A blue light blinked on his wristpad, alerting him to an incoming call on the secure line.

Bregg hurried into his office and closed the door behind him before pressing two fingers against his temple. Juden’s face appeared on his retina.

“Well?” he asked.

The dark-skinned man shook his head.

“We’re not the only ones after them, it would seem.”

“What?”

“We tracked them down to Evenodds and saw that Kaine fellow getting escorted out of the mall—”

“The woman wasn’t with him?”

“No, though I fail to see how this is relevant?”

The colonel grunted.

“Go on.”

“We intervened, of course. But by the time we had neutralized the competition, Kaine was running off like his pants were on fire.”

Bregg grunted again. “He didn’t thank you for saving his ass?”

“I know, right? Ungrateful bastard. So we ran after him, but a glider came to his rescue...”

“The woman?”

“That would be my guess.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Did you chase after them?”

Juden rubbed his neck, a frown on his face.

“All the gliders here are controlled by the mentors. They all have bots in them... or, at the very least, pre-programmed AIs. We couldn’t get any to follow our instructions—when they understood what we were saying at all. It’s maddening.”

“Are you still there?”

“No. We just left. Trying to trace them as we speak, but they got a head start on us.”

Bregg nodded. “Alright. Keep me posted.”

He cut off the communication before the other man said another word.

His hands set flat on the desk, he stared at the wall.

Someone else was after the ship?

What did that mean?

He wouldn’t allow anyone to take it from him!

With a frown, he stood and hurried back to the bridge.

“Lieutenant! Do we have a recording of the debris we found earlier?”

Ferris turned to look at him, a puzzled expression on his face.

“You mean from that ship Starrider destroyed?” The colonel gave a curt nod. “Everything we see gets recorded, so I’m sure we do. Did you want to look at it again?”

“On the main screen, please.”

Bregg turned to look in its direction, though for now it displayed the space before them. The image blurred and a new feed appeared. He squinted.

“Is there any way you could identify the ship that was destroyed?” he asked, his eyes still on the footage.

“We’d need some bigger debris, colonel, and—”

“Who’s to say there aren’t any?” He glanced at the lieutenant and noticed he was frowning. “Have you studied all of the debris?”

“We didn’t look too closely,” admitted the younger officer.

“Then please do so now. I need to know who those people were and who sent them.”

The frown on Ferris’ face increased, but he nodded and turned toward his console.

Bregg swore to himself.

He was not helping his own case.

Juden was right. He should leave all this to him, for appearance’s sake. But part of him felt like it was too late. He’d already gone too far to pretend as if none of it had happened. Who would he fool? Not Ferris, for sure. His friend had seen Juden. As had so many others on his crew.

Likely they were already whispering behind his back. Making things up to try and make sense of it all.

He frowned and walked back to his office.

“Let me know when you have something,” he said over his shoulder before closing the door.

He sat at his desk and tapped on his TriVid screen.

Evenodds, eh?

Very well, then.

There were a few strings he could pull.