The Epsilon’s Dawn jumped into the system known as Y6X-3H2, coasting at a retively sedate pace of .1c. They were here to surveil the system, so there was no hurry. The trajectory they were on would take them just outside the orbit of the most distant satellite orbiting their target phe p formerly known as Y6X-3H2-4 had beely renamed Eden’s End oO’s space charts.

  They could maneuver without giving away their position if they o using their cold gas thrusters or even their cealed ion thrusters, but that shouldn’t be necessary uheir orbital charts were way off. The other option was to wait until they were out of the line of sight of the po light off their main drive.

  “What do we have, Ensign?” Captain Krieger asked while sipping on some fresh coffee. They had been in the system for a full day, so their passive sensors should have picked up something even though they were still quite far from the phey were here to take a peek at.

  “Not much yet, Captain. Optics has marked three ships sitting in a parking orbit quite a distance from the phe charts firmed that as a possible Lagrange point. There was also a gunship in the system, but they have since left. The active transponder from that ship registers it as belonging to the Hawks of Ganos.”

  The fact that a merary gunship was still hanging around was a good sign. His orders were to see what was going on out here. But if it turned out to be a pirate stronghold in the making, he had orders to remove it with extreme prejudice. “No surprise there, we khey were w with the meraries. What else?”

  “There is a small station in orbit around the phe puter says it matches a standard refueling design.”

  “When did our report say the Hawks came out here?” He could have sworn the report said it had beehan a year.

  “A little over ten months, Sir.”

  “Well, aren’t these people rather industrious? Is that all?”

  “No, Sir. There is also a transponder for a mining ship called The Moonlit Destiny. The STO database has the ship tagged as quarantined and not alloublic ports.”

  “That’s the official story on the ship? What’s the unofficial?” A quarantined ship carrying an actual disease would have spread through the news outlets like wildfire. The fact that it hadn’t meant this was some bullshit from STO leadership.

  “Unofficially…” the officer paused. “The ship was registered at Petrov statiht before the pirate attack.”

  There it was. The ship had either escaped right before the attack or during it. If they were upstanding individuals, they would have goo the closest STO outpost to report the i. And someone iO leadership decided to bury the problem instead of dealing with it. Typical. Vitor just shook his head at the inpetence of that decision. Politig at its fi. It’s why he turned down any offers to rise above the rank of Captaiill had to deal with internal Navy politics, but he didn’t have to deal with the goveral bullshit.

  “What about the pself?” he asked after taking another sip of the soothingly hot beverage. The warmth flowed through him, temporarily banishing the slight chill that seemed to always apany military ships.

  “Nothihe atmosphere is too hazy to piything up. But the puter is piling an image of the surface. We should have it by the time we do our closest flyby.”

  “Excellent. While the puter is doing that, get me more information on those three parked vessels.”

  ***

  “ositive IDs on those three ships, Captain.”

  It had taken far lohan he would have liked to get that information, but it wasn’t like they had anything else pressing. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to find out why the information was deyed so long. “Ensign, care to expin why it took so long to get positive IDs?”

  The young man bnched slightly. “The ships have been heavily damaged, sir. When I rahrough the database, it didn’t return as. I tried the search a few more times, I even had the puter do partial restrus. …It wasn’t until I remembered the fifteen pirate ships we were trailing a month and a half ago that I finally got a hit.”

  Vitor nodded. He khe ships were likely the remains of the pirate fleet, but sometimes you o let your crew make their own mistakes and learn from them so they could grow. When they weren’t uhreat of attack, it erfect time to push those lessons. “Keep that in mind for ime, Ensign. What ships are out there?”

  The man nodded. “I will, Captain. The first ship is Arkonis Anazi’s vessel, the Headhuhe sed ship beloo his third in and. No name on record for that ship. The third is a small corvette unboat css ship by the name of the Absolution. The Captain we have on file for that ship was decred dead six months back, so we aren’t sure who is the current Captain.”

  “sidering they are sitting there with their reactors offline, my guess would be nobody, Ensign.” The man’s face turned red. “So,” Vitor tinued, purposely ign the man’s embarrassment so as to not cause him anymore. “We have three former pirate ships, with no crew. Three returo their rendezvous point. That’s six. Where did the other nine go?”

  “Um… they were all shot down, Sir. There is signifit orbital debris around the p. Our surface map has also marked six debris fields rge enough to have been a ship. One looked to have nded but wasn’t able to take off again.”

  “A sidated troop transport did this?” If that was the case, it was beyond impressive. These weren’t the most well-equipped pirate ships he had ever seen, but fifteen of them should have put up quite the fight. Something still wasn’t adding up here.

  “No, Sir. At least the puter doesn’t believe so.”

  “What do you believe, Ensign?” This new geion trusted far too mu puters to do everything for them. The only upside to that was that if they didn’t, Epsilon’s Dawn wouldn’t be able to take advantage of that ht to hide its jump signature.

  “…Um… No?” Vitestured for the man to tihe picture of the plex on the surface shows three craters. They appear to have been on instaltions. Three more objects on the surface could be more of these on instaltions. The puter couldn’t give a definitive answer on these st three locations because they are below bst doors. I believe they are more ons due to their pt.”

  Vitor nodded. “Excellent work, Ensign.” While the man was talking, Vitor was reviewing the footage he was referring to. “I agree with your assessment. I’m going to assume the facility pns we have don’t shorevious military-grade ons on the surface.” The Ensign shook his head slightly, but it was a rhetorical question. Vitor khis pce wouldn’t have had ground-based anti-ship onry. That sort of teology was highly restricted in STO space. So where had the people below learned how to manufacture them? “Sounds like the pirates bit off more than they could chew. I ’t say I’m too shaken up about that. This does prove to be a bit of an issue though…”

  “Captain?” his first mate asked.

  Vitor waved off the man’s . “Just thinking out loud. The STO doesn’t have any jurisdi out here, so it isn’t like these people are doing anything illegal. That being said, we o keep an eye on things here. If the pirates returned and somehow mao capture the plex, this pce would already be primed to bee a pirate haven. I’m going to suggest to Navy and that we do quarterly iions to ensure pirates haven’t moved in. If there’s nothing else, I think we’ve learned everything we could from the system. Adjust our course outside the gravity well and jump us back toward Varlen.”

  ***

  Gabriel ehe security room with a middle-aged man who looked worse for wear. The fellow iion had sunken eyes and waxy-looking skin. He also seemed to flinch at every quient. It was clear he wasn’t well treated when he tive. “Alex, meet First Lieutenant Branston. He said he might be able to help.”

  “Fome,” the man mao say.

  “Sorry,” Gabriel said to the man, giving him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “Former First Lieutenant Branston,” she corrected as she led him over to a sole before walking over to Alexander. “The pirates were not kind to Branston. They cut out his too keep him from talking. He unicated to me via a tablet that he wao help. To thank you for allowing the use of the medical ter to help regrow his tongue.”

  “How is his treatment going?” Alexander asked. This was his first time meeting any of the prisoners rescued from the pirate ships.

  There weren’t many from what he recalled. The Talon didn’t have the medical facilities to treat the wounds these people suffered from so he had agreed to treat all of them. Teically, Gabriel and a few of the other residents of Eden’s Ereating them. Alexander had simply given them full access to all of the medical maes and supplies. He quickly realized after arrivihat he would not have time to learn how to operate any of those medical devices.

  “The bioprinter created a rept tongue for him, and his body didn’t reject it. It will take time for him to get used to the rept though. Unfortunately, I am not a doctor, I was only a fitness instructor back before we left the STO, so I ’t say how his mental state is. He seems to be rec well enough though and he looks much better than he did when they brought him in.”

  Alexander winced internally at that. If Branston looked this bad now, he couldn’t imagine how bad he looked when he first arrived. “And the others?”

  He could see rage boil up in the woman before she suppressed it. “Their physical injuries have beeed although they will take time to heal. We keep them occupied with other women at all times to keep their minds occupied and to keep them from dwelling on what happened aboard those ships. I’m not sure those four women will ever truly get over what was doo them though.”

  “Do what you . And thank you for taking on that responsibility.”

  “You don’t o thank me for doing what’s right.”

  He nodded and the pair walked over to where First Lieute– former First Lieutenant Branston was maniputing the system information.

  “Did Gabriel or Lucas tell you what was going on?” Alexander asked the man.

  The man nodded. “Sange siga.”

  “If talking is too much, we always just use a tablet,” Alexander offered.

  Branston shook his head. “Eed o ear o alk aga.”

  He retty sure the man just said he o learn to talk again. Fair enough. “Yes. There was a strange echo or what we thought was a jump echo. I show you.” He reached for the sole but the man waved him away.

  With a few swipes aures, the man brought up the signal. “His siga?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Lucas thinks a ship jumped in and that it isn’t an echo at all.”

  “He igh,” the man said. “Have’ seen befoe.”

  If he uood what the man was saying, he seemed to agree with Lucas’ assessment, but he hadn’t ever seen a signal like this before.

  The man looked frustrated before he picked up a tablet and began typing. It seemed whatever he o unicate was too much to speak. Branston handed him the tablet and Alexander read what the man had typed.

  “You think this might be a bck ops ship?”

  The man nodded.

  “Why?”

  “S O, wok on pojec when I in avy. celed, maybe.”

  “If that’s true, why would an STO spy ship e here?”

  The maured around.

  “…Ah, right. Do you think we could track this ship somehow? I don’t like the fact that the STO is keeping tabs on us. We are not in their spad we haven’t done anything against their ws. The only thing we’ve done is defend ourselves.”

  “On’ have sell me,” Branston stated angrily. “No escue me afe capue. I no go back.”

  The man maniputed the dispy again and brought up the inal time and locatiohe jump signature icked up. Then he used the tablet again. “I picked up some tricks while being forced to work for the pirates. Do you have high-quality optical sensors?”

  “We have a few that survived,” Lucas added to the versation.

  Most of the disguised cameras had simply died over time due to po failure. Seven were still operational acc to Lucas. They had only been able to reect to three of the units after the uplink came back up. The younger Laront was still trying to get the uplink w for the others. He said they were probably knocked out of their orbit and the eter o be adjusted to allow them to unicate again.

  As Lucas brought up the three cameras, Branstohrough ss and did some plicated mathematics that he fed the puter. The cameras reoriented on a small se of space. He poi the visual dispy. There didn’t appear to be anything there…at first.

  Soon something crossed in front of a distant star, occluding it temporarily from view.

  “Well,” Alexaated in annoyance. “It looks like you were right, Lucas. I owe you an apology. It seems we do have an unwanted guest. How far away is the ship?”

  Lucas looked at the coordinates in the camera feed. “Looks like it's out past the smallest satellite. Too far out for us to hit with the railguns if that’s what you had in mind.”

  Alexander looked at the man like he was crazy. “Why would I want to start hostilities with an STO ship? While it’s true I’m ahat they are here, looking into our business, that’s no reason to start a ould easily lose. No, let's just keep track of them for now. Branston, you fg that jump signature so if this ship ever returns, we’ll be alerted?”

  The former navy man nodded.

  While the ship must have been in the system for days, it only hung around for a few more hours after they spotted it.

  “Looks like they are finally leaving,” Lucas ented.

  “They probably already have all the information they came for,” Branston typed oablet.

  Alexander frow that. “I don’t appreciate them thinking they e here and do as they please. We o expand our defenses and surveilnce systems to prevent this from happening iure. The ship today might not have had orders to attack, but who’s to say if that will ge iure?”

  “How do we do that?” Lucas asked. “The uncher is useless with all the debris floating around up there. It’s going to take another few months before most of that burns up imosphere. That just leaves the shuttles.”

  “You have shuttles?” Branston asked oablet.

  “We do. Sort of. They are the ohe pirates left behind. I started looking them over before some issues popped up, and then Lucas called me io look into this.”

  “Do you have pio?” the former pirate prisoner asked excitedly. It was the first time the man actually looked alive since he had ehe trol room.

  “…Um, I hadn’t gotten that far. Why? Are you ied?”

  “Yes,” the man nodded enthusiastically. “I heal, you let pio?”

  “You want to be a pilot… for me? I mean, I don’t see why not.”

  The man got up from the chair and hurried over as fast as his frail form would allow. He grabbed one of Alexander’s hands and shook it vigorously. “We have dea!”