“Captain!” a chorus of surprised shouts greeted Vitor as he walked into the room.

  “At ease,” he said tiredly. He may not have been injured iack, but receiving the box of tags taken off the dead had weighed heavily on him. There was also the activation crystal to think about, but that was a whole other matter. “How is everyone?”

  “We’re ready on your and, Captain!” one of the surviving Marines decred.

  Vitor pihe bridge of his nose and groaned. “While I appreciate the se, there will be none of that.”

  “But they are holding us prisoner, Sir,” the Mariated.

  “Are they? Did you try leaving?”

  “…Well, no, not yet. We were waiting for everyoo recover first.”

  “Do me a favor, Marine. See if they stop you from leaving. And don’t hurt anyone while trying.”

  The man looked fused by the request but nodded anyway ahe room. Vitor checked in individually with everyone who and mobile, after a half hour, the Marine wandered ba.

  “I apologize for my assumptions, Sir. We are not prisoners, but they still trol the ship.”

  Vitor shook his head and pulled out the fusion activation crystal. “I received this along with the tags from the fallen. Our hosts have also treated the injured and rescued us. I have spoken with the owner, Mr. Alexander Kane. He has assured me we are free to leave whenever we find suitable aodations.”

  “Why doesn’t he just provide a ship for us?” someone asked angrily.

  “He doesn’t have a funing FTL-capable ship, crewman. And there is no Q here.”

  “Sir,” his sensor operator came forward. “I don’t want to disparage the people who rescued us, but I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Are you thinking of the mining ship?”

  The Ensign nodded hesitantly, “That is oion, Captain, but there was also a small freighter on the nding pad.”

  Vitor didn’t know about the freighter, probably because it was unimportant during the fight. He decided to address the mining ship first though. “That mining ship belongs to a captain by the name of Mingyu Na. Assumiurned after the battle, I doubt he would be receptive to taking us back to STO spaor would any of you be able to leave once you stepped aboard said ship. The STO quarahe vessel. Nobody who goes aboard is allowed off in STO space. It could be a way to get news back to headquarters, but let's hold off on that for now. Ensign, what you recall about that freighter?”

  “It was small enough for a surfading and there was no transponder bea ing from it. At the time I just figured it was another derelict like the shuttles, but I’ve been thinking about the ss. The shuttles were all cold, but the freighter wasn’t. It robably in standby mode. If that was the case, the transponder bea should have been active.”

  “It’s probably a smuggler freighter then. It will be a st resort. In the meantime I want you to work in groups of two a a picture of this facility. Don’t do anything stupid though. We might be here for a while, and I don’t want to risk alienating the locals against us. Sihey turhis room into a bunk for us, we’ll meet back here at night and discuss anything we’ve found. If an opportunity arises, we may try to take advantage of it, but not before we have a clear pn. Is that uood?”

  “Yes, Captain,” came a unanimous response.

  He gave a sharp nod of approval. “I’m going to che on the people who are still rec, you have your orders.” As long as they thought they were searg for a way off this barren world, it would keep their minds off of the tragedy. Most of them were probably still in shock, but that wouldn’t st indefinitely.

  The room emptied as everyone did as they were told. When he was alone, he allowed his exhaustion to show. Pretending that everything was fine when he looked at the handful of survivors from the few huhat served aboard Epsilon’s Dawn had been one of the hardest things he could recall doing. Based oags, he khe true t, but knowing it and seeing it in persowo very different things.

  After colleg himself, he made his way to the infirmary. There were only five people in medical beds and one in an actual medical pod. While the room didn’t look much like a hospital, it was decked out in a siderable amount of equipment. He had seen uff ba Earth but even Varlen’s military hospital didn’t have access to half of these diagnostic maes.

  A nurse gnced up and watched him for a bit before she went back to a holo she was watg silently.

  Most of the injured had broken bones. Without access to quick heal meds, they would be in for a long road to recovery, but they would recover. Vitor made his way to the one person in the medipod. He was surprised to find it was his Chief Engineer. Parson was in a a and it looked like half his body was burned.

  “Nurse, do you know what happeo him?” he asked, gesturing to the pod.

  The aused her holo and looked up at him. “First off, I’m not a nurse. My name is Gabriel, and I am the Head of Medical Services on Eden’s End, not that the title means much. It’s not like I got a medical lise or anything. I’m simply doing my best.”

  Vitor bli the woman’s statement.

  “As for what happeo your crewman?” she shrugged. “Burhrough his suit. Probably some electrical discharge if I had to guess. The medipod is keeping him sedated until we bio-print rept skin. It will be a long process, but he should survive. If it looks like he’ll take a turn for the worse, we have a stasis pod on standby.”

  The offer of a stasis pod surprised him. Those were expehen again, Kane seemed like he had no issues with money if he mao put this all together.

  “Thank you for healing my people.”

  The woman snorted. “Don’t thank me, I’m only doing what Alex asked. If he wasn’t here, nobody would have bothered resg your lot. We came out here to be rid of the STO, not to ihem into our home.”

  Vitor forced a smile on his face. He had to remember this pce housed a rge y of drifters. The STO and drifter poputions didn’t have a good w retionship at the best of times. “Where I find Mr. Kao thank him personally?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually,” she said, going back to her holo.

  Vitor knew a dismissal when he saw one, he nodded politely to the woman and strode out of the room.

  ***

  Gabriel watched the man leave from the er of her eye. She didn’t know why Alex didn’t want the man to know where his workshop was and she didn’t particurly care.

  Kane was a bit of an enigma. Like everyone else on Eden’s End, she had heard the rumors from the Hawks that he was remotely trolling the robot from a stasis pod. The only problem with that rumor was that the only stasis pod that existed on Eden’s End sat in the medical ste. And it was empty. She khis because, like most drifters, she kept track of anything that might be of use. It was a habit of survival when moving to new pces. So she knew without a doubt that Kane only had a siasis pod.

  sidering what Alex had done for the residents, she hadn’t brought up the strange insistenot that it mattered. People were starting to notice other insistencies in his story.

  She recalled a dinner she had with Damien and Lucas a while back. Lucas kept w about how Alex got past the time g to operate his body at the Lagrange point. The inquisitive young man wao uand why the signal couldn’t be detected by their transceivers. Other than a Q link, that shouldn’t be possible, he cimed. It never even occurred to the younger man that there might not be any signal. Si was clear both her boyfriend and his younger brother suspected something was off, she mentiohe pod.

  That only produced more questions from the young man, whinoyed Damien until he finally put a stop to it. “I don’t give a shit if he’s a popsicle, a brain in a jar, or whatever the fuck a memory endgram is. I don’t want you digging any further into the man’s secrets.”

  That was that.

  Damien might e off as a ical asshole most of the time, but he cared in his own way. And while he and Alex didn’t always see eye to eye, Damien respected him for what he did back during the attack. He just had a hard time showing it. Keeping his brother from pestering the man about these questions was a moal show of respect.

  ***

  Damien cursed Alex in his mind. Couldn’t the man uand that letting the surviving STO Navy personnel wahe facility was a recipe for disaster or did he simply not care? It was bad enough he had to keep his uncle in check.

  He had already caught the man snooping around pces he shouldn’t. He warned him away, but he khe man wouldn’t listen. If Shall thought family ties would keep Damien from arresting him when the man finally did something to cross a line, he had ahing ing.

  Soon the person he was waiting for exited the medical facility. Damien could have gone in and spoken to him, but he knew better than to get on Gabriel’s bad side. And b her patients would be a surefire way to do just that.

  He straightehe suit that marked him as facility security, gd that security had a uniform now. Damien cut the man off before he could head down one of the side hallways. “Captain Krieger, I assume. A moment of your time.”

  The man stopped short before running into Damien. Annoyance flitted across the man’s face for a moment before the STO captain suppressed it. “I am. I assume you are in charge of security around here?”

  Damien didn’t ahe man’s question. “Yuests of Alexander’s. This does not give you any special privileges other than food, water, and lodging. If your people cause trouble, don’t expect them to escape punishment. Keep them in line, or I will.”

  The man narrowed his eyes at Damien. “Is that a threat?”

  “No, Captain, that is a promise. I know you sent your people out to colleformation for you. Feel free to spy all you want but if they are found somepce restricted, they will be locked up until someone es to pick your sorry asses up. I suggest you vey this warning to them as soon as possible. That’s all I have to say, have a good day, Captain.” Damien walked past the stunned man without waiting for a response.

  He would have preferred to set a wat every one of the survivors, but he didn’t have the mao do that while also guarding the restricted areas of the facility, and patrolling. The warning would have to suffice.