(Main Bridge, BSN Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, Star’s Reach Gateway)

Slave-Captain Ara Virstina was used to waiting. As a slave to pirates, all she did was wait for the next abuse from her masters. Before that, navy life was full of waiting. Anyone who couldn’t handle waiting was ill suited to the navy, or even life aboard starships. Anyone who made their life moving from place to place in the great dark between worlds knew how to wait, or at least how to take their mind off the wait.

The ones who couldn’t do that much were usually identified early on, and ushered into other roles, away from ships. They were the lucky ones. Those who couldn’t handle the wait and weren’t identified early on usually fell into some kind of chemical dependency to help them wait. Some went mad. Neither were a healthy thing when you were stuck in a metal box with as many ways to get yourself or others killed as the average spaceship, even civilian models.

At the moment, she and the rest of the fleet were waiting on news from the ground, whether it was from Starborn, the dungeon, or the strange facility that the Master was investigating. The thought of her Master made her smile, just a little, to herself. After her ‘recruitment’, she and her Marine commander, Alea Pakas, had gone on something of a binge of good food, ice cream, and movies, things they had not been allowed before as bedwarmers and, in Alea’s case, a gladiator. That night of indulgences eventually divulged into their comparing notes about their new owner, and some girlish tittering about what she had seen when she had ‘volunteered’ to be the Captain of this vessel. Which led to datanet searches, which led to videos of a scandalous nature, all regarding their new Master.

When he had first come aboard the Ama-no-Murakumo­ after its commissioning, the two women were like blushing schoolgirls, given the way they’d talked about him in the weeks between their recruitment and then. That night in her cabin, well, the three of them had gotten very well acquainted, as they had several other times since then. The stories and videos lived up to the reality, it seemed.

“Captain! Unscheduled Gateway activation!”

Instantly, Virstina was snapped out of her reverie, and her eyes were tracking the screens on her bridge. “Shields up, weapons ready! Sensors! Where’s the Gate coming from? And do we have an IFF?”

The sensor officer checked his readouts, and then nodded. “Gateway is coming from the Nuevo Edo system, ma’am. We’re receiving an IFF now… It is the Nightforge, ma’am. Seven hours earlier than scheduled.”

“Stand down weapons. Comms, wait until the Nightforge is through, and then welcome them to Star’s Reach. And send word to the surface, letting them know that Third Group is coming on station to begin orbital improvements.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Virstina watched as the Third Group made their way through the Gateway one ship at a time. Having so many ships as part of a mercenary group was practically unheard of, unless they were a façade for a governmental force like the Kul’tirans, and yet her Master seemed to be reaching ever higher in his ambitions, whether he realized it or not. Claiming your own planet and making yourself a government was the height of ambition, after all. And she’d seen the plans for the scout craft that would be going out and investigating gate addresses across the galaxy. He truly intended to take the fight to the X’thari, it seemed.

“Captain? Slave-Captain Genest on the Nightforge sends his compliments, and would like to know if you have time for a quick word?”

Virstina nodded, and said, “On my screen.” A moment later, the screen on her personal console lit up, showing two men, one human and one knelfi. The knelfi was dressed in the uniform that the engineering crews typically wore, instead of the nicer looking (and less ruthlessly practical) uniforms that officers wore. Her gaze shifted to the human, dressed in a uniform like hers, and said, “Slave-Captain Genest, what an unexpected pleasure. And who is your companion?”

Genest smiled warmly at her, and said in that accent she was told was called ‘French’, and came from the Nouveau Orleans colony, “Ah, mon capitaine d'esclave, it does my heart good to view such loveliness as yourself. But where are my manners? This is Commander Elduin Fatoris, who runs the shipyards on my Nightforge. He is most eager to get to work setting up the defenses of an entire planet with a free hand to think up anything he may wish. But I thought we would check and see if there were any priorities from the Admiral on what should be built first, before simply letting him run loose.”

The knelfi man mock glared at the slave-captain for that introduction, but Virstina could see that they had a good working relationship. That was good, since the Nightforge was a ship where there were really two commanding officers, depending on what was going on. She didn’t know if she could handle something like that on her ship, but if these two were making it work, then more power to them.

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The knelfi spoke in the common accent that she associated with those from Jagloth, “Ah, yes. First, let me offer my condolences for your long exile, Slave-Captain. I was in the Navy before Jagloth, which is how I came to the company. When we heard that First Group had found the Kyathaela Daven it confirmed our worst fears about the ship, but the news that two survivors had been found were welcome news to those of us who used to be Confederate Navy. If you or the other survivor stop by the completely unofficial bar that yard hands certainly didn’t build in one of the former main weapons spaces of the Nightforge, I expect you would have more than a few people eager to buy you a drink, and offer a toast to those of your crew that are no longer with us.”

He paused for a moment, before continuing, “At any rate, I see that your teams have already begun the surveys of the system for orbital deposits and other resources we can use in the building process. Did the Master leave any instructions or a build list that he wished to see done first? If we are to defend this planet, there is a lot of work that will have to be done.”

Virstina nodded her head at the offer of condolences, but went on with business. She didn’t like talking about such things with those who only knew of her, rather than actually knowing her. “Yes, before he went down to the surface, the Master left instructions. Because we have found both a ‘dungeon’, as they are being called, and what looks like a Lost Tech site, system defense is the top priority. So, he would like permanent shipyards to be the first thing going, and then a space station above the colony, so we can restrict shipping lanes. After that, focus on defenses for the planet. The Master wishes for Star’s Reach to be at least as defended as Nuevo Edo, if not better. He specifically said that temporary installations could be used while permanent defenses were put in place.”

Genest nodded. “That is well. Especially given the reason why we left early, and came in from Nuevo Edo, instead of transiting from the Amazon System as planned.” At Virstina’s inquisitive look, the slave-captain continued, “You see, there were some rather unsavory types lying in wait around the Amazon Gateway. It would seem that someone noticed the way our fleets liked to use Amazon and Desolace as waypoints, to keep people from knowing where we were actually going. The ships our probes picked up were all pirates, with ships known to be in three different clans across Imperial space according to the intelligence staff. If we had gone through Amazon as planned, they would have been able to savage us as we came through the Gateway.”

Virstina’s good mood evaporated at the mention of pirates. “Damn, if they’ve covered the Gateway, then the only way to kick them out of the system is to go the long way, since we don’t have any of the Imperial transition drives. And leaving pirates in control of Gateway, even one as insignificant as Amazon, is intolerable. Very well, I’ll have the tactical departments ready to deal with any ships that decide to come visit, and see if there aren’t any ideas on how to deal with these interlopers.”

(Pirate Ship Love Gunn, Amazon Gateway)

Captain James Gunn was not happy. His ship, along with the twenty-eight others that had been gathered from the Three Great Clans that spanned the Imperial border with the scaley Ihm bastards, was sitting here, ready to attack the damned Black Stars that had caused so much confusion and mess in the universe since they popped on the scene during the Civil War. The Pirate Lords had seen what the bastard in charge of the Black Stars had done with the superdreadnought they captured, turning it into some kind of mobile shipyard. That was all well and good, but the Pirate Lords thought it could be put to much better use refitting their ships, rather than sitting around helping to build up the defenses of planets, keeping them safe from raiders.

As one of the raiders in question, the idea of having a safe dock that could move when threatened to patch his ship up in was very enticing to Captain Gunn. Of course, denying the defenses to newly settled worlds, and making it so they would have to pay for ‘protection’ was even better. The idea of getting both in one strike was too good to be true.

And, so far, it was.

Suddenly, the Gateway activated. Only, it wasn’t coming from Nuevo Edo, like their target was supposed to be, it was coming from Coraline, the nearest Gateway to the Ihm border. That was already a bad sign. When the flagships of the Pirate Lords began coming through, with the bulk of the fleet, he knew things were getting very, very bad. Something had definitely gone wrong. He just hoped it wasn’t on him. Tychus ‘the Cutter’ Briggs was known to shoot the messenger, like most pirates, but he liked having all his fingers, instead of that bastard cutting them off when you fucked up.

“Cap’n! Signal from the Bleeding Whore. Something spooked the Black Stars, and they went direct to a new Gate address. The spy was able get the address, and sent it along with the Nomad messaging tech. We know where the Black Stars have their new base. And they are saying that the Nomads are talking about a dungeon there, fresh for the picking!”

Captain Gunn shook his head. These idiots thought dungeons were just a place to get loot, having heard the stories from the newsnets. He was a Nomad, and he knew that the dungeons were the toughest fights in the game at the moment, unless you wanted to walk up to the new Empress and stick a shiv in her. The idea that you could just waltz into a dungeon and take its loot for your own was idiotic.

Of course, from the looks of things, the Pirate Lords had decided to go and get stupid about things, as well. It was one thing to try and ambush the Black Stars as they exited a Gateway one at a time. You had the right amount of firepower, and you could disable or destroy the ships as they passed through, before they knew what happened, and because the Gateways were one-way, the ships behind them wouldn’t know what was happening. It was a very unfair fight, which is just how Gunn liked it.

But gathering even more heavy hitters like this? That did not bode well. He sincerely hoped that someone hadn’t gotten the bright idea to go and try to attack the new colony. Not when that bastard had two whole fleets there to defend it! Even Nuevo Edo would be a tough nut to crack, now that their defenses had been built up. And that wasn’t even counting the trouble of getting through the Gateway themselves.

Ah, fuck it all! That had to be it! The damn Pirate Lords were going to lead a fucking invasion of Nuevo Edo when the majority of the Black Stars were away. As if that bastard would have just left the planet defenseless? Sure, the Nuevo Edo Navy might be young, but the vids he’d seen of the fight with the X’thari showed they weren’t idiots or cowards. This was not going to go how the Pirate Lords thought. Quietly, he opened a chat line to some of the other Nomads in the fleet, seeing whether there were any contingency plans that could be made. He’d save his ship, at the very least, but if the Pirate Lords went and got a case of terminal stupidity, then there would be an opening for a new Pirate Lord or two…