The high-power recharge time had been reduced to fourteen seconds. We had hopes of purchasing and adapting a charge well on Bullwort, if one could be obtained, to further reduce those times. A cannon was only good so long as it could be fired.

# Chapter 15

### _______________________

When we arrived at the Bullwort system, the planet and its colonists were under siege. A Gresshan warlord and his small pirate fleet had been conducting raids for several months. From the broadcasts for assistance we were receiving, we could tell the situation was deteriorating.

I consulted with Frig about our chances. "What do you think? Those two frigates have enough firepower to threaten us? If we can send them packing, it will make a much better case for our acceptance down there. They would be fools to reject us with that threat hanging out there. If we leave, those Gresshans will finish the job and take the colony. The colonists have to know they would all be slaves at that point."

Frig concurred, and I began the boot up of the cannon for a skirmish.

I opened a channel to the pirate's flagship and gave a warning. "Invading fleet... this is Captain Bumbalee of the Bullwort Navy. Stand down from your hostilities or be prepared to meet your maker."

Frig responded with a question. "Bumbalee, sir. Bullwort Navy? I hardly think—"

The pirate captain interrupted. "You insult us with your one puny ship! Come in closer and I will show you hostilities."

I turned the Swift straight for his command ship and accelerated. "I'm thinking one warning was enough. Target those seven smaller ships with a multipulse and then line me up for a full shot on that flagship. If he is dumb enough to just sit there, he'll find out what the Bullwort Navy is capable of."

As we closed, the second frigate turned to meet us with her cannons blazing. The power contained in her charges was easily absorbed by the Swift's armor. The first strikes reverberated on the hull as little more than low thuds. Frig loosed the multipulse round and waited for its impact. Five of the seven small pirate vessels violently exploded.

The second frigate continued to close and fire as we flew toward it. The concussions from the charge impacts of its weapons grew, but our armor and charge inhibitor were still too much for the weak cannons.

Frig said, "Ready when you are, sir. We are locked on that frigate with a full charge."

I dodged several new pulses and gave the command. "Take her down when you're ready. Then prepare for that second frigate. Looks like it's getting ready to run. If we don't take it out now, they will just come back in six months and do this all over again."

The ion cannon fired with a low hum. Several seconds later a large hole appeared straight through the center of the frigate. Its engines went dead and it began to slowly spin to one side. Fires and explosions could be seen through the hole. Twelve seconds later Frig fired a second round that cut through the ship's bridge. A burning and now lifeless frigate began to break apart.

The ion engines of the captain's flagship came on full as he turned to run. Our next pulse cut off a protruding section on the right side of her hull. Explosions blew as fires raged. As we closed we were met with a bright flash directly in our path.

Frig said. "Sir, we just had a flare-out of our engines, and the charge inhibitor has gone offline. We are out of power for at least thirty-two seconds."

At that same moment the pirate captain turned his vessel hard in our direction. The old frigate was slow to turn. We continued to drift toward it at a high rate of speed.

"Frig, man, you gotta get us some power. I'm not sure how much we can take without that inhibitor. If they manage to do some real damage, fat chance we have of getting anything fixed out here. We need that ion generator back online!"

Frig typed feverishly at his keyboard. "Sir, the generator is not charging. Get in the hole, and see if the coupler breaker has popped out. If so, jam it back in, sir."

I jumped and ran to my least favorite deck grate. It clanged heavily as I pulled up and tossed it to the side. I stuffed my upper torso through the hole and reached for the coupler cover. Once it was open, I could see that the breaker had indeed popped. As I attempted to push it back in, the first of several bolts contacted the Swift's hull.

The shock from the bolts jolted the ship heavily. I lost my grip on the breaker and banged my hand hard on the bottom of the next grate.

"Garrr!"

The next bolt again hit hard, followed by repeated smaller strikes. The Swift shook violently. "If there is anything you can do, Frig, do it now. I can't get that..."

With a final push, the breaker locked into place.

"We're in. Get that thing charging!"

As I stood to return to my chair, the next major strike impacted the hull. I was thrown hard into the far wall of the hold as the Swift absorbed the blow. The strike that followed threw me a meter in the air. I bounced hard on the plating and then began to roll backwards as the inertial system gyrated out of control.

"Frig! Get... that... power... on!"

Another hard hit sent me flying forwards. I crashed hard to the deck plating, scraping the right side of my face before again impacting a wall. Four seconds later the inertial system came online, followed soon after by the charge inhibitor. The next strike was greatly reduced in power. I pulled myself up and ran for my chair, spitting blood out the side of my mouth.

"It's time to show these animals what we're made of."

I pushed the throttle to full, avoiding the next hail of fire as Frig targeted the oncoming frigate. Several seconds later, the low hum of our cannon sounded and the pirate threat was no more. The shot cut through the port side of the bridge, opening a gaping hole down the length of the ship.

The captain again fired one more negative ion bomb, knocking our system once again offline. However, it was too late for the Gresshan warlord. His frigate exploded with a bright flash, as its hydrogen tanks had been compromised. Soon after, the Swift was again rocked, this time by a large piece of debris. Our proximity sensors soon showed smaller ships approaching from the surface.

The remaining two pirate ships turned to flee before realizing the futility of a run. They turned back to fight. Without their frigate escorts, they would not be able to return to their base. It was too great a distance. As the Bullwort ships closed on their position, the pirates went down fighting. By the time our ion generators were once again online, the battle was over. The Bullworties welcomed us to their colony.

"Captain Bumbalee, this is Captain Monarch of the Triton. First, I would like to personally thank you for ending the Gresshan threat. We have been under siege for six months. Second, I have been asked to welcome you to Bullwort... if you are interested in attending a celebration of sorts. We don't have a lot to offer, but we can offer what we have."

I looked over at Frig with a smile. "Captain Monarch, we humbly accept your invitation. If you would kindly direct us to a landing port, I have a little cleaning up to do. I got banged around a bit back there."

The Bullwort captain replied, "If you're in need of medical facilities, I can offer what we have available. We don't have skin labs or bone menders, but will do what we can. Here are the coordinates you requested."

I turned back to my console as I typed in the location of the Bullwort spaceport. "Thank you for the kind offer, Captain, but medical care won't be necessary. I just have a few scrapes and bruises to tend to."

We dropped quickly down through the Bullwort atmosphere and were soon touching down at bay 4. The Bullwort spaceport had six small bays with one large bay capable of holding a midsize cargo hauler. The city mayor's aide was waiting on the deck to welcome us.

"Captain Bumbalee, welcome to Roswell, the jewel of the Myon sector. My name is Riley Mumford. I have been given direction to welcome you and to assist you in your stay in any way I can. We have you staying in the presidential suite in the port hotel. I hope the accommodations will be to your liking."

I stepped out of the Swift's hold onto the deck of the bay. It was a dull gray. As I looked around I could see many of the buildings were old and in need of repair. One of the bay hangars had recently burned to the ground.

"You will have to excuse our mess, Captain. The last six months have been difficult on our infrastructure."

I replied, "You don't have to worry about impressing us, Mr. Mumford. Your situation is completely understandable. I would have one request though. We would prefer to keep a bit of a low profile. We like our privacy."

The aide waved his hand. "Oh, no, I'm afraid that won't be possible. Your presence and your name have already been spread across all the comm channels here on Bullwort. You are already quite the celebrity, a hero I would say. We have about two hundred thousand citizens here. I would wager that most of them already know your name. What you did back there, it really was a lifesaver for us all."

As I walked on the deck, a bay crewman called out, "Hey, what's your call number? Looks like it got burned off by a bolt. All I can make out is a nine. That's Human, right?"

I turned back to the aide with a request. "Is there any way to store our ship in a protected area? I would rather not have prying eyes looking her over. As I said, we highly value our privacy."

The aide nodded and waved the crewman away from the Swift with a scowl. We were heroes, and heroes were not to be questioned.

We walked off the bay deck and into a wide hallway to the terminal building. It had begun to fill up with onlookers. Smiles and cheers accompanied our every step. Word of our landing had gotten out, and the citizens of Bullwort were coming out in droves to meet us. It was hardly the low-profile presence we were hoping to achieve, one where our enemies would have difficulty finding us.

As we moved along, humbly waving our hands, I glanced up in time to see my face plastered on a monitor. I had a black eye, a swollen nose and lower lip, a gash on my forehead from bouncing off the wall, and dried blood smeared all around. It would be difficult for anyone to recognize me from that image. I hoped that if it made its way off world, it would be that image, a bruised and battered Captain Bumbalee.

We were escorted to our suite in the port hotel. After the offer from the aide for anything we wanted, I asked for a bit of privacy so I could get myself cleaned up. He bowed graciously as he backed out of the room and into the hallway, closing the door behind him. I made my way to the washroom and began the process of tending to my surface wounds.

Frig entered shortly after. "Sir, we have been invited to dine with the governor this evening. He has offered the opportunity for us to have clothes made for the occasion rather than wearing our Messenger space suits. It may be nice to get back into civilian clothes for a while."

I agreed, and a tailor was dispatched to our room. Half an hour later he scurried away to begin his alterations. I took the opportunity to lie on the bed in my room for a nap. I was feeling fatigued after weeks of travel followed by getting tossed around inside the Swift. I was soon fast asleep.

The tailor returned several hours later with the altered suits. After a long shower, I dressed and met Frig in the main room of the suite.

"Wow, you are looking sharp! I believe this is the first time I have seen a Gambit wearing anything formal. I have to say, you look completely different. You look... what's the word... dignified. You look dignified."

Frig turned to look at himself in a large mirror in the room. He puffed his chest out and attempted his best dignified expression.

I laughed. "You really don't have to try so hard. The suit looks good on its own. Just go with that."

There was a knock on the door. The mayor's aide had returned to escort us to the dinner. Nearly a quarter of the inhabitants of Bullwort were Human. I was happy to have a meal with food I recognized, food that had been a staple in human diets for as long as we had inhabited the Grid. It would beat the strange insects, mealworms, or small slimy creatures that were the norm elsewhere.

The dining hall had a full crowd. The governor, at our request, removed all cameras except for those of the official staff. We were promised our photos would be altered so our true identities would not be known. Governor Murphy was very accommodating to his guests of honor, who had ended the Gresshan war.

"Hear, hear..." The governor stood, tapping on his glass with a fork as he raised it in the air. "I would like to welcome our guests... Captain Bumbalee and his assistant, Mr. Chester... to the beautiful planet of Bullwort."

The governor then turned toward us. "These gentlemen have freed us from the shackles of war, from the oppression of the Gresshan. I expect everyone to treat them with the utmost of courtesy, kindness, and respect. Their only request is that we respect their privacy. Please, do not take video or photos, and please refrain from gossiping about them. They wish to explore becoming citizens, and as such, please accept that wish with open arms and a closed mouth. It is the least we can do for our new heroes."

The dinner and celebration continued late into the night. After a plethora of drinks, Frig helped me back to our room. "So, my friend, it seems we go from goats to heroes to goats to heroes. We are spies, warriors, and saviors of a world. And now, with the confiscation of our credit accounts back on the Grid, we are nearly flat broke."

I wobbled as I walked. "These people, they're good people that just want to be left alone. I'm hoping we can count on how tough things are here right now to keep the number of visitors down. We don't need nosy people poking around and outing us. I... we, we need time to craft a plan of how to deal with our situation. Can't say I would enjoy being a permanent citizen out here. I like my freedom to roam, you know..."

As I stumbled and almost fell, Frig righted my balance. "Sir, perhaps you should start by cutting back on the spirits. You have a tendency to get sloppy drunk at times. We need to keep our wits about us if we plan on surviving this for long. I need you to be at your best, sir."

I stopped and looked Frig in the eye and laughed. "Sloppy drunk? I'm in a suit... how is that sloppy?"

Frig pushed me onto the bed in my room and I was soon fast asleep.

The following morning he had made a visit to the Swift, now parked in hangar 8. After our request, it had been towed to a nearby hangar where it would remain out of sight. Frig's night was spent repairing minor damage from our pirate encounter. When I arrived in the late morning, he was asleep in the bunk room.

I shoved his shoulder. "Hey, buddy, wake up."

Frig rolled over and immediately sat up. "Sir, you are back in your flight suit. Are we going somewhere?"

I put my hand up in a gesture for him to relax. "No, no, I just didn't have any other clothes in the room. Wasn't going to wear that monkey suit out here. We might want to take advantage of the goodwill we have built up and get a few sets of civvies to wear around town. And if we ever make it home we might want to bring a set or two of civilian clothes out with us next time. Having five flight suits of the same color doesn't do us much good if we're trying to blend in."

I sat in a nearby chair. "I had a thought this morning as I was eating breakfast. This planet doesn't have much for natural resources on the surface, but it has to have something of value that can be mined. Our sensors on the Swift are probably far more powerful than anything that has been used on this planet before. The admiral was generous with the equipment he installed. Most mining companies can't afford the technology we have.

"I'm thinking we do some deep scans of this place and maybe open up a mine or two. Lots of free land out there for the taking; all we have to do is register it. If I'm correct, and this place has ores worth recovering. We might be able to reverse our fortunes."

Frig said, "Goats back to heroes, sir."

I nodded. "Yeah, Goats to heroes. It would also make for a great cover. No one would be looking for mining magnates. If we can locate some precious gems, we might even be able to afford to defend ourselves out here."

Frig stood and stretched as he walked toward his console. "I can do a deep scan from here, sir. It won't be as high a resolution as if we fly overhead, but it may give us an idea of where we would want to search further. I will begin the process if you would like to go clothes shopping... sir."

I knew Frig was just taking a dig at me for waking him up, but his remark had merit. I was soon wandering through the downtown area of Roswell.

A crowd slowly began to gather on the sidewalks as the citizens of Roswell began to look and point. I was then startled as a hand grabbed me on the shoulder. It was the mayor's aide.

"Captain, I would not advise walking out here alone, as you will get mobbed by well-wishers. Is there anything I can help you find?"

I told Riley Mumford my sizes and handed him a printout from Frig.

Riley replied, "Clothing will not be an issue, Mr. Bumbalee. We have your sizes from the suits made last evening."

"Can you find us something low-key, neutral in color, something the common Bullworti would wear? And, do you have any facial surgeons? I was thinking of getting this mug, as much as I love it, to match those doctored photos the governor has been handing out. I would like to maintain my anonymity while here. The galaxy out there is a sometimes nasty, dirty place, full of people who wish you ill."

Riley smiled and replied, "I fully understand, Mr. Bumbalee. Many people who have come to live on Bullwort did so to escape that same hostile environment. We just wish to live in peace, a more simple existence without all the corruption and politics. If you are an officer of the government and you are caught lying or somehow cheating others, you will be quickly convicted, exiled, and placed on the next ship out of here. It happened only a handful of times before the message got out."

I was beginning to like the Bullworties. They held to a philosophy that I found quite agreeable. The aide escorted me back to the Swift with the assurance we would have "civvies" later in the day, and he would inquire about facial surgeons. He was aware of only one, but would consult with the mayor and the governor's staff.

# Chapter 16

### _______________________

Once back at the hangar, I thanked Riley, smiled, and nodded. He quickly walked away. When I stepped up into the hold of the Swift, Frig was busy setting up his scans.

"I believe we are ready for our initial scan, sir. It took a bit longer than I expected, given the complexity of our sensors. There was much to learn. Tuning them was quite easy... once I had a full understanding of their controls. This one does—"

I stopped him mid-sentence. "I really don't need the full breakdown on how it works. That's why I made you a partner in this." I grinned. "Now, are we ready to take a peek at this planet or what?"

Frig turned back to his console. "I have tuned the sensors to detect emerald, sir. The computer will take approximately fifteen minutes to tell us if there are any emeralds of significant size located in this area. A deep scan of the entire planet will take several days. And the scans would be more effective from near orbit, sir."

I scratched my head and sighed as I replied. "Yeah, I get you. But I don't think it's a good idea to be flying around a day after we saved the place. Might look a bit suspicious. I would just as soon take a little extra time and do what we can from here for a few weeks or so. We have the time to spend, so we might as well take advantage of that."

Frig's console beeped as the computer began to develop 3-D maps from the sensor scans. The scan time passed quickly, and Frig switched programs to analyze the data.

"We have four hits in this region, sir. Three are approximately forty kilometers' distance, with the fourth being seventy-two kilometers. The first three show a weighting of 40.7 carats combined, hardly worth an effort to extract. The fourth is... 1,800 carats, sir, a nice find. Unfortunately, that pocket is located at a depth of five kilometers."

I rolled my eyes. "Great. Five kilometers might as well be fifty for what it would cost to extract them. Let's move on to the next stone and see what Lady Luck has in store for us."

As Frig continued his work, I flipped on my console and began a game of Bollox. Ten minutes into a rumble with a dozen other simulated pirate ships, I shut the app down. It somehow seemed far less interesting after the exhilaration of fighting the real thing.

The remainder of the day was filled with boredom before Riley returned from his day's tasks. "Captain, I have had a number of sets of clothing in your sizes delivered to your room, all of them happily donated by the citizens of Roswell. I had a bit of a tough time keeping those gifts limited to neutral, ordinary clothing. You will find a mix of what you requested and a few more formal outfits. I hope they are to your liking.

"I also left the numbers of three surgeons who volunteered their services. Celebrity has its benefits! If you would like to make appointments, we can do that immediately. Or, if you prefer, I can just take you to see each of them whenever you desire."

I scratched my chin as I thought about the concept of a new face. "What the heck, are they available to see me now? I've got free time at the moment."

"Absolutely, Captain. I will arrange that, if you would like to change to some new clothes. I can meet you at your room in, say... fifteen minutes?"

I nodded and sent Riley on his way.

As I walked toward the hotel, I took a moment to think about what a marvel translation interfaces were. Every being of every civilized species had the implant installed at birth. The tiny biocomputer would download interpreter files, including dialects, from any number of stations on every inhabited planet I had ever visited.

I was convinced it was responsible for so many species getting along as well as they did. There were still plenty of problems, as with a "common" language, came "common" problems. But they were problems we could work together to solve.

After dressing in a new set of duds, I waited only a few minutes for Riley's knock. Twenty minutes later we walked into the office of the first surgeon. He was considered by many on Bullwort to be the most skilled in his practice. An hour later I was scheduled for facial reconfiguration surgery for the following day. I was going to be a new me.

When I returned to the Swift, I found that both diamond and ruby scans had failed to locate significant deposits. We continued through a list of the most popular gemstones before Riley showed up again at the Swift. We had been invited to another dinner celebration. As heroes of the Bullworties, we were hardly in a position to refuse. I reasoned that at some point in the future, we would have to borrow the credits needed for a mining operation. Keeping up a positive image was high on my list of required tasks.

After a second welcoming dinner, and a good night's rest, the facial surgery was performed. The doctor seemed pleased with the results, results that I would not see for several weeks. I departed his office with a recovery mask bonded to the fringes of my old face. I faced a week of eating through a straw, as movement of my jaw had been restricted.

Back on the Swift, Frig worked his way through a list of precious and semiprecious gemstones. Those found to have mineable deposits were azurite, morganite, quartz, and tourmaline. None would make us wealthy, but they would give us purpose and a viable cover should off-worlders come snooping around. We planned visits to the promising sites and soon after had registered claims in hand.

After several weeks out of the public eye, I returned to the doctor to have the surgical recovery mask removed. When he peeled it back, I stood staring at the stranger in the mirror for several minutes. As I made facial expressions, I had the sensation of being outside of my own body as the strange face moved along with me.

The doctor said, "Mr. Bumbalee, what you are feeling is common with this type of surgery. It went remarkably well, considering the equipment I have on this planet. While the old you was not an unsightly man, I believe the ladies will not be unhappy with the new you. Your chin and cheekbones have a slightly more striking appearance and your jaw line is a bit firmer. Your eyes were slightly narrow before. They've been widened a bit, yielding a more pleasing balance to your face. It will take your vision a few weeks to fully correct for the change."

I stood admiring my new face, turning from side to side. "Doc, this is impressive. It will take a bit of getting used to. But I'm sure it will grow on me."

I continued to stare into the mirror at the handsome stranger. "You mentioned the equipment here. I take it you had an office elsewhere?"

The doctor looked away at his table for a moment. "I had a very lucrative business back on Orcon-3. Celebrities stood in line for my work. I could name my own price and that price would be paid. That all came to an end when the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate came in with some strange requests: she wanted her cheekbones to be pointed and her nose long and thin, extraordinarily so.

"There were several other bizarre features she desired as well. I counseled her against it. Did everything I could to dissuade her, but she insisted. Long story short, she was doing it all for a man, a vile man who had no interest in her. He had convinced her if she got the changes he suggested, he would stay with her forever. There's no easier mark than one whose heart is controlled by someone else.

"He insisted on having her mask removed in front of him and several of his friends. It only took a few minutes for the uncontrolled laughter of her supposed suitor to sink in. When she looked in the mirror and realized she had been made a fool of, she turned and ran out onto the balcony of his apartment, throwing herself over the rail. It was forty-eight stories to the ground below."

The doctor sat down in a chair, looking out the window of his office as he continued. "I was shocked, shocked that she had jumped, shocked that the vile person standing before me continued to laugh uncontrollably. A disgusting, heartless Orconian, that one. Her father saw to it he got his just reward. He then came after me.

"My brother and his wife were business partners in the practice. They each took a blaster to the face. I managed to escape and then disappeared. I've been here for fifteen years, and I've never stopped looking over my shoulder, even after drastically altering my own appearance."

I tugged a few times on my chin before turning toward the doctor. "I feel your pain. My business partner, Mr. Chester, and I got involved in some really unbelievable activities. If I told you, you would think me a liar. Well, even though we made the right decisions, decisions that have likely altered the course of my species in a good way, there were those who disagreed.

"People in powerful places decided we were a problem. So, here we are, Doc, just looking to survive, like you."

The doctor continued to look out the window, deep in thought about his own past.

"I hope you will be discreet with that bit of info, Doc. The people who have it out for me won't care much about collateral damage. I would hate to bring wrong upon any of the people here."

The doctor looked up at me and nodded. "You don't have to worry about me, son. Your business is your business. I only ask the same from you in return. What you did for this planet was more than enough to buy my silence. If I haven't said it enough times already... thank you again for your help."

I left the doctor's office with a smile on my new face. I caught the gaze of several of the young local Bullworti women as I walked. My broad shoulders and solid frame now had a face to go with them. I had to check myself when I realized my walk was turning into a strut. I may have had a handsome new face, but my heart was still back on the Grid. An evening was spent with bouts of self-admiration whenever I came upon a reflection. Frig released a sigh with each occurrence.

I returned to the doctor the following day for a final checkup. After looking over his work, I was invited to lunch. We talked through the afternoon. I don't know why, but I felt a kinship with George Parlo. Before I knew it, I was telling him about the admiral and the coming war, about our encounters with the pirates, and of the destruction of the massive ion cannon. He soaked up the stories as fast as I could tell them.

The doctor then confided in me that he had amassed a tremendous number of credits during his time as a surgeon. On Bullwort, he was little more than a country doctor, often providing his services to those in need who could not pay. Credits were of no interest to him, as he already had enough to last several lifetimes. What he sought, and what I had to offer, was adventure, a chance to live, a chance to make a difference.

By the end of our discussion I had confided in George Parlo about our mining strategy. He was quickly on board, offering loans for whatever equipment we would require.

"Just say the word, Rex. I'll provide the credits for whatever we need."

I took note of his use of "we." George had found his adventure and was ready to jump in headfirst.

I returned to the Swift and an excited Frig. "Sir, I continued the scans from gemstones and proceeded on to valuable minerals. It seems, at a distance of about eighty kilometers from here, three kilometers deep, there is a rather large deposit of tantric ore. It appears to be high grade, sir. A deposit that size would easily cover the ships of several fleets. I believe our mining business is going to pay an early dividend."

I looked over the data and had to admit it was an impressive find. The ore vein was nearly half a kilometer across and stretched four kilometers further into the planet, heading away from us. It was possible the vein continued farther, as at that depth and distance our sensors struggled to identify the materials encountered. A flyover with the Swift would clear up any doubts.

The news of tantric ore was huge. It was a commodity in high demand and short supply. We would need equipment to first extract and then refine the ore before offering it for sale. A shipment like one of those that we had delivered to the admiral would fetch nearly five million credits on the ore market. In the coming months we would need a plan for its distribution as well. A new source of tantric was sure to attract attention, attention we were did not want.

During our planning stage of our new operation, we made several trips to the closest systems where mining gear could be acquired. George financed the purchases of equipment through a system of bank transfers that would be difficult for any professional outfit to follow. He had spent years moving his credits around so as to keep his enemies unaware of his location. I quickly entrusted George with the handling of transfers and payments for our product. His years of dealing with high-end clientele had given him the business acumen that I lacked.

With the good doctor's help, we acquired several top-of-the-line laser drills. We soon had a seven-kilometer-long tracked tunnel going from a construction shack on the surface to the beginning of the ore vein. It was accomplished after only forty days of drilling. Frig programmed an automated cart to make continuous runs down to the vein.

A set of automated sonic scrapers mined the ore without needing our direct supervision. Once the system was set up, all we had to do was sit back and begin the refinement process. Our tantric operation was soon producing a refined ore of the highest quality.

With the proper tools and a skilled tantric craftsman, we would be able to apply the plating directly to the hull of any ship. Tantric was very malleable until a dense electric charge was applied. The charge worked to align the ore molecules into a lattice structure that resisted change, making it extremely rigid and difficult to damage. George continued to contribute by suggesting the name of a local craftsman, Gyves Multifal. He had left a high-paying job due to gambling debts he could not repay. After a short discussion, Gyves Multifal—we called him Gy—was eager to join our operation.

Gy had been on the run for nearly twenty years. The gambling cartel to which he was beholden spanned eighteen star systems. It had close ties to many politicians and police forces, making it more powerful than many governments. Gy had run up a debt of nearly two million credits before disappearing from sight. His low-profile life on Bullwort had been anything but comfortable. The suggestion of an opportunity to once again ply his trade was all it took to get him on board.

When our first twenty kilograms of tantric had been refined to application quality, I had Gy do an evaluation of the Swift.

"Wow, a Blevin. Last time I saw one of those was early in my career. Shame, too, the Blevin has a solid hull, and can take a beating. Most fleets got away from the fighter concept during its time, opting instead for ever-bigger ships. With just an initial look, I'm betting I can at least double her capacity to take a hit. Add in a high-velocity impact dampener, and she'll be one tough bird."

I placed my hand on Gy's shoulder. "Use as much of this stuff as you want. Make her as impenetrable as you can. She's already a beast. We've taken a number of hits from a Milgari battle cannon and survived. Not by much, mind you, but how many ships can say that?"

Gy continued to look her over. "I think we can add at least an inch of armor to most of the hull. And if we can acquire some aquamarine, I can layer it in, adding a full level of charge dissipation to her. Yeah, I like what I'm seeing here, Boss. I'll need about three months to do the work. When I'm done with her, she'll be able to take a Milgari battleship dead on."

As Gy worked on the Swift's hull, I filled him in on our other enhancements: our EID addition to the engines and our full-strength ion cannon. He was impressed with what he heard and saw.

"If the Milgari are coming as you say, I would love to have a dozen of these Blevins. With these modifications to take into battle, you could pretty much ignore everything but the biggest of their ships."

Gy rubbed his hand across the Swift's hull. "I'm betting that mega-station they have constructed probably can't put up much of a fight on its own. No mobility in something that large."

As I continued to talk with Gy, I made mention of the negative ion bomb the Gresshans had used to immobilize the Swift. "We were dead flat, flared out. If not for a bit of luck, we would have been taken captive and pushed into some mining pit somewhere until we were used up. That captain didn't see us coming, though, and made some big mistakes. Got anything that will neutralize those effects?"

Gy stopped his work and looked up at the hangar ceiling before looking back. "I don't know squat about ions other than the basics, but I know somebody who does back on Marcon. At least that's where she was when I... departed. Once we get this baby plated and flying again, I say we register the Swift under a Bullworti flag and make a run to Marcon to see if we can find her.

"She was a hoot, that one. I had trouble keeping up with her when we went out bar hoppin'. She liked to get into it with other patrons, too. She sure could dish it out. Never once saw her get her ass kicked. But that was a long time ago. Sorry if I'm running on. I just think she would be able to help. She knew her ionics."

George had a small personal flier he would use to occasionally go off world. Frig added the EID enhancement to his ship, boosting its top speed to nearly 280 SOL. As we continued to mine, he departed on a three-week tour in an effort to gauge the marketplace for our growing stockpile of tantric ore. He now had the added task of attempting to locate Gy's friend, Ritari Harfist.

I assisted Gy with the tantric plating on the Swift as Frig managed the mining and refinement operation. Gy began to tell of the warships he had worked on and the battles in which they had fought. I stopped him when he mentioned the Tantilis.

"Yeah, I did most of her bridge plating myself. She was a fine ship, that one. Such a shame to have gone astray like that. I mean, the whole crew committing mutiny and then turning her over to the Milgari? It just didn't make sense."

I stepped in with my thoughts on the subject. "Yeah, well, sometimes people aren't who you think they are. My father was on that ship. I've never been able to accept the explanation that was given as to its surrender. But the evidence that was supplied at the time was pretty convincing. Not sure I want to know the truth, though, as it might only confirm what others have said."

Gy placed his hand on my shoulder. "Rex, I got to know a lot of the crewmen on that boat. And if it's any consolation to you, I never believed for a second that they surrendered willingly. Too many good people on there for that. The crew I knew would have fought to the death before giving up. Yeah... I always thought that mutiny explanation was fishy."

Gy pulled his hand back and crossed his arms. "You know, I never repeated this to anyone, but the Tantilis was on a mission to punch a hole through the Milgari supply lines. Would have set them back decades trying to rebuild a new secure one. Just as with any army, they move on their belly. The Milgari aren't any different. They have to keep supplied.

"I had a lady friend on board. She was in the Intel Corps. Before she left, she told me she was worried about word getting out to the Milgari through spies. I wondered why it was she was telling me so much if she was worried about security. You shouldn't be in that service if you can't keep your trap shut. Anyway, she said they suspected the Milgari spy network might have gotten wind of the operation. If so, it wasn't much more than a suicide run. Surrender was a shocker."

Gy continued with his talk of the Tantilis and other ships he had worked on. It was an impressive array of vessels, all of which had exemplary battle records—except the surrender of the Tantilis. I had not thought deeply about my father and the Tantilis for many years. Our talk soon brought back a flood of memories, memories that took me to a happier place and time.

# Chapter 17

### _______________________

George returned several days later with good news about his marketing efforts. The price of refined tantric had nearly doubled since the admiral had begun the construction of his stealth fleet. The increase in price would only be helpful for our new business.

George had also gained information on the whereabouts of Ritari Harfist. She had her own ionics business on Orcon, a place that George had no desire to visit. After a short pilot tutorial in George's flier, I departed for Orcon-3.

Upon arrival, the planet was bustling with activity. I landed with papers showing my identity as Gar Mimack, ore trader from a far sector. We took every precaution to cover our tracks back to Bullwort. If news of a tantric find got out, the small planet would be swamped with prospectors searching for their fortunes. In my years of experience with the Messenger Service, I had no problem embellishing my cover with tales of my travels. I soon found myself walking into a small warehouse in the industrial district of the spaceport city of Freld.

"Yes, I'm here to see Miss Harfist about a business venture. Is she available today?"

The receptionist was a Tellis Manta, a species with one large eye in the center of her forehead. She squinted at me suspiciously before pressing a button on her desk. "Someone here to biz with you, Miss Harfist, a handsome fella named..."

I scrambled for a card.

"A fella named Mimack. Says he has business."

Ritari responded that she would be there shortly, and for the receptionist, Margerine, to assist me as I waited.

The Manta opened her big eye wide and smiled. "While we are waiting, Mr. Mimack, is there anything I could do for you?"

She began to bat the large eye at me in a flirtatious manner. The Manta were not picky about with whom they consorted. I, on the other hand... was.

"Thank you, Margerine, I believe I will just be seated over here and await Miss Harfist. I have a bit of work I can do as I wait."

Margerine had a disappointed look on her face as her single eye returned to her paperwork. I sat and fumbled through a few loose papers in an attempt to show that I was busy. Ritari rounded the corner from her warehouse several minutes later.

"Mr...."

I greeted her as I rose. "Mr. Bu— excuse me, Gar Mimack. I'm here to talk with you about an ionics need my company has."

She gestured for me to follow. I was soon sitting in her office. Margerine brought in a hot cup of Orcon Gew for me to sip on as we talked.

"I'll get right to the point, Miss Harfist. I have a need to protect my ship from a negative ion blast, something that will prevent a flare-out."

Ritari looked at me inquisitively. "A flare-out? I thought that issue was solved a century ago with the enlarged recombination chamber. You must be driving something really old to have that happen. Only ships still using the negative ion blast are a few scattered pirates. Only good to slow most ships for a few seconds at best. Haven't heard of a flare-out problem in any modern vessel."

I nodded my head in agreement. "Yes, it's not something you hear about. But let's just say that my ship is a bit sensitive to negative ions. I am told you might be able to help. Does that sound like work you would be interested in?"

Ritari leaned back in her chair and gestured with her hand. "Sure, what hangar are you parked in? I can go give you an estimate right now."

I pursed my lips and replied. "I'm afraid the ship in need is not located on this planet. This would be a consulting job off world. I do, however, have the financial backing to pay the standard rates for this work with a substantial bonus at the end, if it passes our quality assurance team's testing."

Ritari nodded. "Sure, I can have one of my techs go with you. Tech rates are an eight-hundred credit deposit and one hundred twenty-five credits per day. One hundred ten if it goes over ten days."

I again pursed my lips before responding. "Miss Harfist, my client's interest is for your personal service. You have a reputation my client commands. When I stated standard rates, my intent was your standard rate. Does this sound like something of interest to you?"

Ritari stood and placed her hands on her desk. "I'm sorry, Mr. Mimack, but this old broad doesn't travel anymore. I have to stick close to home to keep this business running. I have regular clients I service here on Orcon. If I were to go away for any period of time, it would put those contracts at risk. I do have competitors out there, Mr. Mimack. Nope, sorry, can't travel."

I had hoped to convince her of joining the team without showing her the operation, and, specifically, that her old friend Gy was involved. I stood and then leaned in close to her.

She said, "I hope you aren't planning anything strange here, Mr. Mimack. I may be getting old, but I can still take care of myself if needed."

With a low voice, I told her: "Gyves Multifal sent me, Miss Harfist. We're desperately in need of your service, and I can assure you, the payout from your assistance will be far greater than what you earn here. If you are still not interested, I ask that you please forget you ever heard the name I mentioned. There are those who are still unhappy with him."

Ritari sat up straight and replied with a soft voice, just above a whisper. "I haven't heard that name in many years, Mr. Mimack. Had you said anyone but him, I would have laughed in your face. If Gy is looking for my help... well, I'll need to tidy up a few things here first, but I can leave with you this afternoon if you're ready. How long do you think it will be for?"

I looked Ritari in the eye with a stern face. "Permanent, if your work is as good as he says. We are in desperate need of your help, Miss Harfist. Gy could not recommend anyone else more highly. And we have the credits needed to back whatever work is required. You will be handsomely paid for your efforts."

She nodded and gave a time of four hours. We were to meet at the hangar where the flier was parked. She showed up on time, packed light and wearing an old flight suit. We departed shortly thereafter.

On the ride back to Bullwort, Ritari talked about her business. "I've barely been scratching out a living here the last few years. Too many drives now come with tuning programs on the ship's computer. That has cut deep into my profits. I have a competitor who's been badgering me for years to sell out to him. Maybe I'll take him up on it, although I'm not sure what I would do after. That place keeps me busy, which keeps me out of trouble." She grinned sheepishly.

I had only implied to Ritari that Gy was involved in something big and was in need of her help. It was time to come clean. "Let me fill you in on exactly what we need. We have a ship. We were recently in a fight with some pirates and they used a negative ion bomb on us, flaring out our engine in the middle of a nasty fight. We barely escaped. We need you to fix our ship so that issue won't happen again. Gy is currently working on extra shielding for us and brought up your name. If you decide to join the team, which I believe you will, you'll find it very profitable."

She requested I call her Rita. It was a name that fit her friendly but dominating personality.

"Yeah, Gy and I had some good times. The only thing that ever irked me about him was his addiction to gambling. He always had to play against the odds, even when those odds were insanely against him. He was a dead man if they caught him. They still send people snooping around looking for him. Not sure how much he was in for, but it must have stung when he up and left."

As we touched down in Roswell, Rita spoke her mind. "Bullwort? Who named it that? I guess if Gy was looking for an out-of-the-way place, he found one here. Most of us refer to this sector as the dead zone. Not much out here in the way of population or promise."

We stepped out of the hatch of George's flier onto the tarmac. I escorted Rita into hangar 4, closing and locking the door behind me.

"This is one part of our operation," I said, "the part for which we need your services. Our ship, the Swift, is an old—"

Rita cut in. "Blevin-class, yeah, I know them. Had one myself one time. Wish I never sold it. It was a good, solid vessel in its day. Construction techniques have changed several times since these were mainline. Everything built now is cheap and weak. Someone had the idea they could save a lot of credits and have a lot more ships by doing that. It's one of the reasons they abandoned fighters on the Grid. They were sending too many young, valuable pilots to their death."

Gy then stepped out of the rear hatch on the Swift. "Rita? Come here! Give Gy some love!"

Gy ran over to give Rita a bear hug. "Wow, are you ever a sight for sore eyes! We're going to have to hit the pub in a bit to get caught up!"

Rita replied, "As much fun as that sounds, I'm afraid you might be disappointed. Since you left, I quit drinking. Just wasn't the same without my cohort in crime. But I would be more than happy to catch up with just talking."

I left Rita and Gy to get reacquainted while I checked on Frig. I walked into our small warehouse to a Frig who was happily engaged in his work.

"Sir. Good. I'm glad you are here. Were you able to find Gy's friend?"

I nodded. "She was right where he left her. She's over in hangar 4 with him now. I think we can convince her to stay."

Frig punched several keys on his display. "This is a graph of our production. I have been tweaking the scrapers and haulers, and I believe they are now working at their optimum level. Our production has accelerated a bit, sir. I have supplied Gy with all the tantric he has requested, and our stockpile is quickly building. We should have the first load ready for sale in a few weeks. I am becoming curious as to what we are going to spend our first fifty million credits on, sir. A larger ore hauler, perhaps? I think I can easily produce more than the Swift can transport."

The progress of our little business was moving forward at a pace I had not anticipated. We would soon be rolling in credits and flying a ship that was second to none. I began to think about what Gy had said about having a small fleet of Blevins. There had to be other hulls still in service or perhaps stored as scrap. I would have George spend his time between marketing stops looking for more of the Defenders. My new task would be to find crews to fly them.

Gy filled Rita in on our business. She accepted a small share of the partnership immediately. I asked Frig to give her a tour of the Swift's systems, and most notably her drives.

Rita was quickly fascinated by what she saw. "That is pure genius. Forget the tantric armor. You could make a fortune off this drive alone. Ho, ho! There are some big players out there that would kill to have the speed you have here. What is it, double? 275... 280 SOL?"

Gy smiled and pointed upwards.

Frig replied, "This is a technology we cannot allow others to have. If the Milgari were to acquire it, we would lose the advantage it offers, and their attacks on the Grid would increase in frequency. The speed of that station is fixed. Drives that allow the Milgari to catch up would very much work against a free Grid. And we cannot sell this technology, as it would only serve to doom us all. It has already been given away to more than it should have been. I only hope it will never be used against us."

Rita nodded. "Didn't intend to ruffle any feathers there, was just making a statement. I agree with everything you said, though. This is not something we want in the hands of our enemies. We've had a tough enough time as it is."

I was glad to see our new team members were not butting heads. We had much to accomplish, and war was growing ever closer. Bullwort would not be the first place to be attacked if and when war came, but it would not be the last. The remainder of the day was spent in discussion of what we planned to do.

The following morning Rita got to work bright and early. She spent hours studying the EID diagrams and Frig's implementation of them. More than once she screamed out in exclamation at what she saw. She was soon drafting up plans to modify the shielding around the ion feeds, as well as to decouple the cannon from the engines. Frig was fighting her designs every step of the way.

Rita said, "You don't want your engines wired into this cannon. That's absurdly dangerous. You have this big fat cargo space here that's just begging for an ion generator or two. I saw the specs on one just the other day that could power that cannon. You would lose some cargo capacity, but it would be worth it for the safety, as well as taking care of your sensitivity to negative ions.

"In fact, I think we could add some inverters here and here, and make these engines switchable on the fly. Might take a two-second purge to clean out those chambers, but the negative engines would be just as efficient when tuned. And if we get that working, we should be able to apply it to that cannon. You could do some nasty things to a lot of ships with that powerful of a negative pulse. It's not something most are shielded for."

After two days of consulting, I flew Rita back to Orcon-3. Her business was quickly sold, and she packed her things for a move. She was eager to begin the ion transformation of the Swift, and I was eager to have her do it. The Swift would be immune to the effects of the negative ion wave of the nebula and to the captive ion field frequently used by the pirates. During our trip we managed to purchase two of the ion generators Rita had mentioned. It would be her job to integrate them into the Swift's systems.

Upon our return to Bullwort, George left to find a buyer for our first load of tantric ore and to scout for any Blevin Defender hulls that might still be in existence. On his first visit to Mervid-5, he happened upon two such ships. They had been out of service for a number of years. Lacking modern computers and more efficient drive systems, they had become too expensive to fly.

He was able to purchase the pair for a fair price. They would be delivered to another system by a hired carrier, and then to a second system by a second carrier. From there, it would be my responsibility to lease and then fly a transport large enough to fit them in its cargo hold. We continued to take steps to cover our tracks.

With the sale of our first load of refined ore, we were able to begin the needed updates to our two new ships. They would be called the Fist and the Dagger. The Fist, named in honor of Rita, would be the first to undergo upgrades. It was my job to see to it we had all the parts necessary. I had now taken on the tasks of parts runner, crew recruiter, and test pilot.

When Rita had completed her upgrades to the Swift, the ship was ready for a test of her new abilities. Gy was first to give me a rundown of what they had accomplished.

"I think this might have been my finest work. You have fourteen layers of tantric and aquamarine crystals folded into that outer plating. I took the time to grind those crystals extra fine. She should be able to take a full-on charge from one of those Milgari cannons. Keep in mind, though, each time you take a hit, the armor degrades. tantric is tough, but it has its limits. The ship will fly like a barge through the atmosphere. It's heavy. But get it out yonder, away from a significant source of gravity, and it should fly like a dream."

Rita was next with her updates. "OK, the cannon and engine feeds have been split, and automated inverters added to each. Switchover takes about two seconds, and both should be equally efficient as positive or negative. I would almost say just fly negative all the time, but there are positive nebulae out there too. I was also able to boost the cannon efficiency by about 7 percent.

"The big additions are the two new ion generators and a small storage well. You should be able to rapid-fire that cannon at four pulses per second, full charge. However, you will run into a heating problem at that point, so I would advise keeping the number to a half dozen or so bursts, with a five-second rest in between. That should be a sustainable run rate. And if you're running negative, well, let's just say whoever is on the receiving end is not going to be happy about it. A negative pulse that big could fry their electronics in a bad way.

"Now for the good news... her engines will be running at probably... 40 percent better efficiency. With Gy's new tantric plating, I've wired in that small ion well to hold a charge that can be applied to the hull. It'll be useful for dissipating a bolt charge of the opposite polarity, as well as for keeping snoopers away while parked. Anyone touching that hull when they shouldn't is not going to walk away from it.

"I've wired the well to detect the source resistance of hull contact. Should provide a substantial stun, but nothing lethal. Don't want the innocent getting all up in arms over a nosy kid getting zapped. I have to say, I wish I was flying out with you, but the Fist is in need of some major overhauling, so enjoy your ride."

I was impressed with the team of professionals we had assembled in such a short time. All had a commitment to hard work and personalities that did not clash. Hopefully, their early accomplishments foretold what we would be capable of.

I looked over the newly updated Swift. Her hull was now a shiny bronze, and she sported a new call number, BULL488. She had gone from a bulky old fighter to a bright, clean, fast cargo hauler. That was on the outside; the inside told a much different story.

She was fast, possibly the fastest ship in the galaxy. She was heavily defended, having tantric plating that could withstand all but the most powerful of cannons. Her armament was equal in effectiveness to that found on a ship a thousand times her size. Her computer and sensors were cutting edge, and her pilot... well, he was ruggedly handsome.

The doors of hangar 8 opened wide and I taxied out. The Swift was hovering only a few feet off the ground, but I could feel what Gy had predicted: she felt heavy, as though a wet blanket had been thrown over her. I set the coordinates for orbit and pushed the throttle to full. The Swift rocketed skyward and the brightly-lit sky quickly faded to the blackness of space.

As I left the orbit of Bullwort, she smoothly accelerated up to our new top speed. With the generators driving 100 percent, the speed gauge read 337 SOL. I targeted the first large asteroid in the system and brought the cannon online. For kicks, I switched the polarity to negative and pushed the trigger. The asteroid violently shattered and the Swift moved effortlessly through the debris.

I checked and rechecked the status of systems; all in the green. I checked the ion consumption and was impressed with a 42 percent lower burn rate than she had displayed before. I set a course for Grid space in an attempt to contact some of the other Messenger pilots. Two out of three of them, Niles Beager and Davis Holcomb, were the best pilots I knew.

Michael Felix was the other, but I was not about to involve him in our little plan. He had warned me of the warrant for my arrest and for that I was thankful, but Michael Felix never did anything without a motive, and I was unsure of his exact reason for informing me. For the time being at least, Michael Felix would remain on the outside.

# Chapter 18

### _______________________

After two days of tracking transponders, Davis Holcomb made an appearance. "G7902, G7902... come in."

I waited for several seconds before getting a somewhat tepid reply. "This is Holcomb... I don't recognize your transponder code. Can you state your business?"

I had a short laugh before responding. "G7902. This is the space police. That hull color is a violation of code 221. I'm going to have to take you in."

The comm sat silent for several seconds. "If I didn't know better, I would say that sounds like the lamest comedian this side of Marcon. Let me switch to a TC and we'll talk."

A targeted channel was the best way to communicate securely in space. Instead of a wide broadcast, an encrypted beam sent messages directly at the receiving ship. The receiver would then send a beam back, establishing a somewhat secure comm channel that was difficult to detect.

"Whoa... Don Grange. You kind of disappeared from this place. I didn't believe for one second you were involved with what they said. Although, they did have most people convinced, with all the credits you had been making. Not a big stretch to tie the two together."

I listened to Davis's take on the matter for several minutes before responding. "I appreciate that you believed in me, Davis. It's easy to believe what's being reported when it's coming from law enforcement and prosecutors. But it was all lies. I was involved with spying, that much is true. That spying, however, was for our side.

"It seems I caused some disruptions in somebody's plans, and this was their way of thanking me. If you have a bit to sit and listen, I would like to tell you a story and then possibly make you an offer. Some of this may be hard to believe, and you can't tell anyone else about what I will tell you. Otherwise you'll end up with the same lies being told about you. You might spend your life in prison for treason. If you would rather not know, I'll just tell you to take care of yourself and I'll be on my way."

Davis took a moment to respond. "Well, only an ignorant man refuses to listen. There is an errant moon about a quarter light-year to starboard. It should be on your nav display. Let's park it there and we can discuss. If anything, I'm sure whatever it is you have to say will be entertaining, and you know how much we Messengers value entertainment."

We were soon parked on the small, drifting moon. Davis left his ship to come aboard the Swift. "Wow, what did you have done to her? You must still be doing well for yourself. Check out the electronics and generators you have in here. I don't think I've seen anything like it."

Davis grasped my right forearm just below the elbow as he pulled himself in to pat me on the right shoulder. "Tell me what you got going on here. I want in on it already!"

I filled Davis in on many of the pieces of the puzzle of my disappearance without giving away any vital information. New members of the team would have to be brought on slowly, as there was no turning back. If anyone were to leave, they would be taking the knowledge of our entire operation with them.

There were those who would pay substantial sums for that knowledge. Loyalty could often, but not always, be bought. I believed "not always" to be the case for Davis. He was hard-core when it came to his principles. He was also a loner, which made him an easy recruit.

"We are at war, my friend. It'll be on us again soon. This time we might not make it out of the sector on time. Our politics are rife with corruption. Our military has become complacent with important leadership being replaced by political pawns. I know it sounds crazy, but I have taken it upon myself to work for the defense of the Grid. Even with all its corruption, it's still our only home."

Davis asked a number of questions, some I would not answer. I assured him if he were to commit, he would know all there was to know. I needed team members, members who were willing to give it all, members who were patriots for the cause.

Davis stood and paced the hold for several minutes with his hand rubbing his chin. "You know, I just started seeing this girl, very sweet, and with legs that go all the way up to... heaven—well, anyway, I hate to give that up, but I'm not fully invested in her yet. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is... I'm in."

I stood, and Davis again came over and grasped my forearm.

I offered an initial game plan. "Go back to your ship and set the autopilot on it to return to the Grid. Have her broadcast instructions when she gets there to be put into storage. I'll have enough credits transferred to your account to keep her there. When all of this is over, if it's over, she will be waiting there for you to do with as you will. When you get back over here, we'll head out to get you started on your training."

On the flight back, I let Davis fill me in on the stories from the Grid. Michael Felix continued to consolidate his hold on the Messenger Service, and he was keeping company with the politicians from Alpha sector now that his wealth was growing. He had no doubt that, within the year, Michael Felix would have complete control of the Service, setting schedules and doling out jobs to whomever he saw fit.

Davis reasoned there were probably a dozen old-school pilots who would happily join the cause, if just to be rid of Michael Felix. But there were only two that he felt would be trustworthy enough to converse with. I told him there would be time in the near future, but for now we would focus on getting him fully on board. Davis was to become our new pilot trainer as our team was to grow.

I spent a day back on Bullwort introducing Davis to the team. I could see a little jealousy developing with Gy as Davis talked it up with Rita. Gy's irritated behavior soon passed once he determined there was no romantic interest. Davis and Rita were both talkers and there was much to talk about. The following morning I lifted off, once again in search of pilots for the cause.

Davis had mentioned that Niles Beager was in the pocket of Michael Felix. I was saddened by the news, but Niles was a survivor and was only going where the credits were. So I turned my attentions toward the transponders of Barg Hullis and Milly Barber on the recommendation of Davis, both excellent pilots and both on the outs with Michael Felix.

Milly Barber's transponder was the first to light up my console. Three days later we were landing on Bullwort and I was introducing her to the team. Barg joined us two weeks later. Our force of pilots was quickly taking shape.

Upon return with Barg, I requested the status of our operations.

Frig replied, "We will have a second load of ore ready for delivery in two days. George has a buyer lined up for our next three loads."

I don't know why, but a sudden thought came over me, and I asked Frig to stop. I questioned who would be buying our ore. Would they be using it against us? Was it being resold to the Milgari? I asked Frig to build a passive probe into the next container. It would broadcast a micropulse of its location to us once a week. Unless it was being looked for, it would be extremely difficult to detect.

Frig continued, "The Fist is coming along nicely. George managed to acquire the best commercial-grade flight computers available, and the other mods are nearly complete. We expect it to be ready for first flight in another sixteen days. Davis is eager to take command.

"The Dagger is in need of a bit more work to bring it up to standard. I have an estimate of fifty-eight days from now until it is at the same level as the Fist. If you manage to find more ships, we can keep the pipeline full. It would allow us to make the most efficient use of our time."

I asked, "Could we make our own Blevin Defenders? Make our own hulls?"

Frig shook his head. "Sir, the Blevin was one of the few ships to use high-magnetic welding during its construction. The equipment proved costly to maintain and was one of the reasons the design was shelved. There won't be any more Blevins rolling off the line with the same level of hull integrity as the Swift. The aging of the weld joints has only made them stronger. That hull is one of the reasons we get bounced around in there so much, sir. There's no give."

Two days later we were loading the refined ore onto the Swift for delivery. George had arranged for a drop onto a moon in the Frellis system. He had warned the buyer seemed suspiciously paranoid during their dealings. If something was to go wrong, I would have the Swift at my disposal, but George, in his flier, would be putting himself in jeopardy.

Four days later I touched down on the moon and pushed the container out onto the surface. I moved back to orbit to wait for verification by the purchaser and the transfer of credits.

"George, the product is on the ground, awaiting their check."

George replied, "I have the buyer coming in right now. You should see his hauler there shortly."

Several minutes passed before the hauler set down on the moon. A lone individual exited the ship to check the contents of the container. I was expecting a pause as the go-ahead message was delivered. Instead, a winch line was run out and the container was quickly pulled into the cargo hold of the hauler.

"Ah, George, tell me we received payment already. They're loading the container."

George replied, "It's a scam! The buyer has been sitting here delaying payment with every excuse in the book. I say go put a stop to that... what the heck? Mayday, Swift! I'm on the run, coming your way! This guy just sent two missiles my way!"

George continued at full throttle, eventually outrunning the missiles. I raced toward his position, abandoning my watch over the tantric ore. When the offending ship came up on my tactical screen, it turned quickly away from George. I slowed my speed and allowed the buyer to flee the scene.

When we returned to the moon, the hauler with the tantric ore was gone.

"Just the reason you should always have a backup plan," I said. "I'll be shadowing them as they go, to determine where they are heading. That probe we built into the container should keep them from getting away. When I find their destination, they will be paying a heavy price."

George headed for Bullwort. I began my chase. I had the probe we planted set to ping once an hour for a day before reverting to a weekly burst. Before the first ping was verified, I had the thieves locked into my tactical display with a visual verification. I remained at a fifteen-minute distance with my signal inhibitor on. For two days I followed the two ships as they made their way to their home port. That port was the second moon of Marcon.

Both ships touched down and immediately began to unload the ore container. As I watched from a low orbit, a transfer truck appeared and collected the container. Five minutes later it was being loaded onto a ship at a different docking bay. A ship that belonged to Michael Felix! I pounded my fist on my flight console in rage.

I dared not make a move on Michael. He had a way of always having a backup plan, a shadow ship that would be covering his every move, perhaps. But I was no longer interested in the ore. My interests lay with the criminal who had stolen from us, not with the receiver of those stolen goods. The buyer that we made a deal with had been paid with credits that belonged to us.

I sat patiently watching the thief from above. Several hours passed before he boarded his ship and lifted off toward a new destination. I followed soon after. Once we moved beyond the sensors of Marcon, I pushed up the throttle and raced to confront the culprit.

A low-level negative ion pulse brought his engines to a stop.

I hailed him. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."

There was silence for several seconds before his engine came back online. It was a move I'd anticipated, and I followed immediately with another negative pulse from my cannon. Again the thief's engine went silent.

"I'm giving you a fair warning. Either initiate a transfer of credits for the agreed-upon amount or I will permanently disable your ship. This is Rythium territory, and I am certain they would enjoy your company."

I waited patiently for a response, but the thief remained silent. My next pulse was at full power and aimed to only singe his starboard wing.

"OK, I'm sure if you look at the power output of that last pulse, you will see that I can turn that bucket of yours into ash. This is your last chance. Enable a credit transfer for the amount agreed upon or I will disable your ship and come and take it from you. Dead or alive; makes no difference to me."

The thief remained silent for several more seconds before an alert sounded on my credit store. The sum of fifty million credits was transferred in an instant. "Wise choice. Now, as a consolation, I'm going to take your systems offline. I'm launching a probe with a rescue beacon.

"If you're lucky, help will arrive before the Rythium. And as a final word of advice... you are too dumb to be in this business. If you make it out of here, you might think seriously about a new occupation."

As I signed off, I blasted the thief's ship with a series of low-level negative pulses. Most of the electronics on board the ship were likely fried. He would indeed need luck on his side if he was to survive.

I pushed the throttle to full and headed for home. When I reached Bullwort space, I contacted George to let him know that all was well. With that one ore sale, the loans he had made to the cause were repaid in full. After a brief stay, I soon lifted off in search of pilots and hulls. There were other Blevins out there... and other pilots to fly them.

Over the months that followed, the Fist and the Dagger were made operational and ready for flight. Both ships performed flawlessly, including their crews. They were better than I had ever thought possible.

During the flight tests, George managed to find three additional Defender hulls. They were purchased and clandestinely delivered to Bullwort. With the new hulls moving through our upgrade process, the size of our fleet would soon number six.

My pilot recruiting had also gone well. We now had eight team members who were qualified as pilots, and five ship engineers. George had leads on four additional hulls he was tracking down. Our new pilots were Jon Baumer, Dance Pilgrim, and Vette Stephens, all disgruntled Messenger pilots, and all excellent fliers.

The ore-mining operation continued at a rapid pace. Four new loads of refined tantric ore had been delivered. For such a small operation, we had an impressive credit store that was still growing. We could purchase supplies and parts for our operations without worry. Accounts had been set up for each team member, and profit-sharing contributions had begun. There had not been a grumble of dissatisfaction from any member of the team. Everyone worked hard to accomplish our goals.

With our small fleet growing, it was decided the time had come to put it to use. Intel had to be gathered on Milgari operations. Their numbers in the sector were growing, as well as word of new bases. The rumors of a massive Milgari ship with ultrapowerful ion cannons had not been proved. However, after seeing one of the cannons being manufactured, I had no doubt that at least one of those ships existed. Our first task would be to find out where it was.

With our small fleet coming together, it was time to pay a visit to the Grid. I would use George's flier so as not to attract unwanted attention. Rex Bumbalee was a mine operator from Bullwort looking to sell his product and acquire mining equipment. With my new face and my recent experience in mining, I felt it was a decent cover.

I landed in Alpha Bay 7 and proceeded to Jasper's. As I entered, I was floored by what I saw. Ashley Elizabeth was sitting with Michael Felix. I had the sudden urge to race over to punch him. Instead, I turned and walked away in search of the Gambit who had given me the package to deliver to his rebel Gambit friends. When I arrived at his apartment, I found there was a new occupant.

I knocked on the apartment next door in an attempt to gather information on his whereabouts.

The Human neighbor answered. "Yes?"

"Excuse me, but I was looking for the Gambit who used to live next door. Would you know where I can find him?"

The neighbor looked down the hallway both ways before responding. "You are better off just walking away. The guy was a spy; they came and shot him dead. The news reported there was a struggle, but I was right here and all I heard was a knock on his door, followed by three shots when the door opened. If he was a spy, he deserved what he got. But it all sounded a bit suspicious to me."

The neighbor continued, "Oh, by the way, if anyone asks, I will deny ever talking to you. I would recommend you go as far away from this place as you can, because the thugs who got him shoot first and ask questions later. That's all I can offer. Please go now."

The door was closed in my face. The neighbor was scared and suspicious. I repeated the process with the adjacent apartments. Two neighbors slammed their doors, but a third offered up the Gambit's place of employment.

Mars Tallon had worked the prior decade in a retail shop in the first mainstay of the Beta section, just under a kilometer from his apartment. His supervisor was a chatty, middle-aged woman who took immediate notice of me when I walked through the door.

"Yes, I worked with Mars for the last ten years or so. He was a sweet guy, never any trouble and always on time. I just could not believe that he was a spy. Right here under my nose the whole time!"

The Gambit's boss was batting her eyes and touching my arm as she continued to talk. "He was a hard worker, that one. Always polite and helpful, kept his schedule like clockwork. Every day except Tuesday he would leave for lunch at 11:55 and return precisely thirty minutes later. On Tuesday, he took a one-hour lunch. He would meet his Gambit friend Dearest Kreed at the doorway and walk her to the cafe four doors down. I think he was sweet on her, but he never made the move. I always told him, if you see something you like, reach out and grab it!"

She smiled as she squeezed my arm.

I replied, "Well, Miss... Walker, I would like to thank you for your time and the enlightening conversation. I would stay and chat, but I have other appointments to attend to."

The expression on her face turned to one of coy sadness as she poked out her lower lip. "If you need anything else at all... anything, just stop in and say hi. I'm here every day but Saturday."

I nodded in agreement as I backed out of the store. I had a new lead to track down.

# Chapter 19

### _______________________

I checked the Grid registry and found that Dearest Kreed lived a short distance away, in Beta section. I was soon at her apartment door knocking.

A voice could be heard through the door. "Don't want none. Now go away or I'll call Section Patrol."

I could only guess she had been harassed repeatedly since the story broke about Mars. "Miss Kreed? I'm a friend of Mars. I spoke to him just before... the incident. He placed a package in my care for delivery."

I heard the door lock flipping, and Dearest Kreed was then standing before me. "Come inside. Quickly!"

She pulled on my arm as I passed her. She peered up and down the hallway before closing the door behind her.

"Mars gave a package to a Messenger, but that wasn't you. I saw him give it to Don Grange. He left the Grid with it immediately. You have the same build, but you aren't him."

George's surgical skills were outstanding. I was the same man, but I was unrecognizable to a species that had a keen eye for detail. I took a mental note to once again thank George for his fine work.

"I can only guess that from your close acquaintance to Mars, you knew what was in the package. I was the one who delivered it, just as he wanted. But there were problems. The ship I delivered it to was destroyed."

Dearest's eyes sank as she sat down in a chair. "I told him it was a bad idea. It was too dangerous. It got him killed, and now I have confirmation of others too."

I pulled a chair over and sat down in front of Dearest. "Miss Kreed, if it helps, I was able to deliver the item to the Free Alliance. Just before the ship was destroyed, I received coordinates for a second drop. The information reached its intended target."

Dearest looked up with a hopeful, but still sad expression. "If you delivered the object as you say, then perhaps there is still hope. It contained information that is vital to the Alliance. War is coming, Mr. Bumbalee. And the enemy will be revealed from within. This place you call home, just as we once had a home, will be in ruin before the Milgari reach here. Plans are being developed to take the Grid's only real defense offline. The drive, Mr. Bumbalee, they are targeting the drive!

"And if we somehow manage to overcome the internal threat, there is a new one coming from the Milgari. They have forward bases in the Pichik and Felgar sectors. If you are who you say you are, then you already know about their new weapons. If they hit the Grid with those... well, there is nothing we have that can stop them."

I got a sudden chill from having the knowledge of possible sabotage. She was right. The best defense the Grid had was its gravity drive. When our fleets neared utter defeat, we would pull up anchor and set sail for a new sector of space, a sector that would take the Milgari many years to find. My fleet of Blevins now somehow felt diminished in usefulness, even though I had acquired information about the Milgari bases.

The most powerful ship in the galaxy could not stop an attack from within. I began to wonder if we were in need of a new strategy. I thanked Kreed and slipped out of her apartment through a back hallway. I had an uncomfortable feeling of being alone and vulnerable. That feeling settled when I once again stepped into a busy hallway.

The halls of the Grid, and the occasional open garden, bustled with activity 24/7. I moved down a stretch of shops and ducked into a retailer, carefully watching the doorway for any sign I was being followed. After a short pause, I moved back into the bustle and closer to my destination in the Alpha section. When I happened into a stationery shop, I took a moment to purchase a pad and pen to jot down some notes.

I wrote out a small letter detailing the possibility that a plot was afoot to disable or destroy the gravity drive. Once back in the hallway, I found two boys who were roughhousing. I asked them if they were interested in doing spy work. They of course were. Any activity that would break the monotony that came with the month off from school for Celestial break, was eagerly sought and accepted. I held a mock swearing-in ceremony and gave each five credits for the service they would conduct.

There was a SCore office just down the hall, and they were to dash in, drop off the note, and then run back out. If caught, they were to say it was given to them by a Mushan trader; the halls of Alpha were often teeming with Mushans from a nearby system. When my instructions were complete, the boys turned and ran to the destination I had given. Seconds later, they were running back into the hall and off in the opposite direction. Their task was complete and they were off to spend their hard-earned reward.

I wrote an additional note and transcribed it into an encrypted data cube, which I then sealed in a small package. I made my way to Jasper's in search of a courier. The instruction was to travel to Marcon and have a third party deliver the cube to Michael Felix for further delivery to the admiral.

Michael would want details, but the deliverer of the package would have none to offer. In my message to the admiral, I said he was to leave a further message for a man named Mars Tallon in the main terminal on Omrin-7. I would easily be able to check that a message was waiting with complete anonymity. It would be my way of knowing that he received it.

I was taking a chance with the admiral, but everything I knew of his past did not point to a man who was a traitor. If he was indeed an agent for the Milgari, the plans for disrupting the gravity drive on the Grid would be compromised, possibly bringing an end to the threat. If he was a true patriot, he would do what he could to eliminate those involved before the plan could be put into action.

I was uneasy at leaving something so important in the hands of others, but I did not have the means to carry out an operation of that scale on my own. I was soon back in the flier and on my way home. I fretted over the idea of the information falling into the hands of Jose Cortes. He had met with the Milgari in a place where enemies would not go. He had saved my life, but my trust in him had been broken.

When I arrived at Bullwort, the Frost was now fully operational, and the Hammer was only weeks behind. We added two new team members who were responsible for integrating the new capabilities with the commercial flight computers. They had been snaked away from the manufacturer with the offer of many credits and a chance to help the cause. The new computers lacked the rugged makeup of the military-grade rig on the Swift, but they more than made up for that ruggedness with speed and programmed abilities.

Rita was busy crafting new ion shielding that would place the new computers on par with the old when it came to ionic protection. The solid-state aspect of the new commercial computing module made it nearly impervious to shock, with which the Blevin-class hulls had always had trouble.

Rita was also working with Gy on a new inertial dampening system that would reduce the impact that large ion pulses had on the ships. I looked forward to not being bounced around with every strike to our hull. On more than one occasion, I had thought my brain was going to rattle out of my skull.

As the weeks rolled on, George and I continued our search for Blevin hulls, pilots, and engineers. After several weeks of no finds, I was becoming antsy about the Milgari building bases. The pilot recruits were eager to test their mettle and that of their new ships. A trip out to the Felgar sector was planned for the purpose of intelligence gathering.

We would take all five Defenders in an attempt to practice coordinated attack and defense drills along the way. The sixth Defender was still under restoration. While each pilot had been selected for their skills, you could never have enough practice. I felt sorry for any number of rogue asteroids that happened to be in our path along the way.

It was a two-week journey, and the team was apprehensive but excited. "This is Frost. I have a bogie at minus three-dot-two d-k-five-zero-zero."

Minus three-dot-two was coordinate-speak for three degrees port, two degrees pitch. D-k-five-zero-zero was a distance of five hundred thousand kilometers.

"Target tracking is locked. Passing control to the Dagger for commitment."

The Dagger veered to the left and lifted its nose slightly. Seven seconds later, the ion cannon sent out a burst that turned the forty-meter-wide asteroid into vapor. The Dagger followed with a roll and was quickly back in formation.

The captain of the Frost said, "Thank you, Dagger, we look forward to the next call."

The captain of the Dagger replied, "You are welcome, Frost. Target tracking has been released. Command is back in the cycle."

Our two new computer geniuses had modified the collision-avoidance software of the commercial flight computers. When active, the program would track multiple targets and assign ships in the cycle to engage those targets. You were designated as being in the cycle if you had no current targets.

If no ships were available, a target was stacked on the queue of the ship that was best positioned to engage it. The Grid military had made use of targeting computers for centuries, but most pilots preferred to fly freehand, as the algorithms for target selection and assignment would occasionally get confused. On more than one occasion they had shut down entirely.

We repeated our target runs until we reached the outskirts of the Felgar sector. Our pace was slowed and our sensors brought fully online to analyze all objects and any movement that lay before us. For five days, the sensor yield was fourteen star systems, thirty-eight planets, ninety-six moons, and other assorted debris.

On the sixth day we had our first hit. A Milgari picket out on patrol. We formed our ships into a single-file line to reduce our visual signature. The Milgari frigate continued away from our position and was soon beyond our sensor range. I selected a nearby star system as a rendezvous point and then handed out assignments.

"Fist, you have grids 66 through 70. Dagger, 71 to 75. Frost, 81 through 85, and Hammer, 86 through 90. I'll be cutting the center at 76 to 80. You each have two days to scan your grids. I can't say this enough times: we are not in a rush here. Take every precaution to stay unknown. Do not, I repeat, do not broadcast for any reason. If for some reason you are disabled, let us come find you.

"If you are spotted, hightail it out of there at full speed and do not look back. If they can't catch you and do not identify you, chances are they will let it go. We meet back here in two days to review our information. You are all pros, and the Grid is in need of your skill and determination. Now go keep your eyes open and heads down as much as possible. See you in two."

With that, the five ships headed for their designated grids. The two days passed slowly, and each of the ships returned with no information. Each sector was divided into 1,600 grid locations. We had only scratched the surface in our hunt for the Milgari base.

On our fourth grid hunt, we hit pay dirt. The Frost observed a large contingent of ships and activity around a planet orbiting a yellow star. The site had likely been selected for the high mineral content of the planet. The local, preindustrial population had been enslaved to work the mines as the Milgari engineers assembled the manufacturing docks in space. From the data gathered, the docks had only recently come under construction.

It would be nearly a year before production of one of the massive ion cannons neared completion. With that information, it was decided our time would best be spent in search of the supposed base in the Pichik sector. Pichik was on the far side of the galactic arm we inhabited. After a three-week journey, we again located a rendezvous point and began our systematic search. We had covered nearly half the sector before the Fist came back with a confirmed sighting.

It was quickly evident the Pichik base had been in operation for nearly two years. Three massive ion cannons had been completed, with two others well under way.

Barg panned to the left. "Over here, we have the beginnings of a ship big enough to make use of those cannons. It will be quite some time before it is ready to be in service. The interesting part, however, is yet to come. Let me move over here, just to the left of this moon. Tell me what you see."

I looked intently at my monitor. There was nothing on the left side of the moon. There were multitudes of ships moving about the moon itself, but nothing of interest on its left side. I gave him an inquisitive look.

Barg let out laugh and continued, "I had the same reaction when I first studied this visual feed. It's not a moon, sir. It's a station, a station that is either already complete or nearing completion. I would bet if we could get in a bit closer, we would see the ports for the cannons it's already carrying. It would also give us a better idea of its surface defenses.

"If we plan to take that thing on, we will want to know exactly what it can do. And I would bet, unless they have a new drive technology, the ion drives on that barge are not going to be moving it anywhere fast."

After looking through the information we had, I gave orders for a second round of observations. We would encircle the star system, with the Hammer moving in as close as a neighboring planet. Terrance Parker would fly in close behind using the planet itself as cover, always staying on the dark side, hiding in its shadow. We gathered intel for two days before slipping back away to our rendezvous.

Terrance was the first to speak. "That is one huge ship. The rumors you heard were true. If you zoom in to level three, I count eight of those gun ports, all on the same side. This thing is made to fire in one direction and one direction only.

"And there are medium-sized ion cannons spaced about every kilometer around that entire hull; every fifth one is full size. Given the curvature of her, I would say a single attacker would be facing at least twenty of the fulls and a hundred or so of the mediums. I know these Defenders are tough, but I can't say I fancy flying into that kind of fire. That's a suicide mission, if you ask me."

Milly offered her opinions and observations. "We all gotta die sometime, Terrance. At least death by ion cannon would be quick and painless."

The other pilots and engineers broke into separate discussions.

I asserted my command. "Hey, listen up. We won't be charging in there, at least not without a fully mapped-out strategy. Milly and Terrance spent time in the Marines. I would assume they have some opinions on the type of tactics that might be used for an assault of this type.

"But before we go charging in, or before we throw up our hands and run away, I would like us to study this information and to bounce a few ideas off of each other as to whether or not we can do anything at all. I have no interest in dying unless we have a good shot at taking that thing out. Let's catalog what we have here and then discuss options."

Our five Defenders parked in the shadows of a crater on a small, rocky planet. We kept communications between ships at an extremely low signal level, with our signal inhibitors all working in conjunction to deaden any signal that might bounce its way to freedom. We had time on our side, time to think and plan for our next move, time to allow the information we had acquired to soak in. We reasoned the Milgari would still be there when we were ready.

The fleet guarding the massive Milgari ship was impressive. Our cataloging included 14 battleships, 36 cruisers, 137 destroyers, and 156 frigates, a formidable fleet on its own. We spent the larger part of a week batting ideas back and forth about how we could best approach the problem at hand: how to destroy the massive Milgari station before it could be used to attack the Grid.

We were hard at work brainstorming over an idea Barg had presented. "No, I don't think we can provide the cover needed to get you in that close. That thing is too heavily defended. You would get pulverized before you were close enough to do any damage. I would agree they might be vulnerable if you can get in close to the hull, but I don't see a way in unless someone else has something to add."

We gathered in the hold of the Hammer. I looked around at the others for any suggestions.

Davis said, "How about we push an asteroid toward them and Barg can ride in behind it? They would wait until it was in close to destroy it, and they would probably only use one cannon for that. Might just catch them by surprise."

A discussion grew around Davis's idea. If the asteroid was destroyed early, the Defender attempting to sneak in behind it would be sitting in the open for all to see. An alternate idea was put forth where the asteroid would be aimed so that it was not heading directly at the ship, but would instead come in at an angle where it would merely pass close by. But again, if the asteroid were targeted early as a precaution, it would be the end of the Defender.

A third suggestion would have hundreds of asteroids moving in like a field, with a Defender hiding behind one that was not on a collision course. It was reasoned that the focus of the enemy would be on the ones coming straight in first, buying us additional time. The attack plans soon became a moot point as the comm chatter of the fleet suddenly picked up.

Frig said, "Sir, it appears the big ship is on the move. We should know very soon if it is headed in the direction of the Grid."

I rolled my eyes at our bad luck. The asteroid plan may have been unfeasible, but we were counting on having the time to figure something out. With the big ship on the move, we were stuck with only being able to follow.

I replied, "Let's get back to our ships. Frig will coordinate a follow-up plan. Looks like we're gonna have to play this by ear."

We were soon lifting out of the crater and heading in the direction of the departing ship. It was slow to move, given its immense size. We took up position behind the Milgari beast and settled in as it crawled along, slowly picking up speed.

It soon became evident the Milgari were not heading for the Grid. They were heading back into a sector we had bypassed during our last Grid flight from their attempted annihilation. It was a sector with uncharted worlds and unknown species. We reasoned the Milgari were planning to use the massive weapon against another foe.

# Chapter 20

### _______________________

A fleet of several hundred ships we did not recognize appeared on the port side. Half of the Milgari fleet turned to meet them.

Frig said, "Sir, our database of ships doesn't have anything that resembles the attackers. I should have a good visual in three... two... one..."

The attacking fleet had an array of ships that resembled pancakes, wide and thin with brown tops and white borders. The initial Milgari frigates that fired on them were met with a hail of thousands of missiles. The first ships took damage from the Milgari cannons, but the Milgari ships were soon ablaze as the thousands of missiles found their targets.

The scene repeated itself several times as each opponent tested the capabilities of the other, each time escalating the amount of resources committed to the battle. After the fifth such exchange, the Milgari went all in. Other than a handful of frigates left to guard the massive ship, the Milgari moved in every ship they had. The space surrounding the Milgari fleet was soon filled with swarms of missiles, fighters, and a crisscross of blue streams from ion cannon fire.

Davis then offered an idea. "I think this is a perfect opportunity for us to strike. We don't have to worry about the fleet, as long as whoever that is keeps them occupied. I say we slip in there and do what damage we can to that beast. We may not get a better opportunity than what we have now."

I called for the location of an asteroid we could use as cover for at least a partial ride in. We would send it hurtling on a trajectory taking it in close to the massive ship as we followed behind it in single file. A suitable rock was located and our plan was quickly put into action.

"Sir," said Frig, "Gy revealed to me that the forward plating on the Hammer is the thickest he has ever done, almost seven percentage points greater than ours, sir. I believe it to be in our best interest to have the Hammer fly as lead ship."

I pressed a button on the comm. "Barg? Are you good with taking point? I'm told you have the best armor."

"That would be an honor. Always fancied myself as a bit of a headbanger, sir. I would just as soon put my head down and go at it than plan out every detail. Let's get behind that rock and get it on."

A 120-meter-diameter asteroid was selected. Three Defenders combined to push it in the direction of the massive ship using extended low-level ion pulses. The rest of us fell in line behind the Hammer.

The attacking forces were putting up a fierce fight against the conventional Milgari fleet. A battleship charged hard into the attacking ships with its cannons blazing blue fire. One of the large attacking ships soon erupted in flame as a bright blue stream of ionized particles cut deep into its hull. The attack was met with a black swarm of missiles as a return volley was fired.

Blue streaks screamed outward from the battleship as it attempted to defend itself. The missiles easily overwhelmed the battleship's defenses, if only by the sheer number that had been committed to the fight. The battleship turned in retreat when its outer hull exploded in fire, as if in death by a thousand needles.

Frig said, "Sir, I have attempted to hail the attackers, but they have not responded. I dare not go broadband in the transmission, as it would immediately alert the Milgari to our location. I will continue the hails until such time as we swing into battle."

I replied, "If you get them talking, find out what their beef is with the Milgari. We will want to use that to bring them to our side if possible."

Milly pushed into the conversation. "Sir, we need to firm up what we plan on doing when we get there. I suggest working up a pattern where we each have assigned targets, preferably those big gun turrets first. If we can take them out, we should be able to carve that superstructure into pieces. I took the liberty of calculating the angles of fire of those big guns, and I think if we can get down to fifty meters from that hull, we should be able to flame them, sir."

I agreed with Milly's tactic. Frig got to work dividing targets among the Defenders' computers. We would roll in from behind the rock and drop to within fifty meters of the massive ship. We would then fire relentlessly at the large ion cannons that lined her outer hull. Our ion inhibitors and thick tantric armor would handle the smaller cannons that remained. If we made it to the point of eliminating the large weapons, we could begin our work on destroying the great ship, one layer at a time.

Frig said, "Sir, the Milgari are beginning to get the upper hand. The attackers are approaching a loss level of 20 percent. If I were their commander, I would attempt to retreat and regroup. Those losses are not sustainable. The Milgari appear to have superior weapons."

Barg was on the comm. "Coming up on rollout in five... four... three... two... one."

The Hammer was first to reveal herself and immediately drew the fire of the nearest cannon. But the velocity of the ships was faster than their calibrated targeting computers could handle, and the first pulse missed by a half kilometer.

Barg continued, "Placing my ship in a spiral for the final."

The second pulse from a side cannon grazed the tail section. The thick armor and the inhibitors did their job. Barg banked hard again as he lined up and began to scream across the face of the great ship's hull. The Milgari defenders managed one last shot at the Hammer as he dropped below a hundred meters.

"I'm dropping to safe—"

Boom!

"Ahhhh! Hold on..."

A loud clang followed by a scraping sound could be heard over the comm channel from the Hammer. Several seconds passed before Barg again broadcast.

Bam!

"That last one nearly took the hair off the top of my head!"

Bam! Bam!

"I overcompensated and managed to slam into the outer hull of that thing. Gy won't be too happy about the finish on our armor when we get back, but we're inside the fifty-meter mark. Taking the smaller hits now, but not showing any damage."

Bam!

The remaining Defenders managed to slide into the same pattern without taking a hit from any large cannon.

"This is the Swift. Let's start taking out some targets!"

The first of the large Milgari guns went up in a bright flash as the Fist fired. Sixteen of the beastly cannons were quickly silenced before the Milgari diverted four battleships to the massive ship's defense.

I pressed the comm button. "Those big boys are coming in hot. Let's keep out of patterns. They're going to have a hard time targeting us in this close. Keep your focus on those main guns or we won't have an exit strategy."

The Milgari ships attempted to fire at the small Defenders flying ultra close to the massive ship's hull. The first five shots were misses, causing severe damage to their own vessel.

They quickly adjusted their tactics by first firing low-level pulses. If they struck a Defender, a full pulse followed immediately after.

Boom!

Milly came on the air. "Yeowzah! That was almost a full-on hit. My ears are ringing. But it looks like hull damage was minimal. I suggest setting a steering algorithm that alters your course if a low-level pulse hit is detected."

Boom!

"Crap! That one took out 5 percent of our port wing armor. Make those adjustments, peeps!"

The steering algorithm strategy proved effective, most of the time. We were getting banged up, but holding on as the big guns fell one by one.

Frig said, "Sir, we have 45 percent of the large cannons offline now. I suggest we concentrate fire on these remaining twenty-two. It will provide us with an avenue for retreat if we require one."

I passed the order on to the others, and our escape plan was soon enabled. From that point we began to work outward in a spiral, taking down every large cannon on nearly a quarter of the great ship before five more Milgari battleships came to her aid.

Frig offered options. "Sir, we may be forced to leave. Their targeting capabilities just increased substantially. We are going to be taking—"

Boom! Boom!

I yelled, "Frig! The recycler is offline! Starting to get some smoke from environmental. Set that cannon to continuous fire and I'll do my best. Get that equipment back there under control or we won't have an atmosphere to breathe in here!"

Our ships began to take heavy hits from the Milgari battleships that now flew overhead. The battle between the fleets raged on, with the attackers once again gaining an even hand. I could only glance at the display from time to time, as my focus was pinned to keeping us alive.

Frig replied, "Sir, environmental is back online. Another strike like one of those may take her out permanently. It's time we thought about pulling back, sir."

I cut hard to port and blasted another large cannon turret into oblivion. "Listen up, all: we have a quadrant of this beast cleared off now. What do you say we take a bit of the fight to those battleships that are hounding us? As long as we attack from within this quadrant, those big guns can't target us. Let's carve up some battleship, shall we?"

The Hammer and the Frost were first to turn. Barg let out a yell over his comm as he charged directly at the closest vessel and loosed a burst of pulses, taking one of the two main guns of the battleship offline. Milly dropped in right behind him.

Boom!

"Ahh! Nuts! They just knocked the crap out of our bunk room. We got no beds now! Take some of this, you..."

The remaining main cannon of the battleship exploded in a bright flash as Milly's ion bolt found its mark.

The Dagger turned for a run at the next battleship. "Dagger is coming in hard and—"

Boom! Boom!

The Dagger went silent as twin direct hits from the Milgari ship it was attacking struck it dead on. The Fist followed immediately behind. "Dagger is down. Targeting..."

The nose of the Milgari battleship exploded with such a fury that the two main guns were taken out. "This is Fist, switching to new target."

I continued my runs on the surface guns of the massive ship. The battleships were now occupied with our Defenders. I happened to glance at the tactical display for the main battle and noticed that an attacking ship had broken through the Milgari line and was heading in our direction. Three of the Milgari battleships turned away to meet the coming threat. The Hammer and the Frost quickly silenced the remaining others before turning back toward the large cannons of the massive ship.

I commanded, "OK, I say we abandon the cannons and start drilling as deep into this hull as we can. Pick a spot and start blasting!"

We began our assault on the main hull and found that our cannons were highly effective once we had cut through the outer hull plating.

Milly then came on the air. "Ah, hey, Chief, that remaining battleship is attempting to drag in the Dagger. I'm cutting out to put a stop to it."

Milly was right. We could not afford to let a Defender fall into the hands of Milgari engineers. We had previously talked about ways to make it difficult for the Milgari to re-engineer our technology should a ship fall into their hands. It was decided there was nothing we could do to prevent that from happening, other than to destroy the ship itself.

Each Defender had an autodestruct that could be enabled from any other ship in the event of a compromise, but it required the captured ship to be online and functional. The Dagger was drifting dead, so the autodestruct was useless. "This is Frost. They've got her and they're turning away. Advise on a plan, Chief. What do I do?"

As Frig worked the ion cannon, I took only a moment to decide. "Take down that battleship, Frost. Hit those ion drives first to slow her down. We don't want her to make it back to that main fleet. Too many for us to take on right now."

Milly continued her pursuit, blasting the battleship with everything she had, but her weapon, even though ultra-powerful for its size, was only poking small holes in an otherwise huge vessel. Barg soon broke away in the Hammer to join her.

The Swift and the Fist continued to drill holes into the massive Milgari ship. I once again diverted my eyes toward the tactical screen and was witness to a second attacking ship breaking through the lines and heading toward our location. The first ship was now fully engaged with the three Milgari battleships and was taking a beating that it could not withstand. Several seconds later it tilted to one side as half of its propulsion system was knocked offline.

Milly again came on the air. "Chief, we knocked out its drive. What do we do with her?"

I responded immediately. "Carve her up, Frost. We don't have time to dally. Destroy that thing with whatever you have. We need you back here to finish this job."

The comm was silent for several seconds. "Roger that, Chief, going for the throat."

The second attacking ship pushed hard in defense of the first. One of the Milgari battleships began to burn as ten thousand missiles impacted its hull, taking out its vital external systems. The Milgari countered with a strike, cutting deep into the hull of the aggressor, but the large, flat ship continued on its course.

The Frost and the Hammer pounded the immobile Milgari battleship with a relentless barrage of blue ion streams. I then took notice of several seconds of silence before the streams from the Defenders turned to a bright orange. Their cannons had been switched to negative ion flow, and the Milgari battleship began to explode with reverberating shocks as each new pulse pierced its hull.

I quickly gave the order for a switch of our own cannons. "Fist, switch over to negative. Looks like it plays havoc with their systems. I think these ships don't have much shielding of their systems once you get through that hull. Might have a higher impact than what we are doing right now."

The cannons were reconfigured, and pulses again began to rain down on the Milgari vessel. This time the orange glow from the beams foretold of a coming fire within the great ship.

"This is Frost. Chief, these negative cannons are ripping that ship to shreds. We should have been using them all along!"

I replied, "I agree, Milly, wish we had realized it sooner. I wanted to save them as a sort of surprise weapon if needed. I guess this situation qualifies for that. Keep that fire up until there is nothing left of her, Milly. We can't risk the Dagger's capture."

Jon Baumer was aboard the Dagger, along with his engineer, Sandy Cooper. They knew the risks of going to war with the Milgari. They knew the risks of our technology falling into the hands of the enemy. Both individuals were patriots. They had joined the cause to protect the Grid and the freedom that it offered. Their sacrifice was of their own choosing.

Milly replied, "Whoa! The docking port just exploded from the inside out. That ship is coming apart hard, Chief. I think we can scratch one battleship! We'll keep hitting that debris, sir. until there is nothing left bigger than a sandwich!"

I returned my focus to the giant ship before me. The orange beams of negative ions cut quickly through the superstructure. A hole soon opened to the ship's interior. "Looks like she's hollow, Fist. When you break through, come inside and we'll gut this thing from the inside out!"

I pushed on the throttle and was soon inside the massive ship's superstructure. It was nearly three hundred kilometers across to the inner walls on the other side. Small transports buzzed about the interior, ferrying people and materials to areas in need.

The Fist was soon stopped by my side. "The Fist is here, sir. Let's cut this baby up!"

I took one last look at the tactical, just in time to see the second attacking ship in flames. But it had momentum, a momentum that was carrying it hard into the opposite side of the massive Milgari ship. The impact could be seen as the interior lighting in that section went dark on impact.

A growing glow foretold of the remainder of the attacking ship fully making an impact. Explosions of debris and fire appeared on the far wall as part of the attacking ship's hull poked through to the interior. I gave the order, and the Swift and the Fist began to fire continuously at everything that was not already burning.

Word then came in from the Frost and the Hammer. Milly said, "Chief, I'm not sure what I'm seeing here, but that battleship seems to be carving itself up from the inside... Yeowzah! It's the Dagger, sir. She's alive and kicking! Hammer! Take out that aft section. Let's give her some help!"

The Dagger was soon revealed as a section of the port dock blew away. She had no comms or propulsion, but her cannon was spewing out ion bolts in an almost continuous destructive stream. I ordered the Fist to join her sisters in an attempt to push the Dagger to safety. With my team soon heading away from the fight, I returned my attention to the task at hand.

There were eight protrusions jutting out into the port side of the interior of the great ship. It was my mission to see that there were none remaining before I left to join the others. The massive ion cannons of the Milgari were my new targets. Their outer ports were already in ruin.

Frig said, "Sir, I mapped in the optimal pattern of attack with the impact points that will bring about the highest level of damage. I suggest we push through this and move, sir. It looks like that attacking fleet is beginning to turn away. Our time is limited."

I selected the mapping that Frig had developed and pushed the throttle to the required speed. One by one the massive cannons were taken out as I flew Frig's pattern.

As our ion bolts struck each cannon, the power stores within them erupted, sending blue lightning into the surrounding structure. The great trussed beams that made up the cannon mounts were splintering, throwing debris in every direction.

Frig said, "Sir, the bulk of that fleet is turning our way. I suggest we leave immediately!"

I replied, "Two more of those cannons to go. If we take them out, we know it will take a year to bring this beast back to operational status. Just give me two more minutes!"

Frig continued to monitor the Milgari fleet as I blasted the second-to-last cannon. "Sir, there are eight battleships that will be here momentarily. We have to leave, sir... now!"

I scowled and then pushed the stick in the direction of the hole we had come in through. Eight seconds later, we shot out of the far side of the great ship as its insides burned.

Within minutes we had outrun the Milgari ships and their sensors. I changed course back to our rendezvous point and set down in the shadow of the deep crater by the others. Our secure communications were soon online. Jon Baumer boarded the Swift through an air lock.

I said, "Jon, glad to see you made it. Where's Sandy?"

Jon's flight suit was covered in blood. He took off his helmet. "Sorry, sir. That bolt got into her console. I was knocked cold in the explosion. She... she took the brunt of it."

Jon sat down on a bench in the hold and pressed his hands to his face. It had been a long day, a day that had cost him his engineer, a day that had cost him a close friend.

Frig and the others were hard at work on the Dagger. The ship's interior was a mess, but one that could be repaired. The next four days were spent bringing the Dagger's propulsion, comm, and nav systems back online. On the fifth day, we headed for home. When Bullwort appeared on the console monitors, it was a sight that brought nothing but smiles of relief.

Our small fleet of five ships had taken down the largest fighting vessel we had ever known. A single Defender had taken an ion bolt that was exactly aligned with its external comm port, allowing a large portion of the ion stream to infiltrate the cockpit and destroy much of the engineer's console. It was a hole in our defenses that Rita would have to look at once we arrived, a flaw that had cost us one of our own.

The massive Milgari ship was in shambles. Seven of the eight ultra-powerful ion cannons had been destroyed, along with much of the interior superstructure. But the shell of the ship remained under power, and I had no doubt the Milgari were already beginning to rebuild her. It was a fight we would likely have to fight again. And one for which the Milgari would be better prepared.

When we landed on Bullwort, Rita and Gy were waiting to greet us.

Rita said, "George has located two more hulls and is in the process of procuring them. He also managed to recruit three more engineers. When the new hulls come online, we'll have crews ready for them. You said the Dagger took quite a beating. We are ready to get started with her rehab when... whoa... look at that nose."

The Dagger landed with a thud. The tantric armor on her nose was carbon black; her outer layers had fractured and burned from the direct hit. Gy ran his fingers through his hair as the once-beautiful, smooth bronze ships landed with blackened sections from battleship bolt strikes. He and Rita would be busy. It would take time to restore the Defenders to their former shine. Frig told them of our environmental blowout on the Swift.

We had been away for nearly five months of cramped quarters and packaged meals. I looked forward to dining in a restaurant where the food was prepared fresh and the drink was plentiful. I also looked forward to a good night's sleep in a king-sized bed, where I could stretch out and roll over without fear of falling on a hard cabin floor. It was good to be home.

A memorial was immediately planned for Sandy. She had given her ultimate contribution in the Grid's defense, yet only our team would be able to mourn. No others would know of her deed.

Gy and Rita set immediately to work on the repairs. The new pilots and engineers were conscripted into a labor pool that they could draw on at will. There was much to be done before the Defenders were once again ready for a fight. After seeing the battle scars and hearing of the action, the new team members were eager to help.

I told the four crews, as well as Frig, to take five days to blow off some steam in town. No mention was to be made of where we had been or what we had done. The people of Bullwort would not want to be involved in a war of any type. As far as they knew, we were miners who were digging and trading gemstones. We had not allowed inspections of our ships, nor had the Bullworties asked to do so. It was a perfect home base for our private war.

# Chapter 21

### _______________________

Three weeks passed before the Swift was back to 100 percent. The fractured tantric layers had been replaced, the environmental system reworked with extra shielding added, and the comm port fully protected from a direct strike. After discussions with the team, it was decided we should attempt to find or make contact with the species that had done battle with the Milgari. It was hoped the trajectory the Milgari had taken when they had gone on the move would lead us to our potential future allies.

We lifted off the following day and headed back to the Pichik sector. A short detour to the Milgari base showed that it had been abandoned. Various bits of garbage and construction debris that floated about were the only indications it was ever there. We then set a course along the Milgari route with the mission of finding the new species. Unless they appeared belligerent, we would attempt to make contact.

As we flew through the debris field from the battle, Frig had comments. "Sir, I took the time to analyze the debris back at the base. It appears they left in a hurry, but they were able to move those construction docks without disassembly. For the amount and level of production they were doing, I would say that making it mobile was an incredible feat. The resources they have at their disposal must be tremendous."

I thought for a moment before replying. "Well, they have been gobbling up other worlds for at least a thousand years. I would guess they have been adapting the different technologies they have taken, making them their own. It's a lot faster and cheaper to steal than it is to develop. History, at least what little history we have, has taught us that."

After another two weeks of travel at full speed, we approached a system that was teeming with life. We slowed to a stop to observe signals emanating from twin planets and multiple space stations. Frig was quick to identify a number of warships as having the same pancake design as the attackers. Our translators immediately spat out the name of the Prassi. The Prassi were six-legged insectoids with a hive-like lifestyle. They averaged a meter in length, with large eyes and pincers for jaws. They closely resembled the images of ants as drawn in the Grid archives.

"Frig, I know you like insects, but try to control yourself, OK?"

Frig responded with a snarl. "Sir, we do not eat sentient beings. Unlike your species with the breeding and... well, the eating of Boraks, sir, a species that is well documented as having the ability to reason. It is one of the more barbaric practices of your people."

I turned and managed my own snarling face. "Hey, don't be messing with my grilled Borak. That's one of the few eating pleasures I have back on the Grid. They're just another dumb animal, and those documented studies are obviously from vegetation eaters with a pro-Borak agenda."

Frig turned the conversation back to the issue at hand. "Sir, I've logged over 7,000 ships of a military nature. Sensors count 843 of what we would consider a battleship class, 1,566 cruiser class, 3,102 destroyers, and 2,200 frigates. I count four major space stations with armaments, and seven minor stations, likely commercial entities, sir.

"The Prassi have a formidable force at their disposal. The Milgari will have their hands full. I would offer that we may have delayed a Milgari attack on them by up to a year. But that attack is coming. A more concerning development would be for an alliance of sorts to be formed. We could not defend against a combined force of such magnitude. If that were to occur, the Grid would have to prepare to be moved within a few weeks.

"And we know how long that type of a decision could take with the current set of politicians. If we can make contact with the Prassi, sir, I think we should do it now. We may be in their good graces after the attack on that Milgari vessel."

I said, "Wonder why the Prassi didn't send in that whole fleet against the Milgari. That could have easily turned the tables."

"As with most battles, sir. A decision has to be made as to what resources should be committed. Perhaps they felt a need to protect their home world should another fleet appear. Until contact is made, we have no way of knowing."

Frig was right, as usual. We needed to make contact with the Prassi to discuss cooperation, if it was at all possible. We had met more than one species during our travels on the Grid who were hostile even when faced with annihilation from others. It seemed some species were bent on conquest at all cost.

We discussed ways of making contact with the Prassi that would not give away our position. A probe could be launched and used as a relay for a signal. A second idea was to bounce our signal off a small moon, where it would then intersect with one of their stations. Both of those ideas were tossed aside when a new visitor arrived in the system. It was Cortes and the Ranger!

The Ranger was escorted by two frigates to the larger of the two stations in orbit around what we guessed was the Prassi home world. I wanted badly to be a fly on the wall of whatever meeting Cortes was attending. From the low level of escort given, it looked as though this was not his first visit with the Prassi. I wondered if he was playing double agent with them as well.

Frig was soon hard at work attempting to crack the encryption on the standard Prassi comm channels. The powerful military computer on the Swift quickly yielded results. We had their news channels, entertainment, and commercial navigation feeds. Frig quickly zeroed in on the traffic feed from the docking bay the Ranger had entered.

"Ranger, proceed to deck 2, corridor C, landing 8. An escort will be waiting to assist you. And welcome back, Sergeant. Your help is much appreciated." The Ranger echoed the instructions and proceeded to landing C-8. The comm chatter quickly turned to the next incoming vessel.

We waited and watched for a day, recording the comms for later analysis. The Ranger remained parked for a full rotation of the planet and then lifted out of the bay slowly. It was soon heading off in an unknown direction. Frig guessed they would correct course back to the admiral's base once they had left the sensor range of the Prassi. We were now faced with a dilemma.

I said, "We can talk to them or just slip away and save it for later when we know what they're about. If we talk, they could tip our hand to Cortes."

As it was, we were a mystery, a force unknown, a thorn in the side of the Milgari. If Cortes was indeed working for them, knowledge of our operation and capabilities was the last thing we wanted him to have.

We spent two additional days gathering information on the Prassi. By all accounts, they were a somewhat-peaceful race, but we had only scratched the surface of knowing their intentions with our few days of observation. I was on edge when it came to the size of their fleet. While they certainly would be in need of every ship when a Milgari attack came, it was as large a fleet as I had ever seen. Species with that much power at their disposal did not sit around peacefully.

We left the Prassi system and set a course for the Grid. In my mind I still had the picture of Ashley Elizabeth and Michael Felix. I struggled to shake the notion that he had moved in where I had left a vacancy. My only comfort came from the fact that he was a married man, and was not one for breaking the rules.

We had only traveled a few dozen light-years when our sensors lit up with movement. Frig immediately began his analysis. "Sir, I am counting 2,944 ships. Their trajectory takes them directly to the Prassi system. I say they will arrive in... three hours and four minutes."

I glanced over the tactical screen as the ship categorization tables began to fill. I replied, "I think we at least need to watch this battle. The Prassi have a near-three-to-one advantage, but the Milgari will have the element of surprise if they aren't detected first. Either way, that is a lot of ships."

Frig continued his analysis and put forth an idea. "Sir, we could turn and offer the Prassi a warning. It would be less than two hours, but that should be enough for them to not be completely surprised. We could fly to the edge of the system and broadcast a message with the information we have before us, including direction and speed. It might be enough to tip the scales well in their favor."

I pushed the stick hard right and set a heading for the Prassi system at full speed. Frig compiled a message to broadcast that included a breakdown of the Milgari ships that were headed their way. An hour later I had the Swift arcing hard to port as Frig sent out the message. Several minutes after the broadcast, we watched on our sensor screens as the Prassi began to respond.

We took up a position at the edge of our sensor capabilities and watched for the battle to begin. Four massive transports departed the larger of the space stations on a heading straight toward the Milgari fleet. They appeared to be completely unarmed, and I had to wonder what purpose they could possibly serve.

I said, "We've got to see what they're up to with those barges. We can come back and sit here when it all starts, but I want to know what they are doing. Just doesn't make sense. Unless they are sending out some kind of offering of peace or something. But the Milgari would never go for that."

Frig punched a few numbers into his keyboard. "Sir, if you can take us a bit closer, I should be able to get them on visual. I doubt they have sensors on those ships that could detect us. But if they do, we could just leave."

I set a course that would take us within visual range. The transports soon revealed their plan. Massive bay doors opened and a dense black cloud emerged from each transport. The cloud seemed to quickly dissipate. As soon as their cargo holds had been emptied of the black substance, the transports turned back toward their home world. My curiosity then got the best of me, and I moved in close to the transports' last location.

Frig had an analysis. "Sir, it appears as though they have just laid out a minefield. I estimate, given the size of the holds on those ships, and with an approximate size of one meter in diameter for those mines, that the Prassi deployed nearly two billion mines in the path of the Milgari."

I clenched my teeth in thought before responding. "Why would the Milgari not just fly around that? Are they stealth somehow?" Frig again punched the keys on his keyboard. "I would say they have passive sensors, probably magnetic in nature. While tantric is not magnetic, the superstructures of those large ships are.

"If those mines are projecting a false image forward of exactly what is behind them, the Milgari might be upon them before realizing they are there. With the number of mines deployed, a passing battleship could easily pick up several thousand of those on its hull. They would have to pack quite the punch to obtain penetration through those tantric hulls, but it is not out of the question. I am placing a good many assumptions on this whole scenario, sir. It may only be a large minefield."

I pushed the throttle and pulled us in as close as I comfortably could to the newly-laid field. At our new distance, the individual mines were easily visible. I then proceeded to the far side of the field, to the point where the Milgari would first arrive. I was stunned as the millions of tiny blips on the sensor screen quickly faded away. Frig was right: if the Milgari held their course, they would be flying directly into the center of the field.

I again pushed the throttle hard and moved to the edge of our visual sensor range. We had ten minutes to kill before the Milgari ships reached our point in space. I turned to Frig. "I'm impressed. What made you think of projecting a false image?"

Frig turned with his usual stoic look. "Sir, the Gambit have used such technology in the past. With the speed our ships travel, it does not take much to mask such a small visual signature. As you could see, when looked upon from an angle, the mines are clearly visible. As a counter-tactic, the Milgari should have pickets riding out front, if only for the purpose of detecting such things.

"I would gamble that they are not using pickets, as they would risk the possibility of giving away their position, and thus their surprise advantage. A foolish mistake on their part. We will see just how foolish in a moment."

The Milgari fleet appeared on the sensor displays. In seconds they moved into the field, never realizing it was there. The mines came to life, tiny ion engines pushing them toward the Milgari ships. There was no time to avoid the trap. Millions of Prassi mines quickly attached themselves to their hulls. After minutes of delay, explosions told of their detonation.

Nearly four hundred of the Milgari ships took damage. Two battleships and eight cruisers were torn apart. The Milgari fleet quickly scattered as more of the mines came to life. Seconds later, final explosions again plagued the attacking fleet before they cleared the field. The Prassi surprise had been a success.

I turned the Swift and set a course for the Prassi system, to our prior vantage point. The Prassi fleet was assembled and waiting, waiting for an attack that would never come. The Milgari commanders had called it off, no doubt frustrated their surprise had somehow been turned against them.

For a day we waited and watched, taking note of the Prassi defensive maneuvers. Frig reasoned it might one day be useful information. We were unsure of the Prassi and their standing when it came to other species. They were enemies of the Milgari, but the enemies of your enemies are not always your friends.

I again set a course for the Grid. I had personal business there, business I could not deal with psychologically, business I had to know the truth about. Why was Ashley Elizabeth meeting with Michael Felix? Perhaps it was innocent. Perhaps she was only in search of a new courier. For my own sanity, I needed to know.

The Milgari aggression had been thwarted, if only for the moment. We had ships that were fast and strong, pilots who were brave, and engineers who were gifted in their trade. Our fleet was tiny yet powerful. The mine operation continued to churn out tantric ore that George was able to sell at a premium. Our private war was only just beginning.

~~~~~

# What's Next?

### _______________________

This Human is asking for your help! In return for that help I have a free science fiction ebook short story, titled "THE SQUAD", waiting for anyone who joins my email list. Also, find out when the next exciting release is available by joining the email list at  comments@arsenex.com. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on the site where it was purchased. Visit the author's website at www.arsenex.com for links to this series and other works.

The following preview of the next book in the series is provided for your reading pleasure. I hope you enjoy!

Stephen

(Flip the page!)

(Preview)

## AMP

(Vol. 2)

### Private War

### Chapter 2.1

### _______________________

A year had passed since I fled from prosecution on the Grid. My relationship with Ashley Elizabeth stood at a standstill. Several more visits had been made for the purpose of gathering information, but nothing new was revealed. Dearest Kreed was helpful, but her knowledge of the happenings on and around the Grid was shrinking. Her handlers suspected her of being a double agent, a suspicion they had been unable to prove.

The mine continued to turn out high-quality tantric ore. Frig's survey of the vein had located a vast store of tantric deep into the core of Bullwort. Our credit store was already large and growing larger with each new sale of refined ore. With the credits we had amassed, we continued to add updates and improvements to our fleet.

Each ship now had the best environmental system available; even our bunk rooms had been remodeled. With the new equipment added, our cargo holds had become ever smaller. It was a trade-off we were more than willing to make.

During his hunts, George managed to find two new Defender hulls. Our fleet now stood at eight. The Torrent and the Bull were our newest Defender additions. Gy continued to work his magic. The hull of each ship was now covered with eighteen layers of tantric armor that was interlaced with aquamarine. A full strike from a Milgari battle cannon would only fracture and burn two layers at a time. Our already-tough ships had grown ever tougher.

The Milgari showed no new signs of aggression, other than the continued construction of the massive ion cannons in the Felgar sector. A raid was in the works as the first of the cannons neared completion. My time had been spent on the business side with George, growing and refining the relationships with our customers. Even though we were flooding the market with volumes of refined tantric ore, our pricing was on the increase. Demand for the ore continued to outstrip supply.

The team had been hard at work on our plan of attack. I sat in a conference room with the others for a presentation on what they had decided upon.

Frig said, "Sir, we felt the strategy used in our last raid was worthwhile: move in close and do as much damage as possible. Gy and Rita have a design for a tantric shield. It will be ninety meters in diameter, allowing our fleet to ride behind it in single file. We should be able to ride safely all the way up to a target.

"The shield would be constructed of 126 layers of tantric and aquamarine. It would have a forward image projector, keeping its visual signature to a minimum, and a signal inhibitor to keep any reflections from giving away our position. We have been discussing whether or not to add a propulsion system to it, sir. It would be costly in both time and credits, but we believe it would make the shield functional in a higher number of situations."

I looked over what they had laid out before me. "This is outstanding work... all of you. And I like the shield. Anything that gets us close enough to use our weapons before taking a beating is a worthwhile investment. I would say, let's get to work on this immediately. We have credits coming out of our ears, and with a new shaft coming online in the next few weeks, we will be doubling our ore production."

The shield took two months to complete. It was constructed as sections that could be assembled once in space. Five small ion engines and a nav computer would guide it to its final destination. Once deployed, the tantric shield would be a throwaway. Once it was abandoned, I struggled with the thoughts of it being a source of tantric that could later be used against us. Those thoughts were put to rest with the addition of thousands of small microcharges that would be embedded within its layers. With the push of a button, or at a programmed time or location, the shield would self-destruct.

Our newest pilots were Harley Shoals in the Torrent and Desire Phillips piloting the Bull. Harley had been an off-world Messenger, while Desire had recently retired from the Marines. Both were gruff, with spit-in-the-dirt attitudes, and both were excellent pilots.

Before our trip out to the Felgar sector, we decided to make a run on the pirates who had forever plagued commerce near the Gonk system. Their ionic field generators had nearly trapped Frig and me as we attempted a shortcut near their stronghold. Our engines were now switchable, and we intended to use that fact to put an end to their ways.

As we approached the Gonk system, our sensor displays lit up with the outlines of their ionic webs. I got on the comm. "OK, listen up. When we get in the web, we need to come to a complete stop. It won't take them long to send out their thugs. Switch your engines to negative and we will free the sector of their nasty threat. I want to clean out everything until we have an unconditional surrender.

"I'm sure some of you knew Bat Geathers: these are the thugs who did him in.

"George is heading to Malcon to enlist their help with cleaning up the Gonk government. With luck, shipping will move easily through there. Who knows... Gonk might even become a hub of commerce."

Our trap to lure out the pirates worked flawlessly. The bulk of their fleet was easily destroyed, along with the equipment that made up the ionic webs. The following day the government of Gonk collapsed and its politicians fled. Malcon troops arrived the day after to put a conventional, commerce-friendly government in place.

The event had been good practice for our new pilots. Their interactions with my commands and the other ships had been nothing short of perfection. Desire had proven to be both ruthless and persistent with her attacks. Harley had been close behind.

A ride out to the Felgar sector was again filled with targeting and tactics drills. A simulation of the shield was run on the fleet's computers for a mock attack on a two-kilometer-long asteroid. The pilots followed the decided-upon attack plan with precision and power. I had to believe our small fighting force was unequaled in strength and skill. Our practice only served to make us that much better.

When we arrived in Felgar, the Milgari were hard at work on a fourth and fifth cannon. I was shocked and angered to see that two of the massive cannons that were previously under construction had already been moved.

I said, "We should have come back out here three months ago. Those cannons could be anywhere now."

Frig replied, "Sir, we cannot do anything about them now. Our focus should be on putting an end to the ones we have here, along with those construction bays. I count thirty-two battleships in their ranks. Once we show our hand, I would expect them all to engage. Perhaps we should focus on attacking them first."

As always, Frig was right. We needed a strategy to take down the battleships. The ion cannons on their cruisers and other vessels had always been underpowered. Our ultrathick tantric hulls could handle a cruiser's cannon for a nearly unlimited number of hits. The battleships, however, were powerful enough to do heavy damage.

I threw out our overall plan and was immediately replied to by Barg. "This is the Hammer. I would like to suggest a divide-and-conquer strategy. Two of us will cause diversions in two different areas, and the six remaining will swoop in to take out any battleships that come our way. If we get lucky and they send out at least four of the big guns, I say we make use of the shield to catch them by surprise.

"I'll volunteer to be a lure this time, but I don't want to make a habit of that and miss out on all the fun!"

We discussed the strategy for several hours before turning it into a plan. Divide and Conquer would be used for the initial culling of the Milgari battleships. The Hammer and the Frost would be the bait.

The tantric shield would be assembled and waiting when the trap was sprung. If four or more battleships came out in pursuit, the shield would be put into play. Four exploding decoy probes would be placed on the opposite side of the Milgari base and fired off periodically. The hope was to keep the rest of the fleet from joining in. We counted the seconds until Divide and Conquer was put into play.

Once the Hammer and the Frost were in position, I gave the order to begin. The Hammer was first to fire a low-power ion pulse at the Milgari. The Frost fired several seconds later. As the first of the ships turned and began to race out to meet the attackers, I flipped the switch on the decoys. The first of the four probe explosions was easily detected.

The Milgari sent out twelve of their thirty-two battleships, along with two dozen cruisers. Eight battleships and ten cruisers raced for the Frost while the remaining headed for the Hammer. I powered up the shield's thrusters and headed in to meet the Milgari defenders. As planned, the extra explosions worked to keep the remaining ships in the fleet frozen in place.

I said, "Frost, hold your position as long as possible. Then head our way. Hammer; don't try to be a hero. Move just far enough away that they will stay in pursuit while we work on the rest. Target those battle cannons on the big boys. If we can take those offline, the rest will be gravy. Prepare to break away and engage in five... four... three... two... one. Let's show 'em what we've got!"

I flipped the Swift out to the port side, and we immediately fired upon the lead ship. The first of its battle cannons was destroyed by a precision shot from Frig. I banked hard left as the first bolt left the battleship's remaining cannon. Hundreds of tiny blue streaks lit up the surrounding void as the Milgari gunners fired everything they had.

Three more of the sixteen battle cannons were knocked out in the first run. Barg growled over the comm channels, as his only task was to stay just out of range of the pursuing portion of the fleet. The Fist quickly joined our fight. The Milgari crews were confused as the tiny Defenders flew between and around them. Their calibrated firing mechanisms were quick to adjust.

Harley was the first to take two simultaneous hits in the Torrent. Both impacted his tail section, fracturing and blowing off four layers of his armor.

"Crap, those hits hurt, Boss. Systems remain green."

The Dagger, the Swift, and the Saxon each took a hit in quick succession before four more of the Milgari battle cannons went silent. Two of the disabled battleships turned back toward the main fleet. The Fist was quick to cut deep into their engines. Both ships began to roll uncontrollably from the loss of primary propulsion. I pushed the stick hard left and took out another cannon before taking two hard hits to my undercarriage.

I yelled, "Frig, where did those come from? That battleship should be offline!"

Frig diverted his attention for only a moment. "Sir, both bolts came from cruisers. It seems a significant upgrade has occurred during our absence. The cruisers appear to each have a single battle cannon. That will change the dynamic of our strategy, sir. We may have to consider an early departure."

I thought for a moment before Frig's words sank in. "What? Are you saying cut and run?"

As I rolled over, Frig fired two more bolts, taking out the battle cannon of a cruiser before responding. "I'm only saying we should consider it, sir. We have now taken fourteen hits and counting. At what point should a crew leave the field of battle, sir. At eight layers? Six would be cutting it a bit close."

I let out a growl as I lined up for another precision shot by Frig. "Listen up, all. If your layers get to eight, I want you to head out to the prearranged rendezvous point. No sense in us getting killed today if we don't have to. There are seven of us, and they are down to nine of those battle cannons between them. Fist, your primary mission now is to target the propulsion of ships that no longer have use of a battle cannon. We need to keep them here if we're going to take them out."

The big Milgari guns were quickly taken from eight to four. The Fist had disabled two battleships and seven of the ten cruisers. Two other damaged battleships managed to slip away. When the final Milgari battle cannon went silent, the Torrent had taken its ninth hit.

"This is the Torrent, Boss. I'm down to five layers on my tail. Just say the word and I'll peel off. I would like to stay for the party, though. It's up to you, sir."

I gave Harley the order he was looking for. We had ships to kill, and only a short time before the Milgari sent out a second wave, or before those who were chasing the Hammer wised up to his game. Our prior experience with the Milgari told us of a vulnerable point one hundred meters in front of their engines.

It was the point where streams of ions were recombined to create the swirling vortex that gave their ships thrust. A well-placed shot would cause a rupture, enabling the feed streams to spew outwards, effectively destroying the ship from within.

I yelled, "Target those recombiners and let's get out of here. I don't want to engage any more of those cannons until we have a full evaluation of our own damage."

We made short work of the battleships and cruisers that had been disabled. The Milgari had been caught off guard, and their response had been disorganized. Their upgraded weapons were a surprise, and had caused nearly half our damage. We had used our shield, and its thousands of fractured tantric shards now filled the void around us as the final cruiser exploded from within.

I ordered the team back to our rendezvous point for an examination of our hulls. The Torrent had been the hardest hit. We counted only three layers remaining on the port tail fin. Two of those layers had taken partial damage. The Torrent was only a hit away from hull violation, an outcome that would mean certain death.

The Dagger was second, with the loss of nine layers on her nose. The Swift was third, with five. After several hours of evaluating our options, the decision was made to return to Bullwort for repairs. I did not want to risk losing a ship and her crew if we didn't have to. The massive cannons were nearing completion, but I wondered if we would be better off to allow it, and to then follow them to their destination.

Our rendezvous point was on the dark side of an uninhabited, rocky planet. It had given us a chance to fully quantify the damage we had taken. But there was a huge oversight on our part, an oversight that placed us needlessly in peril. We had been followed. Our position on the small planet had been observed, and then relayed back to the main Milgari fleet.

Each of the pilots had returned to their ship, and I had only given the order to return to Bullwort minutes before. Frig was the first to realize our mistake.

"Sir, a Milgari frigate just entered orbit around this planet. We should have placed a sensor probe on the other side before setting down. We have been sitting blind for nearly an hour, sir. If the Milgari were sm—"

Our sensors lit up with the bad news: twenty Milgari battleships, along with thirty-two cruisers, were rounding the curvature of the planet we had taken refuge on. They were only moments away from our position.

I yelled, "We have incoming! Get off the ground and out of this atmosphere! We can't handle a fight with them down here. These buckets don't have the maneuverability needed for that. Head straight out with cannons blazing and we'll try to punch a hole past the three ships I'm highlighting!"

As we lifted off, the first of the cruisers swept in low and began to pound us. We had quickly taken a combined fifteen additional hits before the cruisers turned away and began to circle back. I punched it straight for a battleship and was rewarded with four hits to the Swift's right wing before Frig was able to take out one of her cannons. The Torrent was the last to lift off.

Again I yelled, "All, fall in line behind me and let's try to force our way past that formation of three ships! Follow your target stacking on the tactical display; we have to take out a few of those big guns before we get surrounded. Harley! How are you holding up?"

Several seconds passed before a response was heard. "Sorry, sir. we... are taking a beating. Tail plating now registers zero, Chief. One more hit and we're a—"

A Milgari bolt ripped through the exposed tail of the Torrent and into its interior. Harley and his engineer died quickly. But there was a new ripple in our plans of escaping. The Torrent had been disabled, but most of her technologies remained. I made a quick decision, one that was not popular with the others.

"Guys, we can't leave that ship out here for them, even if it has been largely gutted. Roll on my count and give Harley and Gerfel the sendoff they deserve. I want nothing but cinders left of the Torrent in three... two... one!"

I pushed the stick hard and rolled out of a cannon shot by an oncoming cruiser. Frig targeted and took the shot, taking out its main gun. Seconds later I had the Torrent in my sights. "Switch to negative on those guns! Maybe we get lucky with a couple opposing hits and she rips apart!"

"This is Hammer; I just took five shots to my underbelly. I can manage one round on the Torrent, but then I have to go!"

Boom! Boom!

"Two more hits on the cargo door, Chief. Losing my protection real fast!"

The Swift then rolled in behind the Hammer after taking out the guns of the pursuing cruisers. "I got your back, Hammer. Take that shot!"

Four bolts hit the Torrent's hull at the same time. The plating fractured and the ship exploded in a hot ball of plasma as the negative charge amped up the destructive power. The Torrent was gone, but we had a Milgari fleet that was kicking our cans from there to Halui.

I barked out another order. "Follow my lead! We're going to kick up some of that dirt down there and push around this rock to the other side. Keep shifting, because we are in for a nasty beating until we can break free!"

I dropped down to twenty meters off the surface and pushed the throttle to full. It was a dangerous move, considering our speed. We had a dozen cruisers on our tail that were mercilessly firing at us.

I continued, "Head for the groove in those peaks and then put it skyward. We are going right up through them like there is no tomorrow! Pinch your cheeks together, boys! This is all or nothing!"

I pulled back on the stick as the Swift continued to accelerate. The blue bolts from the Milgari guns came in from all directions.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"Grrrrrr. Frig, I'm heading for that battleship on the left. Try to take out those guns before they rip us apart!"

"This is the Dagger. We are down to bare metal. I got smoke filling the hold as we speak."

Boom! Boom!

"Aw, crap... been nice serving with you, sir." The Dagger turned hard into the near battleship and flew directly into the ship's recombiners. The battleship's engines went silent. Seconds later, streams of bright blue ions could be seen carving up her hull. We flew close to the self-destructing ship and the momentary cover it offered. It was the break we needed.

The Dagger was gone, incinerated in an instant when the Milgari recombiner had been breached. Jon Baumer and his engineer had given their lives to open a hole for our escape. The six remaining Defenders pushed through the expanding debris cloud out into the open space beyond. The Fist was the last to follow, taking two final hits as we sped away.

Our engines were now our allies. We were quickly out of the Milgari's range and into free space. I set a course for home.

"We did the best we could out there. I want you to focus on the fact that six crews made it out. Harley, Jon, Gerfel, and Trippit don't want us crying over them. So, just keep your heads up and keep alert. We have a long ride home."

~~~~~

Once again, this Human is asking for your help! If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on the site where it was purchased or downloaded. And by all means, please tell your friends! Any help with spreading the word is highly appreciated!

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Stephen
