Empirial Guardsman Tyler Sink’s day had started well enough. His charge, Prince Gregory, had begun the day safely ensconced in the armored hull of the battlecruiser Bhadra as she prowled the along the border of the Wastes. Bhadra was conducting a routine anti-piracy patrol through Radeon March, but had seen little success for her weeks long effort. Until today that was, when she had detected and responded to an SOS beacon.

At first everything had gone well – at least from his point of view guarding the bridge entrance while the Prince stood his watch at the tactical station – but they had been sucker-punched when they approached the ship in distress. Crude missiles were launched from external cargo pods, and boarders were on the ship and cutting their way in almost before the crew realized they were under attack.

The battlecruiser had been completely blindsided and taken significant damage in the first moments of the battle; but then her mighty weapons returned fire and blotted the ambushing freighter from space. And just as they assumed the fight was over and started on damage-control and counter-boarding operations, an unidentified frigate and a light cruiser had dropped down together to give her another savaging.

Bhadra had barely escaped with severe damage and atmosphere bleeding from a dozen wounds. The powerful battlecruiser, one of the deadliest ships in space, had been soundly defeated by two light combatants and a Q-ship. Life support, inertial compensation, and the engines were barely holding together, to say nothing of the weapons or shields.

In Tyler’s mind, the only highlight of the entire ordeal was that none of the boarders had made it to the bridge to threaten the prince. The captain had made a risky decision and dropped down from h-space shortly after they fled into it. With her vital systems in such poor shape, it was doubtful they could survive another translation, let alone another fight if there were more scum out there.

Tyler wasn’t afraid of death. He knew that it was a strong possibility from the day he began his training, the Empirial family did not live quiet existences after all. What he feared was failing in his duty. And while he was nearly as well trained as a Commando, there was very little he could actually do to safeguard Gregory in this situation.

“Listen up!” The captain called out from his chair in the center of the bridge. “Engineering has managed some repairs to the deep-link; so we’ll send for help and repair what we can while staying quiet and silent. And then we watch the rest of the fleet hunt down some renegades with extreme prejudice. We keep calm and we keep our heads people. Lieutenant Gregory, I want you running the numbers on life support and an inventory of our offensive and defensive capabilities, I need to know exactly how long we can hold on. Lieutenant Gordes, you…”

Tyler tuned the captain out. There might be a light in the distance, but they still had at least several weeks before it could reach them. He slowly began considering a plan to keep Prince Gregory – Lieutenant Gregory while on ship – alive until relief arrived in the event there wasn’t enough life support capacity left on the ship.

It would be career suicide, but that was a situation all Guardsmen had been prepared for, and he would do whatever it took to preserve the life of his charge, every, single, time.

***

Kharlie’s screams where akin to those of a heartbroken animal. Lucas was beginning to seriously consider sedating her with some painkillers he had found in a medkit, but Elena was somehow able to calm her down. Then the poor woman fell straight into a deep sleep, where she twitched and jerked through whatever nightmares stalked her mind.

Lucas finished wrapping Elena’s calf with medtape and helped her back into her suit. Then he helped her over to the helm station and spent a few minutes showing her which readouts to keep an eye on and how to contact him over either the intercom or their shipsuit radios.

Then it was time to go back to work. He stepped out of the bridge, locking it behind him, and began to clear the rest of the ship. As he searched for pirates he might have missed the first time, he took photos of the fallen and their Claret Coins tattoos if he could easily find them.

The owner of the Carnivex was lying dead just outside the engineering room hatch, with a grievous wound to his belly. Lucas tentatively identified him as the leader because his blood-red coin was larger, slightly more ornate, and placed in a location that made it harder to hide. The breeching charge on the hatch had ripped open his torso and he bled out before he could even bring that ridiculous weapon into play.

The Labama was a well-maintained and tidy ship; at least it had been before all the explosives and gunplay Lucas had introduced to it. He began to suspect that the ship actually was a captured MAS freighter, as they were some of the Claret Coins’ favorite targets. One of the benefits of joining the Merchant Association was their piracy insurance; the Association offered its members insurance for both cargo stolen and crew ransomed by pirates, it was one of the reasons many freighter captains were willing to let them have so much of the gross profit.

But for the Coins to turn right around and risk a sure payday was out of character. As their name suggested, they were focused on profit, and were generally the most ‘polite’ and ‘predictable’ of the pirate clans, if such terms could be applied to pirates as a whole.

Thinking of the cargo jogged a memory in Lucas’ mind, so he made another circuit of the ship this time sealing all the external hatches with his wand in case there were actually boarders in the cargo pods who wanted to risk assaulting the ship while it was in h-space.

The final task before returning to the bridge was to stop by the mess hall. First he pushed all the bodies and debris to one side before cleaning himself off and grabbing enough food and drink for three. Then he placed it all on a little trolley he had found tucked into a closet and pushed it back to the bridge.

***

For the first half hour, Elena found it hard to tear her eyes away from the displays that Lucas had told her to watch. But eventually she realized that nothing was changing and boredom set in. Kharlie was still sleeping and the Night Errand had pulled ahead and out of scanner range around the time Lucas had left.

She was anxious for him, even though she knew that she couldn’t offer any support with his current task. And the anxiety and boredom made her feel restless, impatient; so she decided to start learning right away.

A quick search of the lockers at the back wall of the bridge revealed a handcomp, so she set about studying. She decided to start with guns, since that seemed to be a large part of Lucas’ skillset.

She read about the difference between chemical and energy weapons, how to hold a handgun or longgun, and how to aim. Then the constant warnings to treat every weapon as if it was loaded and to be paranoid about the muzzle began to wear at her, so she took a break to check over the displays once more.

Nothing had changed and she was tempted to call Lucas, but she worried that she would be distracting him from something important. Instead she rose to her feet and crossed to where Kharlie lay curled up underneath her communications station.

Her mind was still unbalanced, so Elena sat on the floor next to her and offered her what comfort she could while gently stroking her hair. After a few minutes, Kharlie began to stir and come around.

At first she stiffened in fear, but Elena kept mentally pushing feelings of comfort towards the frightened woman. “Shhh, it’s going to be okay. You’re safe on the Makres Labama and Lucas is busy making sure there aren’t any more pirates hiding onboard.”

“But my crewmates, we left them behind! The Coins loaded them all into the lifepod and launched them. And aren’t you a bunch of pirates too? Something stupid-sounding like Brotherhood of Blood?” Her voice, initially filled with worry, quickly transitioned to a shrill panic.

Elena just kept petting her hair and sending calm comfort. “Lucas and I aren’t pirates, but we suspected the beacon was fake and we pretended to be pirates to create confusion.”

“If you aren’t pirates, then what are you?” Kharlie had calmed down some, but she still sounded suspicious. And with good reason, just because they weren’t pirates didn’t mean they weren’t slavers or something equally heinous.

“We,” Lucas said as he wheeled a cart with covered platters on it onto the bridge, “hold a letter of marque.”

“What’s that?” Elena asked.

“A letter of marque is a royal license that permits the holder, as long as they are the captain of a ship, to be significantly armed and act in the Empire’s best interests.” He said as he passed out the plates. Elena lifted the cover on hers and found a hearty sandwich, which she promptly dug into.

“They’re supposed to be really really rare. I don’t think the current Emperor has ever given one out.” Kharlie actually sounded excited, but Elena watched her enthusiasm dim somewhat when she regarded the food.

There was a look of pity in Lucas’ eyes and Elena felt a sense of disappointment from him as he answered, “No, I don’t think he has had the pleasure.”

“How do you ‘act in the Empire’s best interests’?” Elena was curious, it seemed awfully vague. She had always heard the Empire was full of bureaucracy, protocols, and rules.

“Well, the interpretation varies and it doesn’t help that every letter of marque is worded slightly differently. In my case, I can respond to events both domestic and foreign, but not instigate them.”

“So if you come across a group of Adustan raiders you can fight them? But you can’t go into their space and retaliate?” Kharlie was getting really excited, and Elena didn’t really understand why.

Lucas gave an embarrassed shrug before replying, “That’s right, I hold the trust of the monarch and am free to act as I see fit in some situations. Of course, if I do something embarrassing to the crown…”

“But you just fly around fighting pirates all the time, why would the Emperor find that embarrassing?”

He shook his head as he finished the last mouthful of his sandwich, which Elena noted wasn’t any bigger than hers. “No, most of the time I’m a trader. Sometimes I hear rumors of pirate activity that I pass on to the proper authorities, and only very rarely do I have occasion to meet them in space. Shipboard fights are extremely risky affairs.”

He was playing it very modestly, but from what Elena had seen she was sure he did more of the fighting and just traded on the side. However, she was his apprentice and even though she didn’t sense anything dangerous from Kharlie, she decided keep quiet.

“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,” Lucas said as he extended his hand, “I’m Lucas Nite, captain of the unaffiliated freighter Night Errand.”

Kharlie then graciously proffered her hand to him, “Kharlin Angel,” she said as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“So Kharlin, tell me, how did they capture the Makres Labama?”

Her excited and bubbly attitude fled. Elena was fascinated by the chaotic and quick-changing nature of her emotions and she began to send her encouragement and reassurance.

Kharlie visibly relaxed and began to recount her tale.

The MAS Makres Labama had been on the outward leg of her regular loop, she normally went on a months long run with a dozen stops along the way. Unlike light freighters that were always scrambling to snatch what amounted to crumbs, medium and heavy freighters could load up with a broad selection of crucial commodities like medicines, heavy machinery, or finished electronics and make their way out into the lesser developed counties. Then they would trade their cargoes for rare ores or minerals, especially erbium and rhenium, for transport back to more built up areas.

Almost a week out of Tau Boötis, the captain of the Labama had stopped to investigate a distress beacon, as the law required, and found a pirate frigate waiting for them. He attempted to run, but they were run down in short order.

The frigate dropped off a few dozen pirates and left, leaving the crew of the Labama to anxiously await whatever came next. Normally pirates would move captured ships to their bases as quickly as possible, both to avoid possible recapture and to expedite the profit cycle; it wasn’t the capture of a ship that made them money after all.

After a few days – during which two of the freighter crew had suffered nervous breakdowns – they had been surprised to see their own SOS beacon on the scanners. Well, Kharlie had been confused to see it. One of the pirates had taken a liking to her and convinced the one in charge to keep her on the bridge because she was pretty and hopefully disarming.

And then Lucas and Elena had come along and smashed the pirates trap before stealing their score right out from under them.

Lucas had moved to the pilot’s seat during Kharlie’s story and sat with his chin resting in one hand as he listened intently.

“So, uh, that’s what happened. After you moved to dock, h-he dragged me to…”

“I’ve heard enough now,” he said as he leaned back and brought his hand down to his lap. “Just know that I removed that…” he paused for a moment to choose the right word, “vermin from the gene pool personally. He won’t bother anyone ever again.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“But, we have ourselves a problem here ladies.” And Elena felt his mind go blank, just like it had before he had single-handedly slaughtered an entire ship full of armed pirates.

She turned to see that both pistols had magically appeared in his hands. And they were pointed at her and Kharlie.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I intend to get to the bottom of it.”

***

Something had been niggling in the back of Lucas’ mind ever since Kharlin had introduced herself. Picking up Elena had been out of character for him; she had somehow just pushed all the right buttons. Since coming on his ship he had noticed that she had consistently been able to read him as if she had known him for years, even to the point of picking out his favorite rifle. That was something he could put down to her being gifted with an excess of women’s intuition, if not for the extraordinarily slim chances of running across the trap with the Labama.

No freighter captain in his right mind would choose to head towards a burgrave in turmoil like New Pittsburgh; and that turmoil had showed no signs of ending, which is why the Order had sent Lucas to deal with it. The odds of the Night Errand running across their beacon when they had been flying a different route were hideously low.

Lucas would have chosen to engage the pirates singlehanded – he preferred to be frank about his own capabilities – but there would have been some risk. Taking Elena along had complicated things, and she would have had the perfect moment to stab him in the back, literally using the knife he gave her, while he was dealing with the pirates that had bottled them up in Engineering.

While the Order was well-known in certain circles, the full extent of its reach and ability was an extremely closely held secret. There were only a handful operators of his caliber in the Order, losing even a single one could derail their plans for decades.

Even though he believed the Order had no real enemies, and had never been given any briefings with even a whisper of that sort of threat, he could never be too careful in his line of work.

And that was why he had wondered how Elena had learned Kharlin’s name, and the inconsistency between the two young ladies answers had triggered his paranoia. Kharlin was also a bad actress – her emotions swung too quickly – especially the way she had immediately calmed herself before beginning her story.

Both Elena and Kharlin had had the good sense to remain very still when he had produced his pistols, and he intended to make the most of their current docility.

“Both of you sit down on the deck. Legs crossed, hands resting on your heads.”

He relaxed the pistols once they did, but they stayed in his hands, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. The hurt in Elena’s eyes almost made him look away for a moment, almost.

“Now, Kharlin, let’s start with your real name.”

Her bright blue eyes were shimmering with unshed tears, but she shook her head defiantly. “I told you, my name is Kharlin Angel! I’m the communications officer for the Makres Labama,” she insisted.

“Then why did Elena tell me your name is Kharlie? And how are the two of you so comfortable together?”

That surprised her, he watched her eyes widen slightly in reaction to his words. But she decided to double down on the lie.

“Well it isn’t true, I’m Kharlin, not Kharlie, and I’ve never seen Elena before in my life.”

“Let’s see what the ship’s registry has to say, shall we?” he said, before swapping one of the pistols for his wand.

He navigated his way through various menus until he came to the registry; which was password protected, behind a firewall, and thoroughly encrypted. The Coins hadn’t bothered trying to crack it; there was no benefit in it for them.

“You can’t read the registry without either the captain or the executive officer’s key. There’s no way your…” Her voice trailed off as the wand unlocked and stripped away all the encryption in less than twenty seconds.

“How did you do that?” Kharlin asked in an incredulous voice. Lucas ignored her as he was busy rifling through the ship’s files. After a few moments, he found what he was looking for.

“Kharlin Angel, joined the crew of the Makres Labama eight weeks ago, captain’s log states that you were working as communications officer to pay your way out to ‘anywhere outside of Centauri county.” He stopped and gave her an intimidating look before continuing. “She specifically states that you looked like you were running from trouble, and that if the normal communications officer hadn’t been arrested on a smuggling charge, they never would have taken you.”

Kharlin was the most likely to break, Elena was too mentally tough for the same pressure to work on her, so Lucas was focusing his efforts on her for the moment.

“Now that’s not too suspicious by itself, people run away from their problems all the time. But, something about this entire situation makes the back of my neck itch. A hijacking like this, that’s out of character for the Claret Coins. Then a girl traveling under an assumed name and another who coincidentally happens to know her real name.”

He paused to threateningly tap a pistol against his knee before continuing. “Now, Kharlin Kharlie, whatever your name really is. You are going to give me answers.”

That was too much for the recently traumatized Kharlin and she promptly burst into panicked tears. Lucas didn’t feel especially good applying mental pressure to someone who had recently been traumatized – if had even been real – but he didn’t feel especially bad either. If there actually was some sort of plot aimed at him or the Order, he would do whatever it took to derail it.

“That’s enough.” Elena stood up and placed a hand protectively on Kharlin’s shoulder. That was a slight wrinkle, Lucas hadn’t counted on Elena stepping forward to deflect his pressure, but he had forgotten to take the information about her sister into account.

“I’ll tell you everything, and then, you will apologize to both of us.” She stated it so firmly that Lucas felt a flicker of doubt at his reading of the situation.

She let out a deep breath and sat back down.

“I told you I grew up in the Wastes. What I left out is that I’m not exactly human. There was a Chet’ir scientist, Inq’ul. He had a bunch of us in a compound and was running experiments on us, on humans. He created Augurs some time ago, and he also created… me.”

“And what exactly are you?” Lucas wasn’t pleased to be drawn into her conversational rhythm, but she had assumed the lead in this dance. For now.

“He… he named me a Succubus.” Her voice was hesitant, as if giving up a great secret.

“And? What is a Succubus supposed to be?” Kharlin had been keeping quiet, but now she chimed in.

“Well, I’m an empath combined with a shapeshifter. The perfect seductress he said.” She replied, with more than a little abashment.

“Let’s say you actually are. How, exactly, can you change shape or whatever it is empaths do.” Lucas said in an effort to regain some control.

“I don’t consciously control the shapechanging; it’s gradual, takes a few months, and I don’t have any spare mass right now anyways. An empath reads moods, feelings, vibes, that sort of thing. I can’t read minds, but I know how people feel in the moment. And I can sort of project feelings to other people if I’m touching them, which is how I was able to help Kharlie fall asleep earlier.”

That seemed absurd. Lucas wasn’t kept in the loop for all of the Order’s scientific endeavors, but he knew they had been exploring transhumanism for a quite some time with very little success. The idea that some alien scientist – even if the Chet’ir were regarded as the best in the known galaxy – had been able to enhance humans to such a preposterous degree went against the grain.

“Even if all of that is true, how does it explain anything?”

“That’s how I knew Kharlie’s real name,” Elena said with an apologetic smile towards the young blonde. “When I was putting clothes on her I just sort of picked it up from her mind.”

“But you just said you couldn’t read minds!” Kharlin exclaimed. And Lucas noticed that she didn’t bother protesting about her name.

“My abilities aren’t clearly defined or well understood; Inq’ul decided that I was a failure, so he sold me as a pleasure slave. I really can’t read thoughts, but picking up something as simple as a person’s name when I’m touching them is easy enough.”

Lucas had heard enough. He was fairly certain she was telling the truth – or at least the truth as she understood it – but she wasn’t actually answering any of his real concerns.

He decided to take the conversational reigns back and noticed Elena glance at him; it seemed there might be something to her abilities after all. Or she had just noticed that he took a breath to start speaking.

“It’s nice and all that you can do that, but that wasn’t the sort of answer I’m looking for. I still think you and Kharlin, sorry, Kharlie over there are somehow working together to pull something over on me. That this entire thing is some sort of elaborate setup.

“Why don’t we have Kharlie over there tell her story next and we’ll see how everything lines up.” He gave a slight gesture with the pistol once more, nothing overtly threatening, just reminding her who held the power at the moment. It was little touches like that which separated amateurs from professionals.

Kharlie looked like she was suffering from stage fright. But after nearly a minute of his patient stare, she slowly began.

“My real name is Kharlie Engels,” she said as if that was somehow an explanation in and of itself.

After waiting for a few moments, she seemed to realize she would need to elaborate.

“You may have heard of my father, Landgraf Alexander Engels zu Centauri.”

Lucas nodded in confirmation. But Elena had no understanding of Empirial nobility.

“Landgraf is some sort of royal right?” she said.

Lucas nodded his head and answered for Kharlie, after all he wanted to keep control of the conversation. “H, M, L, B, F, or Hug My Little Best Friend. That’s the mnemonic for the nobility. Herzog, Markgraf, Landgraf, Burggraf, Freiherr. A landgraf or landgräfin would be a noble of middle rank, controlling a county of a few different stars.” He turned his attention back to Kharlie and said, “And why is the daughter of a powerful landgraf running away from home? Did you fail to inherit? It looks like you’re about the right age.”

Kharlie snorted before answering. “Please, I could pass the qualification tests drunk.” She paused for a moment to idly twirl a strand of her blond hair around a finger. “My heart just wasn’t in it. I was tired of pretending to be some upstanding example, of trying to live up to the ideal that my father expected.

“Engels is one of the oldest noble lines, you know. We may not be the most powerful, but our family has ruled Centauri since the founding of the Empire. Our family creed is Grundgestein, bedrock, and my father is oh so proud of it,” she smiled bitterly, “but it just wasn’t the life for me.” She had a faraway look in her eyes, imagining…something.

“So you ran away.” Lucas prompted.

“I ran away. I wanted to find a life of adventure out among the stars, instead I found…” She stopped as her hand clenched and tears welled up in her blue eyes.

Elena immediately placed a comforting hand on her arm and began gently stroking it. Lucas noted how she seemed to be able to vary her approach; the way she could apparently feel people gave her a huge advantage when it came to social interactions and conversations.

And he wasn’t immune to the Kharlie’s story either, because it was a familiar one. Although it was almost unheard of for royal heirs to fail to meet the requirements for inheritance, it was much more common among the nobility. There were plenty of noble children throughout the Empire’s history who had chosen to lead lives out of the public eye or distanced from their families entirely.

He must be growing softer as he grew older, or maybe operating alone for these past years had changed him somehow, because he was feeling sympathy towards both of the young women. Taking an effort to drive those feelings from his mind, he turned his mind back towards a potential threat to the Order.

Elena wasn’t bothering to hide her ability in the slightest now, and he saw that she was wearing the same challenging stare from when she had convinced him to take her on as his apprentice. She had obviously felt his mood shift and knew that he had come to a decision.

“Okay, to sum up, Elena is some sort of alien-enhanced transhuman and Kharlie is the runaway daughter of one of the most successful noble families. And there’s just the three of us sitting in a ship full of dead pirates. I’m not entirely convinced by either of your stories, so I’ll turn you over to some friends of mine when we reach Tau Boötis and they’ll figure everything out.”

He paused as he saw the looks of consternation on both girls’ faces. “Don’t worry, they aren’t going to torture you or anything like that, they just have access to a lot more intelligence than I do. And they’ll be waiting for us when we drop down from hyperspace.”

“How exactly are they going to be waiting for us?” Damn, Kharlie’s natural ebullience combined with Elena’s ministrations were making her emotions jump all over the place, were making it frustrating to predict how she would respond.

“When I sent the Night Errand on ahead, she sent a very specific emergency signal to my associates there. They’ll have received it and be waiting for us with a Navy ship or two by the time we make it.”

“Wait wait wait, that freighter has a deep-link? What kind of freighter can afford to buy one of those, let alone keep it running?”

Lucas gave her a wry smile. “Letter of marque remember? My ship is more than meets the eye; oftentimes I find myself needing to send information either off the networks or with as little delay as possible.”

“These friends of yours, are they part of that Order you mentioned?” Elena asked, and he could see from the glitter in her eyes that she knew he had been trying to skate around that particular topic.

He saw Kharlie perk up at that, probably brimming with curiosity, so he decided to share a little bit. He had found that giving out a little bit of information was usually better than trying to hide everything.

“Kharlie, you’ve probably heard of the Order of Knights?”

“Sure, those weird patriots with their not-so-secret club dedicated to somehow doing what they think is best for the Empire, right?”

“Exactly, I’m one of them. And we really are patriots. Some of the more dedicated contribute money or materials to help the few operatives like me; others might do something as simple as invest in risky new technology or not dump stocks of a good company that stumbled into trouble.”

“You’re telling me the Order of Knights – the group of conspiracy-spouting weirdo’s that everyone makes fun of – is actually organized and well-funded enough to bankroll more than one operative with a deep-linked ship that can take on dozens of pirates at once?”

“I am. The Order’s founders realized at the start that they couldn’t attempt to hide what they were doing, but they were able to build a mutually beneficial relationship with Empirial Intelligence. We let the crazies claiming to belong and spouting off about secret handshakes or cloak and dagger deals talk all they want as it provides us with a useful cover. Legitimate members of the Order are known to those who need to know, and everyone else just dismisses us from their thoughts.”

That wasn’t the whole truth, not by a long shot, but it contained enough of it to satisfy curiosity, and that was his intention anyways. Even if Kharlie tried to go to her father or the newsies with some secret revelation about the Order, either no one would believe her, or the Order would use its influence to change the narrative.

“Now, seeing as I don’t exactly trust either of you, Elena if you would be so kind as to return that knife?” He gave her a gracious nod when she gently tossed it as his feet. “Thank you, now, I’m going to lockout all the bridge functions except the internal coms, just to be on the safe side.” And then he made an obvious show of producing his wand and tapping it to each bridge station before changing a few parameters. As he’d expected, Kharlie was distracted from thinking about the order by the frankly astounding hacking power of his wand, but he could see by the look in Elena’s eyes that she knew what he was doing.

If he was going to keep Elena around as an apprentice – a very large unknown at the moment – then he would have to rethink almost everything he knew about teaching, leading, and even conversation. On one hand, she could be an enormous asset to the Order, or just to his operations personally, but on the other hand she, and the existence of people like her, would require a great deal of thought on the level of risk letting her into their ranks entailed.

***

The days went by and Lucas began missing his ship. The Makres Labama was a fine ship, for a medium freighter. She was comfortable, fairly flexible, and quite low-maintenance; all great qualities for a well-heeled merchant. But she definitely lacked in speed, had ridiculously underpowered shields, and only a pair of point defense cannons, one mounted dorsally and the other ventral.

He, Elena, and Kharlie still ate meals together, usually on the bridge, because despite dumping a few buckets of cleaning chemicals on the bodies scattered around the ship, it was starting to stink. However no one wanted to put forth the effort to attempt to clean or document then clean the bodies on a ship that they were almost all certainly leaving in the next day.

Lucas passed the time sitting on the bridge and idly building out a medium freighter to the same sorts of specifications as the Night Errand. If he purchased one of the smaller ones, he could outfit it to be nearly as fast as his ship, with the addition of slightly stronger shields, a reinforced hull, and maybe even a few actual weapons.

The wall he kept running into was crewing it. A larger ship meant larger engines, powerplants, environmental systems and so on, which would mean he would need at least one crew member dedicated to maintenance. In the end it wasn’t a good proposition for him at the moment.

Everyone was on the bridge when ship dropped down from h-space. Lucas had input the same destination into both the Errand’s and Labama’s navcomps and was unsurprised to see his ship waiting a short distance away. What he was surprised to see was a pair of cruisers sporting a large bone-white death’s head on their prows and motifs of feathers running down the flanks waiting right alongside her.

“Are those…?” Kharlie asked from her position at the communication station.

“Yeah. Those are definitely the Winged Hussars.” Lucas said as the communication console lit up with an incoming message.