Slowly but steadily the white speck that was Aeolus Station grew in the cockpit windows of the Honshu. Tarsik had been right in his assumption, despite absolutely no need for her to be at her post Emily Faust had sat in that pilot’s seat nearly the entire twenty four hours they’d traveled through the Crux. She’d napped a bit in one of the chairs at the back of the cockpit while letting Junior Pilot Sam Herschel get in a few minutes of seat-time. As the station grew larger and larger through the transparent titanium panes another shape began to emerge.

“Um…” the captain asked, his mouth full of ham sandwich. “Faust, what the hell is that?”

“Right on it captain.” the fair-haired girl in her mid-twenties announced as she began rapping keys on her chair with her right hand. Emily had been the ship’s pilot since the age of eighteen. She was the best pilot that Captain Tarsik had ever seen. She was about average height and of an athletic build. Her pretty blue eyes and pale complected face was framed by little dirty blonde curls that had escaped her attempt at a ponytail. Being the only female onboard, and a fairly attractive one at that, meant that she was usually the first thing new crewmen noticed but the permanent crew were very protective of her. They acted like big brothers and quickly made it known that Faust was off limits for pursuit.

“Pulling her IFF sir.” she paused while the data spewed out onto a nearby screen, “IPHS Prometheus, commission date of February 7 2674. Holy shit, she’s brand new.”

“She’s fragging huge!” Junior Pilot Herschel piped up.

“There’s no mistaking that. Specs?” the captain asked.

“Looks like...450 meters and weighing in at over two million tons sir.” The surprise was apparent in the young pilot’s voice. That put her over twice the length and mass of the Honshu despite obviously being designed to fulfill the same role, a multipurpose interstellar rocket.

The captain fixed his eyes on the beast as he finished the last bite of his lunch, “What kind of armament on that thing?”

Emily turned her head to look at the captain who was standing over her left shoulder and behind her chair situated at the center of the cockpit. “You sure?” She was asking if the captain really wanted her to scan the Prometheus. The IFF had cross-referenced information from the tele-net to get the ship’s basic specifications but weaponry was not part of that publicly available data for obvious reasons. Directly scanning the ship could be perceived as rude at best, or hostile at worst.

“Do it.” Tarsik didn’t care if the IPH jerks were offended, anything that could even remotely represent a threat to his ship he felt he was justified in gathering intelligence on.

“Looks like...wow, six proton cannons, all Mark IV, three torpedo tubes, fifteen point-defense laser turrets and 183cm armor. She’s certainly ready for a fight.”

The red light that indicated an incoming tele-wave lit up on the auxiliary control panel that Junior Pilot Herschel was sitting at. The captain took quick note of it.

“Vid-wave communication coming in from the station captain, shall I patch it through?”

Captain Tarsik nodded then turned to face the imaging screen that was located on the bulkhead just above the cockpit’s front window. They hadn’t received any vid-waves in over a month so static crackled as the screen came to life. Herschel fiddled with some controls to bring the picture into tune. Essa Von Braun!

“You know Captain that if you’d wanted to see my new toy you could have simply asked don’t you?”

It was true that Harridor Tarsik had more friends than enemies but Essa Von Braun solidly fell into the latter category. Some years back some of the crew of her aging R.S. Gepard, a dilapidated old hulk that could barely lift orbit and whose name ironically meant “cheetah”, had tried to poach one of his contracts by going behind his back and trying to outbid him on some native precious metals. She claimed to have known nothing about it but he’d discovered evidence to the contrary. When he had confronted her with it instead of backing down gracefully she’d had him and Ansul roughed up in a dark alleyway. Tarsik had lifted off and hidden the Honshu behind a moon then pounced whenever the Gepard tried to depart. After nearly pummeling that old hulk into a cloud of rusty particles they’d withdrawn and called the authorities and provided them with all of the information regarding Von Braun and her crew’s misdeeds. Last he’d heard her Service commission had been revoked and she’d had to retire that old rust-bucket of hers.

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“I can tell by the look on your face that you are extremely surprised to see me Captain.”

“That would be an understatement now wouldn’t it?” he muttered through a forced smile.

The woman’s disposition seemed cordial enough and neither Faust nor Herschel had been onboard when the previous run-in had occurred so both were oblivious to the tension they were now smack dab in the middle of.

“We were notified to expect you Captain so we’ve prepared docking platform seven for your arrival. Please instruct your pilot to reduce velocity and switch to maneuvering thrusters only once within twenty kilometers of the station.”

Just then the hatch opened and Ansul walked in. Upon seeing the face of Essa Von Braun on the screen he dropped one of the cups of coffee he had been carrying, no doubt the one he’d been nice enough to prepare for the captain. The captain gave him a pair of eyes that said, “Yes, that is who you think it is but keep your trap shut.”

“Hello Ansul.” came the voice from the screen. “It’s been a very long time hasn’t it?”

“Oh…yes ma’am.” he replied, managing to hold back most of his displeasure with a snarky smile.

“Well, I look forward to seeing my old rival and my favorite Martian once you’re aboard the station. Please do come aboard personally captain. We obviously have so much to catch up on.”

“Oh absolutely, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” the captain stated with all of the forced cordiality he could muster.

With that the vid-wave faded out and the screen shut itself off automatically.

“How in the blazing suns did Essa Von Braun end up commander of an Interplanetary Holdings station?” Ansul asked the obvious.

“An even better question is ‘What nasty surprise does she have waiting for us on that station?’” Tarsik pointed out as he turned back to his old friend, “I knew before she said it but if we’ve been invited onboard personally she’s got something up her sleeve that doesn’t bode well for us.”

“I don’t understand.” Faust looked at her commander with genuine curiosity.

The captain stood and motioned for Herschel to go grab a mop to clean up Ansul’s mess. He put his arm on the back of Faust’s chair and spoke, “To say that Essa Von Braun and I have a history is to put it lightly.”

The young pilot wrinkled her brow in thought, “You don’t mean…?”

Taken aback by the very thought Tarsik snapped, “Absolutely not! I wouldn’t lay hands on that hag if she was the last female creature in the cosmos!”

Faust giggled, she loved getting a rise out of the captain. He let her get away with it too because she was such a damned good pilot and such an endearing person.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate…”

“It’s okay. No my…” he turned to Ansul, “our business with Von Braun was nothing in the vicinity of pleasure. She let some of her crew poach one of our contracts and got violent when I confronted her about it. We blasted that rust bucket she called a ship back into the stone age and had her arrested. How she possibly could be in charge of a space station run by a security firm is completely beyond me.”

“So what do we do?” the first officer asked as he took a sip of his coffee which was still just a bit too hot. “There’s trouble waiting on that station for us, you know it.”

“Oh absolutely, but I’m not going to be bullied by Essa Von Braun. She might be in charge of that station but we’re a ship of the Service and the last time I checked law and order still prevailed. Still, I have no plans on going unprepared.”

“Captain, you might want to take a look at this.” Faust piped up.

“What is it pilot Faust?”

“Those docking platforms sir, open space, no atmosphere.”

That was strange. It had probably been more than a decade since any of them had seen a space station with open-vacuum docking platforms. That would mean helmets just to be able to leave the ship. A security measure perhaps? Open platforms where any raiders had to try to run in microgravity while wearing helmets would be much more defensible than a standard docking collar that gave easy access to a facility. Being stuck in the middle of the Crux wasn’t good enough, these IPH assholes had gone to every precaution it seemed.

“Well, bring her in and land on platform seven like the lady said.” Tarsik instructed Faust.

“Aye aye sir.”

He leaned in closer to Ansul and spoke, making sure that no one else could hear. “You, I and….” he thought for a moment, struggling to remember one of the auxiliary crewman’s names, “…Jones will go. I’m going to keep Faust on standby to lift at a moment’s notice and a contingent of armed men waiting in the loading bay should we need any cover fire on our return. I don’t expect it to come to that but you know that I like to be prepared.”

Ansul simply nodded, begrudgingly agreeing with his old friend and commanding officer.