Simon was halfway to the target when his sensors screamed at him as another ship dropped out of at the far end of the trap.

  He could only gape as the sensors told him this new arrival was a frigate. At first, he thought the pirates had id a trap for him, but he soon picked up a transponder code, beling the ship B.S.E. Eden’s Fury.

  Simo pale when he saw that. He didn’t know who the hell B.S.E. was, but he knew a warship designation when he saw it. Panig, he tried jumping, only to realize he was caught in his own gravity trap. Uo jump, he quickly ged dire as he spooled up his ons. These ships were obviously traveling together, maybe he could do enough damage to the first ship to keep the warship from pursuing.

  ***

  “Captain, there is a corvette css ship approag Dawn, and it isn’t running a transponder.”

  Mingyu swallowed hard. He knew entering a pirate ossibility when he accepted the job, but he hadn’t expected to run into them after only their sed jump.

  He pressed the button on his sole to activate the ship's sers. As they were p up, he made a gesture and the holographic dispy quickly zoomed in on the ship. With another small motioargeted the vessel. It was fleeing, but the Fury’s puter alerted him that the smaller ship was activating its ons. Mingyu may have let the ship go if it was just running, but it was clearly hostile.

  Hesitating only a moment, he pressed the firing button.

  Six beams fshed out and covered the distaween the Fury and this unknown ship ihan a sed. Mingyu khe sers on the Fury were powerful, but this was his first time seeing them used on anything other than an asteroid.

  The armor and hull of the corvette did little to blunt the deadly beams as they burraight through the enemy vessel, leaving six glowing trails that nearly bisected the ship. Other than a few errant sparks, the ship went dead and tinued on its course, drifting off into the void of space.

  With the threat eliminated, he approached the Dawn and the item causing a localized gravitational field. It didn’t look the same as the one he nearly ran into when fleeing Gliese 667 but it seemed to perform a simir fun, which was to destabilize a field by creating an artificial gravity well.

  Captain Matthews had warhem about pirates using such devices more often, but knowing something and seeing it in persowo very different things. Mingyu found himself disgusted at such a perversion of artificial gravity teology, but that irates for you.

  He radioed Alexander, letting him know what had just happened before he ected to Epsilon’s Daulled the ship through the system. He made sure to sg the device left behind by the now-deceased pirates. There was no point leaving it for some other pirate to find and they didn’t have the time or space to take it aboard.

  ***

  Alexander was surprised that the pirates had set up some sort of trap for them. While it was true they were using the standard jump points, this area of space wasn’t heavily traveled. How had they known he was ing this way?

  He would ask Captain Na if he could shed any light on the subject since he o fly the shuttle over there to pick up the rept cable. He had hoped it would have been ready as soon as they ehe system over from Y6X-3H2, but it had taken far loo plete than initially pnned.

  He detached the power cables from the shuttle and spent some time ensuring there was no damage to the ship or the reactor before p it back up and making his way to the Fury’s hangar.

  Alexander hoped there wouldn’t be many cases of needing to repce parts on this trip. The whole process of removing the power cabling aag it was rather long and involved.

  With more practiced movements, Alexander set the shuttle down in the hangar without smming it sainst the deck this time. If he only o pick up the cable and leave, he could have dohat without them pressurizing the bay, but since he inteo speak with Na, he simply waited after radioing the bridge that he was ing aboard.

  Ohe room had normalized, Alexander quickly loaded the huge wheel of high-voltage cable into the shuttle. It was heavy enough that even he couldn’t carry it with the gravity pting online.

  When that was plete, he made his way to the bridge. This wasn’t his first time aboard the Fury, he had ied every room after it was initially pleted. Much like the exterior of the ship, the interior panels were painted as well. He went with a mostly white interior with blue ats for the baseboards and the areas c the light strips that ran down the middle of each corridor and the ceiling.

  Alexander had decided to go with cealed light strips because the white reflected enough light to make it easy to see and it didn’t leave any protruding surfaces to smack your head on in the case of an emergency. The blue trim also gave people an easy way to locate the grab rails that were ied into the at pieces in case power to the artificial gravity systems was knocked offlihe color scheme also made the ship feel rger on the inside, almost like you were standing under an open sky.

  It was a stark difference from the utilitarian bare metal that Epsilon’s Dawn sported. The only nod to the STO’s design that Alexander incorporated, was the lines painted on the floor that poio certain areas.

  He followed one of the lines marked in red and headed toward the bridge. On the way, he passed by the area where Krieger and his crew were sequestered. Before he left, he would stop in and speak to the STO Captain as well, just to see how his people were faring.

  Alexander soon arrived at the bst doors for the bridge. It was biometrically sealed but he had added a workaround for himself. Ohat didn’t involve an easily bypassible security code. He pced his hand on the ser and adjusted his external temperature to a degree. The pahen sed for the outline of his hand before beeping once. After the beep, Alexander repositioned his hand and adjusted his temperature to the in the sequence.

  After pleting the proper handshake, the heavy door slid open, allowing him to ehe bridge.

  “How’s the ship treating you?” he asked as Na looked over at the opening door and smiled.

  “About as well as be expected sidering the prototype nature of everything.”

  “Oh? Anything I should look at before heading back?” If there was an issue, he wao know.

  “Nothing critical. The biggest issue is with the heating systems. It's either too cold or too hot. But that st one might be attributed to our ons fire. Six sers produce a lot of heat in a very short amount of time and even the heat exgers aren’t perfectly effit at removing the heat before some of it soaks into the ship. Mikhail is looking at the enviroal systems to see if he adjust the regution a bit better. Other than that, it's just some small things that wait until we get back. What did you want to discuss?”

  “You said the pirates id a trap for us? How did they know where to pce it or that we were even ing?”

  “Yes,” Na said with a frown. “You remember those gravity traps that Captain Matthews spoke about?”

  Alexander nodded.

  “It was something like that. Only in a much smaller package. It seems the pirates are quickly improving upon their design. As for how they kneere ing. I don’t think the ship did. I think the pirate was looking for an easy score and saw a wounded ship. If the pirates had knoere ing, they would have bailed. A single corvette is no match for a frigate even on a bad day. This was clear when it tried to run as soon as we jumped in. Not sure ere so far behiher. We jumped within seds of you from the st system, we should have e out at nearly the same time.”

  “Hmm. Dr. Lund might be able to give a more definitive answer on that, but if I had to guess, it has to do with my fluctuating power. The rept cable should fix that issue. Did you record the dire and speed of that ship? I don’t think it's worth stopping on our way back, but on the rip out, it might be worth searg the vessel for answers.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Na sighed. “If there are more pirates, we o be as close together as our jumps will allow. Arriving minutes apart, or over a light sed away could be disastrous. And yes, I saved the ship’s heading since I figured you might ask.”

  Alexahanked Mingyu for his swift as against the pirates before he left the bridge and made his way to Captain Krieger.

  He found the man typing up a report on his tablet in an office. It was located in what was only referred to as Marine try if his memories of Earth Naval sng were accurate. Not that Alexander or BSE had Marines, but the ship was rge enough to host around a hundred fighters if the need arose. Maybe he should re Hawk try since he pnned on w with the meraries much more iure.

  “I didn’t expect to find you writis,” Alexander said as he walked through the open door.

  Captain Krieger looked up, not seeming surprised at all that Alexander was here. “An unavoidable part of my job I’m afraid. I’m writing o the families of those we lost.”

  “Ah…” Well, now Alexander just felt awkward with his attempt at humor. “How are your people settling in?”

  The man shrugged as he set down his tablet. “They are bored aless, but that’s to be expected. I imagi will be worse sihe ship was just in bat. They aren’t used to standing around during situations like that.”

  “You know about that?” Alexander asked in surprise. It wasn’t like there were arm kxons or anything. With so few crew aboard; it was simpler just to radio them all.

  “When you’ve been on ships for as long as I have, you tell when their ons fire. It’s a little harder with sers, but even those be felt by the discharge of energy.” Alexander didn’t miss the fact that the man emphasized the word ser. It seemed he had figured out the Fury’s main armament.

  That was fi wasn’t like he was trying to hide it or anything.

  “Yes, we came out of FTL and nded in a gravity trap. It was only a corvette though, and they tried to run as soon as they spotted Fury.”

  “Would it be possible to get a s of the device the pirates used? The STO would be grateful to get their hands on any information about these devices. We know about them, but the pirates using them are quiove any evidence before any STO vessels arrive on the se.”

  “As long as your people don’t attack us on sight as soon as we enter Varlen, I don’t see why we ’t share that information. Anything that hurts pirates, works in our favor.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kane. And I don’t think you’ll o worry about the fleet at Varlen attag you. You have an active transponder. Even if it is marked as a military ID, there are protocols for dealing with unknown military ships.”

  That was good to know.

  He said his goodbyes to the man a Krieger get back to his somber duty before heading back to the shuttle hangar.

  The STO captain wasn’t the only oh a lot of work to do. Alexander had about a thousa of cable to repce before they could jump to the system. It was going to be a busy few days.