***

Captain Shepard sat calmly in her command chair. The drift was right where Folyn said it would be. She kept the ship to the outer edge of the drift, nearest the side that faced FRS territory. No need to alarm anyone if they happen to be observing. She wanted her vessel to appear routine; unhurried.

"Deploy the strike team," Shepherd ordered.

"At once, Captain. "

The large vessel slowly moved deeper into the drift. Shepard wanted Riordan's attention on her and not the small stealth attack shuttle. With any luck before he realized what was happening it would be too late.

***

“Alright, we gotta go!” Riordan said. He hurriedly began shutting down the makeshift console. “The FRS cruiser has entered the Drift. We’re still in their sensor shadow for now, but not for much longer.”

“Wait, what? A few minutes ago we were safe!” Sarah protested.

“Things change,” Glori said as she stuffed her few personal belongings into her small pack.

“I was really hoping to have a few more days to figure shize out, but this is a huge red flare. No FRS vessel has entered the Drift since I’ve been coming here. It’s free space, they don’t have jurisdiction, they don’t care. I can only think of one reason, in light of recent events, why they would be here conducting intensive sensor sweeps.” He hoped Jayson would've held out longer, but no one can hold out forever.

“Why wouldn’t they? This is a smuggler’s hideout, I’m sure they know that even if it's not common knowledge.” Sarah said, following Glori’s lead.

The light banks over the casino floor blinked off one by one as Riordan concluded the shutdown procedures.

“The last time anyone used the Drift for anything other than a junk yard was over fifty years ago. We only found it by chasing down some rare parts for the Swindler and finding the location as a notation to an old file. It’s too far away, and fuel costs are too high. The border of FRS space used to be much further away making it ideal for hiding out." He swung his pack over a shoulder and stuffed a few items into his pockets. "Now, it's pretty much just used to dump wrecks and derelicts to avoid paying disposal fees.” Riordan said, pulling open the ornate plasteel double doors of the casino. “They can just report a vessel stolen, collect a small insurance payout, and forget about it.”

The trio paused at the doors as Riordan consulted the tablet in his hand.

Sarah, again, tried to ignore the lewd carvings, wondering at the depravity of humanity as a whole.

“They’re being thorough and moving slow. We’re still in the Odyssey's shadow. If they maintain their current pace we may have just enough time to get away clean.” Riordan explained the plan as they made their way toward the hanger deck where the Swindler awaited. Restart the dormant APUs and bring them to full power. Bring the other essential systems online while the battery bank tops off. Once the Navcomp is online, exit the hanger using only thrusters to avoid leaving an ion trail and hide amongst the derelicts until an FTL solution is found.

“Hey,” Sarah interrupted. “Shouldn’t we turn off environmentals so they don’t know we were here?” They were passing by the console with the glued in key.

“They’re searching the Drift, they know someone is here. Hopefully, they’ll waste a lot of time searching this wreck. We’ll be using that time to escape.”

“That’s pretty clever,” Glori said.

“Jaisen wrote our contingency protocols. He was the genius, I was just the muscle,” Riordan replied with a sad smile. remembering what a great team they made.

They passed into the hanger bay and entered the Swindler through the rear airlock. As they entered the command deck Riordan barked orders moving swiftly around the small space flipping switches and turning dials. “Just reverse the order of the shutdown procedures… Get the Navcomp spun up… Make sure life support is nominal… Bring sensors online, passive only….”

They hustled to complete their tasks quickly. Sarah and Glori were hampered by their lack of familiarity and experience. Riordan ran a quick diagnostic on the repaired thruster assembly. A proper calibration would have to wait, but overall functionality had been restored. Once the sensor console was booted he transferred the control of the myriad of passive sensors hidden in the Drift to the Swindler. The FRS cruiser was drawing ever closer.

“Sarah, get down to the engine room and get the APUs spun up. We need the main reactor ready for restart, ASAP!”

“I haven’t finished with the…” Sarah replied.

“It’s OK, I got it. Go,” Glori said, bumping her lightly with her hip to move her out of the way. “Life support is… green… amber? Green? It’s good enough!”

Sarah overheard Riordan asking about fuel mixture ratios as she descended the ladder from the command deck to the catwalk that surrounded the perimeter of the cargo hold. She took the sinistral side catwalk which required her to cut to the left. She jogged down to the proper hatch near the far end of the catwalk and pressed the actuator stud.

The hatch released with a hiss and crept open with a groan before stopping half way. With an exasperated grunt she pulled it open enough for her to enter the chamber. Sarah entered commands into the console on the active APU to bring it from standby to full power. She listened as the whine rose swiftly past the threshold of her hearing and watched as the indicator slowly rose toward 100%. Satisfied the APU was powering up Sarah flipped the suitcase sized breakers on the far wall which allowed power to flow to the other APUs, the fusion reactor’s containment coils, and ignition lasers. Restarting a dormant fusion reactor, especially an antiquated one, required a tremendous amount of power.

Originally designed as a military vessel, the Passive Swindler’s model was originally designed with one APU and a battery bank. Restarting the fusion reactor from an inactive state required an outside power source such as a station or a tender ship. Consequently, during active military service the reactor was rarely shut down. The ship’s current configuration provided just enough power to restart the reactor, independently. That being said, the setup was less than ideal compared to modern operations. With all three APUs and the fully charged battery bank they had two, maybe three ignition sequences before they had to wait for the battery bank to recharge. If they were using the Ion engines to say, escape or avoid attack, it would take longer.

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Maybe if the APUs weren’t years overdue for maintenance and ran at full efficiency or if the laser ignition assemblies were replaced with more efficient particle beams… Sarah always loved science and learning how things worked, something she and Keve shared, but this was like a functional museum. Even the back water stations her father, Tarold, and her lived on over the years weren’t this archaic and outdated. When the first APU reached 100% output she started the other two APUs and set them to full output. She checked the status of the Bose-Einstein condensate coolant generator and the flow-rate to the reactor. Anything else could be done from the command deck. The thought of starting the reactor so close to a threat made the skin between her shoulder blades crawl like a target was painted there. A fully operational fusion reactor would shine like a beacon on the FRS Cruiser’s sensors. If some of the other wrecks still had functional reactors, she would have felt better.

Sarah pushed the hatch closed as much as she could and pressed the actuator. She heard the over-used motor groan and struggle behind her as she hurried along the catwalk toward the ladder that led to the command deck. Sarah clambered up the ladder hearing Riordan’s raised voice.

“...out of time! It’s automated. The Navcomp will get you there. I’m going to buy you the time to jump to FTL and meet up with you later.”

“But Sarah and I barely know how to fly this thing without your constant help, much less land it somewhere!” Glori protested.

Sarah froze in shock upon entering the command deck. Riordan stood there wearing a set of glossy black Shok Trooper armor. A huge plasma rifle was attached to a point on his back, grenades lined the left side of waist and a large plasma pistol hung on his right. The helmet with the smooth expressionless face plate hung from his left hand as he gestured with his right.

“What the frek is going on?” Sarah asked, palms suddenly slick with sweat. Memories of dozens of propaganda vids of black clad elite warriors brutally quelling upstarts, riots, and protests screamed through her head. 'To Preserve the Union, the cancer of rebellion must be excised in totality before it can spread.'

Glori looked up from her console, her face wrought with fear and worry. Riordan looked angry, and maybe eager. The console nearest Riordan beeped alarmingly, breaking the silence. Riordan glanced down at the readouts and scowled. “Remember how we planned to use the sensor shadow of the Odyssey to sneak away? Well, someone else had the same idea. The cruiser launched a boarding shuttle before we detected it. The shuttle stuck closely to the axis of the cruiser using its signature to mask its own until the last minute.”

“The cruiser was a distraction? We've been boarded?” Sarah exclaimed, realization dawning. If they had hunkered down and waited like they were originally going to do, they would have been easy pickings for a well trained boarding party. They still might be.

Riordan tapped a few controls and entered a command.

A nearby screen flickered to life showing a scene from an internal security camera somewhere in the bowels of the odyssey. The view showed a dozen armored ShokTroops moving in a tactical formation down a corridor. Their armor was obviously a few generations newer than the suit Riordan wore. “They must have entered through a missing section. Their suits are obviously EVA capable, like this one. Jaisen and I only restored life support to a very small section of the ship, for a reason. They’re moving fast and will be on us in minutes if…”

“If you don’t slow them down to buy us time to escape.” Sarah finished for him, monotone.

“Exactly. Don’t try to stop me, it’s the only way. That cruiser has the Swindler outmatched in every way.” Riordan stated, steeling himself for resistance.

“Understood. What do we need to do?” She asked flatly. Riordan explained the new plan, quick and dirty.

“And how do you escape?” Sarah asked, crossing her arms defiantly. “We aren’t leaving you here.”

“You remember all those ships out there?” He said, gesturing widely.

“Yeah, mostly in pieces.”

“Well, the Swindler isn’t the only flight worthy vessel I own, just the best. I have a small craft hidden in a forward maintenance hangar that will get me to my other ship and I’ll meet you at your destination. I promise. Once you guys Jump away, I’ll follow.”

“Hold on,” Sarah held up a hand in protest. “Why don’t we just fire up the reactor and haul ass?”

“We’re in uncharted space. Our destination is even deeper. It’s going to take the navcomp about fifteen minutes to calculate a jump because it has to build its own chart instead of relying on publicly available charts that are constantly updated by every other ship in the quadrant that jumps to hyperspace.”

"Frek," she growled.

Riordan donned the helmet which sealed in place with a small hiss and the click of latches. “Comms check, check, check.” Riordan’s voice emitted from the tinny speaker built into the helmet.

Glori tapped the comms console to her right, “Comms locked in, full encryption confirmed.”

“I don’t like this,” Sarah protested.

“I don’t either,” he replied, his face-plate blank and emotionless. He looked over to Glori. “If something happens… there is an old man on Prime. Go to the fountain outside the capital court house. Toss in a 10 credit chit at noon local time. He’ll have something for you, for Sarah.”

Glori nods, throat tight. Riordan stopped in the exit way of the command deck.

“Don’t break my ship.”

“Don’t die,” Sarah replied.

Sarah sat in her biological father's captain’s chair, her hands wrapped loosely around the controls. Her feet rested lightly on the two outer pedals.

“Hanger lights and grav off, outer door opened. I’m going to disable the hatch once I’m through.” Riordan said over the encrypted comlink.

“Roger,” Glori replied.

Sarah’s eyes scanned the various screens and panels arrayed before her. She flexed her hands.

Sensing Sarah’s nerves, Glori said, “You concentrate on flying this heap, I’ll do the rest, OK?”

“Yup. I mean, Roger,” Sarah replied, pulling back slightly on the control yoke. The ship rose silently on barely visible jets of compressed gas flowing from thrust nozzles. Sarah failed to compensate for the ascent of the Swindler with counter thrusters and the vessel banged gently into the ceiling. Sarah flinched. Riordan’s voice crackled over the comms.

“What the frek was that? I felt it through my boots!”

“The wash from the thrusters must have knocked something over, the damn hanger is filled with junk.” Glori replied, sparing Sarah some embarrassment.

Sarah nodded appreciatively to Glori. “Exiting the hanger. 2% reverse thrust,” Sarah said, switching her feet to the inner pair of pedals and applying minimal pressure. She fumbled a little with the controls. Glori reached across Sarah’s console and killed the exterior navigation lights. The small view screen showing the forward view cut to infrared. Nothing but darkness was visible through the main forward view-port.

“We are clear of the hanger,” Sarah said. Glori echoed her words to Riordan as Sarah awkwardly oriented the Swindler to face the long rows of derelict spacecraft.

“Get clear and try to hide amongst the garbage till the navcomp provides a Jump solution. Then start the reactor and get the hell out of here.” Riordan replied.

“Roger, it shouldn't be too hard to blend in,” Glori replied.

Sarah applied maximum forward thrusters. If it wasn’t for the instrumentation readouts she wouldn’t know they were moving at all.