A day later and on the outer edges of The Belltower system, The Betty’s crew sat in wait.

  Being on the edge of the system, they had positioned themselves outside of where The Zheng He's trajectory would start off toward the Belltower's orbit in order to preserve their surprise advantage as long as possible.

  All ships leaving rift emit what is known as a riftwake, some more than others. The amount of momentum a ship enters riftspace travels with them to their destination, whereupon they exit into real space, the wake is released with incredible force. Exiting too close to a station would cause an extraordinary amount of damage both to the station and the life forms within. Exiting too close to a planet, however, could lead to an extinction-level event.

  Boredom had long since faded into distant memory for Saul and the few crew that had elected to spend the entire ship’s night awake and alert. Aiden, who had long since passed on the vigil, walked onto the bridge.

  “Dead earth, do you lot look pale,” he spat, a rested smile on his lips. He was carrying a tray of cups filled with steaming mushroom coffee, its aroma permeating the bridge.

  Saul only nodded, not interested in trying to one-up Aiden. Instead, he accepted a cup that Aiden offered and took a sip. Saul choked; the coffee that tasted far too earthy to be considered close to real coffee was also far too hot.

  “Blow on it,” Aiden said, shrugging, “Taking me a while to learn the Quisabarish temperature settings on The Betty’s synthesisers.”

  “Thanks,” Saul said, blowing over the cup. He resumed scanning the telemetry that blipped on his terminal, the same thing he and the handful of crew with him had been doing on a loop.

  “Have you seen anything yet?” asked Aiden.

  “You’d know if we had,” Saul sighed.

  “Belcia and Hutteno are off shift, then?” He was walking around handing out the coffees to the rest of the crew and receiving much the same reaction from each of them.

  “Belcia’s here,” Saul said as Belcia poked her hand out from behind a screen.

  “Also, Ensigns Juno and Reddick,” Saul said, raising his cup to the crew. Each of them raised their cups in half-hearted acknowledgment.

  “You may as well get some rest then,” Aiden said, taking a seat at a terminal with the last remaining cup of mushroom coffee, “I can take watch for a while.”

  Saul grunted and stood. “Be gentle on Betty then. She’s not like The Diggory.”

  “Sure,” Aiden agreed, “this one’s not blown to pieces yet. The Zheng He's due two days from now? What are the odds it shows this early?”

  "Slim," Belcia said, "though, hang on–"

  "Belcia, what is it? Do you see The Zheng He?" Saul asked.

  "No. Something stranger," she said, drawing out the word as she highlighted a grid on the telemetry. Their terminals zoomed in to reveal a nearly empty portion of space, and at its centre, a scattered field of shattered rock.

  "What am I looking at?" Aiden asked, taking a swig of his cup.

  "It's faint, so small wonder I didn't see it until now," Belcia started, "the disperse groupings of rock are some form of ejecta. Something exploded here. Something big."

  "So, another abandoned ship like The Betty?" Saul asked.

  "No, nothing like that. The footprint would've been massive and composed entirely of solid rock," she clarified.

  "An asteroid then?" one of the ensigns asked

  "This far out here? Not likely anything out this far except ice and dust. Maybe a rogue planet or two," the other ensign replied.

  "The Fels then? I know those golems are capable of crafting ships and the like out of rock," Aiden said, "I've seen it myself."

  "Still no," Belcia refuted, "what we're looking at is some sort of structure several orders of magnitude larger. Somewhere on par with a moon or small earth-like planet. And the whole thing has just been scattered to the wind."

  "Green earth..." Saul said, amazed.

  "Though there is this," Belcia said, focusing in on a section of the field. "This section right here is emitting some sort of riftwake style energy, though continuously almost as if riftspace was bleeding out."

  Saul didn't know what to make of this. He had never heard of anything as large as she was describing, nor from what he was taught should a continuous wake even be possible without the presence of ships constantly leaving riftspace.

  "Can we move closer?" Saul asked, unsure if he wanted to tempt the universe's wrath.

  "Sure, there shouldn't be anything stopping us. The vast majority of the shards are inert and not registering any riftwake like the others," Aiden said, moving over to the pilot's seat. The main pilot was currently off duty with the rest of the crew.

  Aiden fired up The Betty's engines and piloted her in at a fraction of sub-light. Several minutes and a bit of rusty piloting later, the Betty's outer hull began reporting several thousand minor superficial impacts.

  "Betty's not too pleased with this one," Belcia said.

  "Just take her in gently," Saul said, himself cringing with each wave of impacts.

  "We're there," Aiden said after dropping Betty into a stable orbit alongside the wake-emitting shards, "should I suit up?"

  Saul thought for a moment, his exhaustion making him take several breaths before responding, "No, I'll need you here to pilot the Betty should anything go black. I'll go. Could use an excuse to stretch my legs anyway."

  "Weren't you just about to head off to bed?" Belcia asked.

  "And miss out on whatever the hell this is?" he said before heading for the lift to the docking level.

  After Saul had pulled on an environment suit and the airlock finished cycling, he secured the suit's tether to Betty's outer hull before pushing off. Numerous shards littered the star field around him, forcing him to dial back on his suit's thrusters to slow his momentum. Micrometeorites began pummeling his suit's outer shell, and he knew he didn't have long out here.

  "You should be just coming up on the radiant cluster now," Belcia said in his helmet, crackling with interference.

  "I think the shards are disrupting our signal," Saul said, tapping his helmet, "and I can't tell the difference between all these shards. Which ones are emitting a signal?"

  "I've mapped them to your visor," Belcia said as red trajectory lines appeared in front of him, "They should be dead centre of you. Maybe three metres."

  "I see the bastards," said Saul as he slowed to rest in front of the highlighted shards. Saul pressed a command on his suit's terminal, extending a grapple arm outwards and opening a collection canister mounted on his backside.

  The grapple arm slipped at first, knocking one of the shards out of formation, only to grasp hold of another. The shard glistened but was otherwise just as black as the space around it. If Saul didn’t have the thing highlighted on his visor, he could have just as easily slipped past them.

  “Got it,” Saul said as the grapple slid the shard gently into the canister and sealed it. “Now what?”

  “Bring it back here to cargo, and I’ll have a look,” Belcia said, “The readings that your suit is sending back are strange, to say the least.”

  “You sure it’s safe?” Saul asked, “We aren’t going to spell our end by bringing this thing onboard, are we?”

  “Hopefully not,” Belcia said, “Though I won’t promise. We place it in the cargo hold, and if it proves unsafe, you can eject me along with it into the vacuum.”

  “Sounds good to me!” Aiden said with a little too much enthusiasm.

  “This whole thing stinks of recklessness as usual,” Lisa said, having just joined the others on the bridge.

  “Great, you’re awake,” Belcia said to Lisa, “you can assist me in inspecting the artefact.”

  Lisa’s eye roll was almost audible in Saul’s helmet.

  “So I’m headed back then,” Saul said, pivoting around and activating his suit’s thrusters.

  As he drifted back toward The Betty, he couldn’t help but admire the magnificent hulk of her outer hull. He hadn’t seen the ship from outside yet, actually really seen her outside of briefing holo projections. She was more massive than any ship Saul had ever seen in his time in the navy except for in orbital shipyards during his academy days. The Betty’s outer hull was still dotted with dents, gashes, and various other war wounds she had sustained in her unknown past. Despite all this, Saul thought Betty was beautiful. She had saved him, his life, and his crews’. And now, through some kind of divine miracle, had reunited him with his son.

  That reminded him.

  “Somebody, wake up Cole,” he said, now halfway back to the ship’s airlock.

  “I’m up,” Cole said, gagging no doubt from a cup of mushroom coffee, “Gods, you lot drink this stuff?”

  “We’re still finding a taste for it,” Belcia said, “Well, I’m off to the cargo to await my delivery. Come, assistant.”

  Lisa let out a low grunt and signed out.

  “Good morning, son,” Saul said, “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did, though it looks like not long enough. I thought we were out here for an ambush, not garbage collecting,” Cole said, “though, anything to pass the time, I guess.”

  “Cap?” Aiden said, his tone suddenly lifted.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Aiden, what is it?” Saul asked.

  “Don’t mean to put a damper on this adorable father-son time,” He said, highlighting a section of the telemetry. The screen they were looking at zoomed in to see a tiny prick of light. "Just dropped through a rift. Wake signature matches the public record for The Zheng He we brought over from The Diggory."

  As did the rest of them, Aiden paused before asking, "what do we do?"

  "Stick to the plan," Saul said, "no bulletins yet. Keep them in the dark. But let them see us. I'm back in now. Be on the bridge in ten."

  When Saul entered the bridge, Aiden seemed pensive. "She's been hailing us," he said, referring to The Zheng He, "seems their crew doesn't like being followed."

  "Good, maybe the fear is setting in," Saul said, "big behemoth like Betty starts following you, stands to reason they'd be nervous."

  "Sir? Belcia said on a connection from the cargo level, "weapons ports are outfitted and loaded with space rock. Should be good to give them a scare though, beyond that, I'm not sure what good they'll do. Also, prelim readings on the shard sample you brought back are outright otherworldly. I'm not sure what I could possibly make of it given weeks to analyse it."

  "Confirmed, Belcia," Saul said, "and keep it in hand that the shard is secondary to The Zheng He. Are you and Sergeant Hutteno ready for a fight?"

  "Yes, we are. And agreed, my sole focus is on the mission," Belcia said, signing off.

  "Mine too, for what it's worth. Guess if I can't escape 'em I may as well join 'em," Lisa said in expected bemusement.

  "Right then. Cole? Open a bulletin to The Zheng He," said Saul, his son jumping into action, nearly spilling a fresh cup of coffee. Cole nodded; the channel was open.

  "Crew of The Zheng He," Saul said, trying out his most menacing voice, "this is Captain Calmos of the free ship Bete Noire. You have something of ours."

  It was several moments before an answer came. The connection on the other end crackled to life, and a man seemingly too young to be captain stepped into view.

  "You're human?" The man said with alarm, "we thought for sure with that ship you were something far worse. But you're not flying any sort of insignia. This is highly irregular."

  Saul paused, thinking through his next words carefully.

  "You seem to think we're here to sit around and chat," said Saul, "I assure you wouldn't waste the time, boy."

  "Now you've held me at a loss, Captain Calmos, was it?" The man said, "and boy? This is Captain Hrodrik Sand, and the Sovereignty will have your head for insubordination like that."

  "He's being deliberately frustrating," said Aiden on a separate channel.

  Saul looked at his terminal. The Betty was making excellent time, far outpacing The Zheng He.

  "You try my patience, Hrodrik. Look at your monitors. You can clearly see the warship that we pursue you in. Granted, your own freighter is impressive, but I'm afraid you are far outmatched. And the Sov matters little to us this far out in the black. Now," Saul said, as clearly as he could manage, "in your hold, you have something that we will be taking off your hands. Failure to provide us with what we need will not end in any way favourable to you and yours."

  "I fail to see your authority in any of this, traitor," said Hrodrik, dropping any sense of formality. "I've looked you up. The fact is that you are a deserter of our merchant Navy, which sits notably below that of the Royal Navy I might add. You ride aboard a ship of unknown origin nor status within the trade partnership of the Quarter. And here you sit, presumed dead, and instead of asking for leniency for your crimes, you threaten me, my crew, and my cargo?"

  "Sums it up nicely," Saul said behind a sardonic smile, "Now then. Pleasantries aside, you've one option as I see it. Sure as earth was green, you hand over that cargo, and you and your men walk. Don't, and I'll be forced to throw the very unknown arsenal of the unknown vessel your way. I'm not even sure what would happen, being unknown and all. Though I'm willing to head down that road with you should you wish."

  "Do your worst. We will act in kind,"a stubborn Hrodrik responded before exiting the channel.

  "He was nice," Aiden said, "what now?"

  "Belcia," Saul said, opening a ship-wide bulletin, "ready the guns. Aiden, bring us alongside. All hands, here we go."

  Cheers echoed throughout the decks of the Betty as battle alarms flashed. Anyone still left asleep in their bunks would surely be awake now. Saul and his crew strapped themselves into their chairs as The Betty lurched forward and pressed them into their seats.

  "We're forty-eight seconds till pass-by," Aiden said.

  "Here is our plan of attack," said Saul as he passed a file on his terminal over to Aiden's. "Lay it in."

  "Doing it," Aiden barked. "We'll be broadside to broadside in three– two– one."

  Betty lurched again, executing a sequence of split-second manoeuvres from Saul's battle plan as it jetted past The Zheng He at a considerable fraction of sub-light speed. The weapons ports screamed in the muffled distance as they fired a barrage of loose rock. The rocks, flying forward and to port, blasted into the freighter's starboard hull, causing several tears and opening a few decks to space.

  At the same time, The Zheng He let loose eleven short-range missiles that pelted The Betty's port side, causing only superficial damage to its thick hull.

  "What did we hit?" Saul asked as they cleared The Zheng He and began circling back around for another pass.

  “Some light damage to their hull, nothing crucial,” Cole said, “Looks like they’re coming around for another run.”

  “I see ‘em, boy,” Aiden said, “Plan, captain?”

  Saul thought for a moment, then laid in another set of commands, passing them over to Aiden.

  “You sure?” Aiden asked.

  “Sure about what?” asked Belcia on the bulletin.

  “He’s got us headed for a collision, straight through The Zheng He’s midsection,” Aiden said, confused.

  “We wanted to scare them, didn’t we?” Saul explained, “can’t think of a quicker way to do that.”

  “Interstellar chicken, is it?” Cole said, “could work.”

  “Sir,” Belcia said, switching on a private channel, “this is the exact behaviour Tidus asked me to warn against.”

  “Noted,” Saul said, “then what are your recommendations?”

  “Do one more run, then hail them again. See if they’ll capitulate,” Belcia said.

  “We’ll try it your way,” said Saul, updating his battle plans to take the ship on another pass-by instead

  “Got it,” Aiden said. The Betty lurched again, first up and then down to meet The Zheng He, which was attempting a sort of dodge manoeuvre. Two volleys of rock ejected from The Betty and railed into their opponent. This time, however, instead of grazing past the freighter’s starboard, they passed underneath and scored several hits on the ship’s belly.

  Saul checked his terminal. A handful more gashes opened the lower decks of The Zheng He while still only a negligible amount of hull damage was suffered by The Betty.

  “Okay, hail them now,” Belcia suggested.

  Saul opened a channel, “Captain Sand, are you there? Perhaps now you want to talk seriously?”

  “End yourselves,” Captain Sand said, “You lot are not getting our cargo! The Sovereignty High Council tasked us personally to deliver what we carry, and earth be black before I just hand it over to pirates.”

  “It’s settled. We’re pirates for real now,” said Aiden. Cole chuckled to himself in the background.

  “Sand, you mistake me again. Stop your engines, allow us to board, and in exchange for your assistance, I’ll even make it look like a struggle. What will the Sov do to you that I am not capable of inflicting here, now?”

  “Eat my rotting corpse, Calmos!” Sand said before closing the bulletin.

  Peachy, Saul thought. Now he needed to find a way to disable The Zheng He’s engines so they could board without destroying the whole ship, let alone wreck the cargo. High Council, Saul thought, just what in green old earth are they carrying, anyways.

  “Seems we’ve little choice. It doesn’t look like we’ll be leaving without a fight here,” Saul said, considering his options, “bring us about and see if we can’t target those engines.”

  “A fight?” Belcia asked, “You do realise we have zero real soldiers onboard. Or are you thinking they’ll just hand over the cargo once we knock?”

  “We’ll worry about that once we get them to a dead stop,” Saul said, brushing off the issue.

  “Old man, er–Captain, there’s something strange that just exited rift,” Cole said, highlighting an orbital trajectory on screen, “It’s on an intercept with us, no mistaking it.”

  Saul considered the readings, unsure what to make of them. A ship had entered far outside the edge of the system, far outside the range The Betty’s systems had been searching. It was also not broadcasting any banner or terran code. As far as he knew, his ship was the only one currently doing that within human-occupied space.

  “Do we know what it is?” Saul asked around, “Any marking you can see, Belcia? Aiden?”

  Aiden didn’t answer. Instead, he squinted his eyes at his terminal.

  “None,” Belcia said, “It’s flying dark and fast. With the rate it’s heading, it’ll intercept us before we can make another pass-by on The Zheng He.”

  “Shit,” Saul spat, “What are our options?”

  “Captain–” Aiden hesitated, “I think we’ve pissed someone off.”

  “By striking The Zheng He? I figured that would be an obvious outcome,” Saul said.

  “No… I think the Quisabar are here,” Aiden said, his voice dry.

  “The Quisabar, here?” Saul turned around in his seat to measure Aiden’s sincerity. He wasn’t expecting to see a Quisabar ship other than The Betty this far into the human holdworlds.

  “And like I said, they’re pissed. What you see here,” Aiden said, zooming in on a massive ship shrouded in a drive cone that itself far exceeded the size of the Bete Noire’s entire bulk. Saul was stunned.

  “Sir. we need a plan,” Belcia said, “We can’t outrun them.”

  “Surrender,” a bitter Lisa said.

  Sitting in his seat, Saul was suddenly overwhelmed with the sudden void of options before him. He could try to run, but like Belcia pointed out, they wouldn’t get very far. He could evacuate the crew, however…

  “Aiden, abandon pursuit of the freighter. Instead, fly us toward the other edge of the system, passing by The Belltower on our way. At that rate, it will take them two or so days to catch us. That will buy us some time for the rest of you to jump ship,” Saul said.

  “The rest of us? You mean you’re sticking around here?” Cole asked.

  “I’ll draw them away. Chances are it’s the ship they're after, and they're not here for any of our misdeeds,” Saul explained.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Cole said, pointing at his screen as Saul walked over.

  Another ship had just dropped out of rift a few hours ahead of them on their new trajectory.

  “Earth to shit, someone really hates us today,” Aiden spat.

  “They’re hailing us, Captain,” Belcia said, “it’s the TNS Mercurial.”

  “Open it,” Saul said, retaking his seat.

  The screen before him flashed on, and a familiar Commodore Lior der Waals sneered.

  “Calmost, we meet once more,” said der Waals, his voice making Saul cringe as he did.

  “Der Waals…” Saul responded, “made some new friends, I see?”

  “Oh, the quisabar? Yes, well, they were gracious enough to help track you here to our little trap. I figured a high-value prize such as is currently on The Zheng He might turn some heads and assumed rather correctly that you would be arrogant enough to take a run at it. It’s amusing, really.”

  “I’m glad I could be such a source for your amusement,” Saul said, his hand gripping his chair arm till it hurt, “how did you approach the quisabar for their help?”

  “Yes, well. The quisabar approached The Sovereignty High Council directly. You see, you have gone and made them quite a bit angry. I’m not sure how you did it, but reactivating that old – how did they put it – sacred warship of yours really turned some heads. So, again you've surprised me.”

  Saul didn’t answer, letting numbness take him over. He couldn’t see a way out. Now that der Waals and The Mercurial had shown up, his plan to go down with the ship while the others escaped would be a pointless sacrifice, as all of them would just be rounded up and turned over either before or after they reached The Belltower. The rest of Saul’s crew looked as stunned as him, looking around to each other for some inkling of what to do next.

  “Seems you’re in a bind, now,” der Waals said, breaking the silence. “I’ll let you decide. Come quietly with us, and as criminals, you will be sent off to gods-know-where to serve out your sentences, causing as little further trouble for the Sovereignty as is possible. That, or die here and now along with your entire crew. You may have found yourself a warship that might have rivalled my own, but as my sources, onboard The Zheng He tell me, you have been throwing space rock their way. I take it any sort of real ordinance is currently out of reach for you?”

  “Not quite,” Saul said, disrupting the man’s smug smirk, “We’ve one more option.”

  “Captain?” Aiden and Belcia said in confused unison.

  Saul ignored them, continuing, “There’s still one ship out there that does not bend to your Sovereignty’s twisted will.”

  Saul laid out a course on his terminal and passed it over to Aiden with the message: “Sorry.”

  Aiden shrugged, laying in the command without any sort of disagreement. At least he could trust Aiden’s judgement to act rationally when it came down to it.

  “What is it, what are you doing?” der Waals interjected as The Betty lurched again, altering its trajectory to meet up with the massive incoming quisabar warship.

  “You think they’ll offer you any sort of leniency?” der Waals spat after noticing their change in course.

  “Maybe not,” Saul said, “but at least with them, there’s hope that we won’t end up in a dark hole for the rest of our lives.

  “You ignorant fool, I–” der Waals said before Saul cut off the feed.

  “Well,” Saul stood, switching on a shipwide bulletin, “here we are again. I promised you I would never make a decision that risked all of your lives like this ever again. This whole matter screams familiarity, and I hate it. But, should this be our end, let’s at least make it count.”

  “I don’t pray to know what you hope to do against a ship like that,” Belcia said, “that quisabar warship is nearly double the size of the Betty, with most likely a full complement of weaponry to throw at us.”

  “At least I won’t end up on the fringes of habitable space this time,” Aiden said sardonically.

  Saul turned to his son, sympathy welling in his eyes. He had invited Cole onboard to offer him a better life. Now, at the first chance, he’s about to have his son meet his end. Cole simply nodded. There was nothing more to say.

  Saul sat back in his chair, “Aiden, let’s hit them head-on.”

  “Yes, captain,” Aiden agreed, adjusting The Betty's course to collide head-on with the oncoming quisabar warship, “We’re an hour to impact. The warship is moving far faster than I had predicted before. It’s entirely possible that we wouldn’t have made The Belltower had the Mercurial not shown up,” Saul sighed. At least he could find a bit of solace in that. Maybe, given the cards that he had been dealt, he had done the best he possibly could.