“Hey, Rog?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?” came the weary reply over the dented speaker grill built into the headrest of the captain’s chair.

  Carlos, an apprentice mate on the mining ship Rock Crusher, grimaced as a series of pops and hisses erupted right next to his ear. With a slight turn in his chair, he forcefully knocked the grill, adding another dent. One last squelch resonated across the empty bridge before the speaker fell silent.

  This fuckin’ rust bucket is gonna fall apart one day, spacing us all.

  The apprentice mate had been on board for six months, and the initial excitement of space had long worn off. His dreams of escaping the weary life planet-side on Voltaro had evaporated into a mind-numbing repetitiveness. The Rock Crusher, the only berth willing to take on an inexperienced kid, was on its last legs, and had been for some time. Rust, patches, and luck kept the old junker operating. It was the last berth for most of the crew, made up of drunks and failures.

  “Carlos? Whadda you want, kid?” The speaker spat out, the sound crackling, thankfully free of the hiss and pops.

  The apprentice mate turned back in the captain’s chair, his duty station for the night, the cracked synthetic leather tugging at his overalls. As the junior crew member, he had the night shift on the bridge, monitoring the automated systems that ran the ship. No other ship would give such an important duty to an inexperienced crew member, but the Rock Crusher was the dregs of ships toiling away a living in the system. Anyone with more seniority wanted some semblance of sleep, and the captain didn’t care. He was deep into his cups this late at night and left the crew to their own devices.

  The assignment sucked, but Carlos put up with it for two reasons; one, no one cared about his opinion, and two, he was hoping it could pad out his non-existent resume and he could get a better berth in the future. The night shift was also relaxing, unlike every other job on the mining vessel. The only downside was that after being on the bridge all night, he still needed to spend a few hours helping the day shift crew. It was all hands on-deck, getting the old ship set up for the day’s mining operations. After that, he planned to crawl into his bunk and get a solid eight hours until his next shift.

  “Sorry,” Carlos said, taking a long look at the screen in front of him. He took a rag from his hip pocket and tried cleaning the screen again, wishing everything on board wasn’t in disrepair.

  “Sorry,” Carlos repeated. “I was hoping you could do a diagnostic run on the sensors. My screens report a large metallic mass on the asteroid we just passed. But I checked, and it’s flagged as mined out.”

  “Yeah, hold on. It’s not like I’m doin’ anythin’ else down here!” Rog grumbled.

  The chief mechanic of the Rock Crusher was the only other person on the crew awake. The chief preferred nights to do his work, as the quiet solitude matched his demeanor. An obese man, his stained overalls barely containing his bulk, he was a master of his craft. The scuttlebutt on the ship was that Rog was from the original Rock Crusher crew when it had first left the docks at Airia. He stayed aboard the ship over the years, through a half dozen different owners. Only Rog knew how all the disparate systems cobbled together, having done most of the cobbling himself.

  A few moments passed, and Carlos continued to scan the screens in front of him, pulling up various scans as he tried to verify what the main sensor suite had told him. He stumbled through the menus, as his training was being told to watch the screens, and if an alert popped up, to inform the captain.

  “Sensors are fine,” the speaker hissed out, an electronic squelch causing the communication to be almost inaudible.

  “Ok. What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t care, kid. I’ve got work to do here. If you’re so worked up about the scans, bother someone else.”

  “Come on, Rog. Help me out here, would ya?”

  Carlos waited for a reply, but the abused speaker remained silent. When he first came on board, the crew warned him about the cranky mechanic. He was from Airia, a Smith, their people not known for having a gentle demeanor. Carlos doubted the Smith part. Rog was short, sure, but he was the largest man the young apprentice had ever seen. The corpulent visage did not mesh with the images he had seen of the Smiths at all. The few interactions he had with the chief mechanic confirmed the crew’s warnings, and he did his best to stay out of the older mans way.

  Hell, can’t believe he bothered to speak to me at all.

  The junior crew member sat in the middle of the darkened bridge, staring at his screens for a long moment. Carlos knew he was supposed to wake the captain if there were any issues, but he didn’t want to risk getting yelled at again, not after the disastrous episode when the pipes he had been working on backed up into the captain’s head.

  He took a swig from the beaten flask he kept hidden in his overalls. The night shift was monotonous, and the ship’s cook brewed a decent concoction of gut rot that helped pass the time.

  After placing the flask on the chair’s armrest, the apprentice mate ran a diagnostic on the sensors.

  All green.

  Again.

  It was the same results as the first four scans. There was a large metallic mass of unknown composition on the asteroid they had just passed, which the ship’s records flagged as being mined out years earlier.

  Carlos took another long swig, his head swimming slightly as the one-hundred-twenty-proof jet fuel hit his system.

  Fuck it.

  Carlos punched in a few commands, directing the mining vessel to backtrack and perform a close flyby with a full sensor sweep of the asteroid. The whole procedure would take less than an hour, the ship’s automated systems doing all the work.

  Carlos sat back, closing his eyes as the moonshine dulled his senses, a smile creeping onto his face. He’d be a hero. The Rock Crusher hadn’t found this rich of a haul in years.

  Hopefully, this’ll get me off Cap’s shit list.

  Carlos woke groggily to someone roughly shaking him by the shoulders. There was a moment of confusion; klaxons and lights were going off across the bridge. Before the cloud of sleep could lift from his head, the apprentice mate found himself unceremoniously thrown out of the captain’s chair. The floor came rushing into the young man’s blurry view, along with the base of the sensor station in front of where he’d just been sitting.

  Darkness reached for him, confusion still dominating his thoughts. The captain’s rough voice was the last thing he heard as he descended into oblivion.

  “What the hell did you do, kid?”

  __________

  Captain Dan Booker was at his desk. A chipped glass, half filled with cheap whiskey, its cloying, sickly filling the small cabin, sat forgotten in front of him. Dan stared at the glowing screen of his terminal, his mind drifting on a churning ocean of memories. His ownership of the Rock Crusher had become a soul-crushing routine. Being the captain of a decrepit mining vessel was not how he had imagined spending the last years of his life.

  Dan was a Navy man. He had risen through the ranks to become the senior pilot at the Rift. There, he ‘protected’ Solvonus from incursions through the Barrier. The sporadic action he saw, defined by the otherwise vast oceans of boredom, gave fate all the time it needed to fuel a vice long held in check. His superiors had ignored his whiskey-fueled insubordination for only so long.

  The terminal beeped, an alert popping up in a small window in the top right corner of the screen. The notification sat blinking, waiting for the captain to notice. A part of Dan’s brain registered the alert, but since it wasn’t screaming at him, he knew it wasn’t urgent. Preoccupied, his mind drifted in the past, trying to figure out how it had gone wrong for him. It was the same way he spent most evenings on the Rock Crusher.

  He picked up the glass on his desk, throwing back the burning liquid and refilling it from the bottle in the desk drawer. The responsible part of his brain, the same one that noticed the alert, told him not to have another drink. Still, Dan had become a master at quieting that particular voice. He filled the glass half full, placing the now empty bottle on the desk.

  Pondering his misfortune as he stared into the glass, Dan flinched when the terminal emitted a more urgent tone. The alcohol-induced fog lifted just enough for the old pilot to pay attention. He looked at the screen and saw that someone had set the Rock Crusher on an alternative course close to an asteroid.

  What the fuck?

  No one was supposed to change course, especially without his consent. The Rock Crusher worked the Navorian belt on the fringes of the system, trying to eke out a living with the small deposits ignored by the big mining corporations. He set the course for this run weeks in advance, optimizing it for fuel consumption and profit. Now someone was screwing with it, with his ship.

  He stood, needing a second to find his legs.

  How much did I drink tonight?

  He leaned against his desk, waiting for his equilibrium to sort itself out. Once the spinning room became manageable, he started for the hatch, but not before lifting the glass and draining its contents. Dan placed the glass on the desk or tried to, but his aim was off. The glass hit the lip of the desk before falling to the floor; the impact adding a new chip. He didn’t see the dropped glass as all hell broke loose; warning klaxons and lights started going off all around the ship.

  Instincts, long drilled into him, took over. His brain cleared, the pilot emerging and taking over. Dan turned and left his room, the hatch barely opening before he made his way through it. His berth was a few quick strides away from the bridge, and it took only seconds to make the trip.

  He emerged onto the Rock Crusher’s bridge; it was dark except for the warning lights and the klaxons sounding their urgent alarm.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Where the fuck is that goddamn kid? What the holy hell is happening?

  Dan stepped around his chair and found the apprentice mate he had taken on during their last layover. He lay slumped over, passed out in a stupor. The former pilot took a minute to assess the situation, looking at the surrounding screens. Even with the adrenaline clearing the alcohol from his mind, it was hard to comprehend what he saw.

  It can’t be.

  That’s a fucking Interloper ship.

  The ship on the screen was turning, having come around the asteroid the Rock Crusher was heading towards.

  “Kid, wake up!”

  Dan grabbed at the young man in the captain’s chair. A flask dropped to the floor, spilling its meager contents onto the deck. The captain looked at the flask and then returned his gaze to the passed-out crewman. Not known for his patience, especially if he’d been drinking, Dan grabbed the boy’s overalls, pulling him out of his seat, and threw him to the floor.

  “What the hell did you do, kid?”

  The apprentice mate could no longer speak. His body lay limp where he fell, his head having careened off the base of the sensor station.

  _________

  “What is it, Presha?”

  Usora, the captain of the Da’a’shori Corsair ship Forsetti, motioned for the computer to bring the lights up in her room. She sat up on the edge of her bed, running a hand through her hair. It felt like she had just gone to sleep.

  “Sorry to wake you, Uso, but the mining ship we’ve been monitoring is swinging around and is heading in this direction.” The first mate’s voice sounding hollow as it came through the bulkhead speaker.

  “Any sign that they’ve detected us?” the captain asked, pulling on her jumpsuit.

  She could smell the caf that the room’s computer was already brewing in the small alcove tucked into a corner of her small berth. There were some perks that came with being the captain of a Corsair.

  “Nothing overt, but our contact’s mining reports reveal that the asteroid we’re on is mined out and has been for a long time. There’s no reason for them to be turning around.”

  Usora mulled it over and took a sip of the steaming caf. Dark and bitter, just the way she liked it. She knew Presha, her first mate, knew that her captain already knew this information. Still, the Corsair captain appreciated the young woman’s thoroughness.

  “Wake the crew, Presha, on the double. Let’s not take any chances. Our contact isn’t ready for us yet, and our orders are to stay hidden.”

  “I gave the order before calling you, Uso. I wanted to be ready.”

  “Good initiative. I’ll be on the bridge in a minute.”

  Usora heard the comm click off. Presha was not one to waste words, especially when there was work. She looked herself over in the mirror built into the berth’s one free wall, adjusting her jumpsuit and tucking a lock of black hair behind her left ear. A captain needed to be presentable. Before she left, she poured a second cup of caf for her first mate and, balancing it on the lid of her own cup, motioned for the door to open.

  She stepped into a short hall leading to the bridge. Opposite her berth was the Forsetti’s conference room, which doubled as the captain’s ready room when she was on shift. Usora turned to the right and took a few quick steps towards the hatch at the end of the hall, which hissed open as she approached.

  The captain stepped onto the bridge, the quiet professionalism of her crew making her smile. Corsair crews were small by nature. At present, the Forsetti had twenty crew members on board. They needed a second engineer, but this mission was time critical, and she hadn’t had time to interview the candidates properly. Corsair crews were the tip of the Galactic Exploratory Force. They went in and scouted new systems before the main fleet arrived. If needed, they were experts in creating chaos and confusion, allowing the fleet to subjugate a system with little effort.

  They were family; the assignment to a Corsair crew was a lifetime appointment. She and Presha had discussed the problem at length and had decided it was better to go on the mission, one crew member short, than with someone they didn’t know.

  As she approached her chair, she received nods of acknowledgment from her crew, but they didn’t stop working on their tasks. Presha stood when she saw the captain enter the bridge, stepping to the side to allow her to take command. Usora sat in her chair, nodding her thanks as she handed the other woman the second cup of caf.

  “What do we have?”

  “They’re definitely on their way here,” Presha said, as she deeply inhaled the nutty aroma of the drink. “I had Invendi go over the scans of the asteroid again. The mass should’ve been enough to shield us from their sensors. However, the asteroid’s rotation was input incorrectly. Instead of being safely on the far side of the asteroid, our stern was momentarily visible to their sensors. They must run a tight ship to have caught our bounce back at this time of solar night.”

  Usora raised an eyebrow at the news, looking at Presha, the question clear on her face.

  “I’ve noted the error in the logs and placed a reprimand on file,” Presha said. “It won’t happen again.”

  Usora stared at her first mate for a few seconds, deciding if she needed to be involved in this foul-up.

  Presha raised the cup of caf to her lips, taking a small sip, and shook her head slightly to the captain, knowing what she was thinking.

  If Presha has it under control, I guess I’ll let it be.

  “How long until the mining vessel is within range of our guns, Yamiri?” the captain asked, turning her chair to address the weapons tech.

  “Another two minutes, Usora,” the weapons officer said.

  “Too long. Iressa, battle launch on my mark. We can’t risk them getting any word out.”

  “Ready,” the pilot said a few seconds later.

  The captain nodded to Presha, who stepped quickly to her station, engaging her restraints as soon as she sat down.

  Usora toggled a switch on her armrest, waiting briefly for the comm to chime throughout the ship.

  “Forsetti, we’ve been discovered, and our orders are clear. Strap in for battle maneuvers.” Usora said, toggling the comm off.

  “Yamiri, I want to strafe them at full speed. Destroy them, down to the atom. Presha, monitor the comms and make sure they don’t get a signal out. Iressa, I want to hit them head-on from slightly above as we approach, then pass on the starboard side so Yamiri can bring the cannons to bear, hitting them broadside. After destroying the vessel, I want to vacate the vicinity in a hurry. We’ll go to the secondary location. Nyanna, plot the best course, away from any other activity, and feed it to Iressa.”

  Before Usora finished her orders, the crew began responding to them, a flurry of affirmatives sounding from around the bridge. She placed her cup in its secure holder, making sure the lid was tight, and hit a button on her armrest, engaging the restraints built into the chair frame.

  She quickly looked around; everyone was working on their assigned tasks, their restraints in place.

  “Launch!”

  __________

  Captain Dan Booker sat heavily in his worn command chair on the bridge of the Rock Crusher, the flashing lights and klaxons his only company. His hands twitched, the old pilot subconsciously wanting to be in the cockpit of his HellFire fighter. He heard the new generation of fighters, StarFires, were miles ahead, but he had loved his old HellFire.

  What a fucking way to die.

  The onetime ace knew his rundown mining ship had zero chance against an Interloper vessel. Dan had spent most of his career training to face this enemy. When he unfathomably met them face to face one last time, he was over-matched in every conceivable way.

  What a goddamn fucking way to die.

  He sat there, the alcohol in his system dulling his senses, for which Dan was grateful. He’d done what he could, and now he could only await fate as it raced towards him. As soon as he had thrown the kid, Carlos, from his command chair, he had fired off the emergency drone, its automated systems coming online immediately. It would stay in proximity of the ship, recording its demise and staying on station. The drone would send out alerts in timed intervals until someone came to investigate, if someone even came. His instincts, born from years of training, told him he had to let someone, anyone, know about the enemy.

  Dan looked down at the kid lying still on the deck in front of his feet. He could see Carlos’ chest move with shallow breathing, but he was out cold, a combination of whatever gut rot he’d been drinking and hitting his head.

  Lucky kid. No need for him to suffer what’s coming.

  Dan saw the flask lying in a puddle of its contents at his feet. The captain reached down and picked up the flask, shaking it to see if anything remained inside. The contents swashed back and forth. Dan took a whiff of the flask, his nose burning from the fumes.

  A smile crept onto his face. The kid had been drinking the cook’s moonshine - a fitting way to go out. With a tip of the flask to the screen in front of him, the one showing the Interloper ship coming into range of the Rock Crusher, Dan brought it to his lips and took a long sip. The fire spread through his body as multiple explosions rocked the Crusher, the enemy guns finding their target. The armored hull of the mining craft would offer some protection, its thick plates the primary source of fortification from asteroid strikes.

  Not that they’ll last too long. But maybe just long enough...?

  Dan sat up in his captain’s chair as the smile on his face turned into a sneer. The Crusher had moments at best, but his sense of duty burned brightly in the last moments of life. Dan typed a quick series of commands into his terminal and sat back in his chair. He could hear the crew trying to contact him on the comms, no doubt scared and wondering what the hell was going on. The captain didn’t have it in him to tell them; they would all be dead soon enough. Instead, Captain Dan Booker, onetime ace for the Imperial Navy, all-around failure and alcoholic, drained the rest of the flask, his laugh filling the small bridge in one last act of defiance.

  ___________

  “Usora! The vessel’s turning into us. The heat plume I’m reading shows they’re redlining their engines!” confusion etching the tech’s voice.

  “What in the name of the Faceless one does he think he’s doing?” Presha asked.

  Usora watched her screens, toggling between information windows, trying to get a clear picture of what the other captain must be thinking. The battle launch she had just ordered rocketed the Forsetti on a direct path that would take them within a hundred meters of the other ship. She intended to fire with everything she had the whole time, blasting the ship to atoms in mere seconds before making a hasty escape. Instead, the mining vessel’s thick armored plates had withstood the initial long range barrages of the Forsetti’s guns while turning into her path and spooling up their engines. Usora studied the screens for a moment, the computer showing her the increasing speed at which the two ships were closing with each other.

  “Iressa, evade, evade, evade!”

  Usora knew it was already too late. The battle launch had brought her ship to its top speed in seconds, and they had already closed to an uncomfortably close range with the Rock Crusher. The two speeding ships having closed the gap between them in mere seconds.

  There was a yell from the helm, guttural and instinctual, as Iressa tried to throw the Forsetti out of the path of the incoming mining ship.

  The maneuver threw Usora hard against her restraints. The last thing she heard was the terrifying sound of metal renting and the explosive venting atmosphere before the blackness reached up to pull her into its embrace.

  ___________

  A tiny, mil-spec S.O.S. drone floated amongst the debris. It had captured the short firefight and the demise of the Rock Crusher, along with its last heroic act of turning to ram the enemy vessel. The drone was one of the few things the captain had spent good money on. The ship's operations often took them deep into the Navorian belt, and he wanted to have a reliable safety line, should it be required.

  As a military model, it had extra features not found on most commercial drones. It was smaller with a minimal cross-picture. It bristled with extra sensors and a complete communication suite. Complimenting the drone’s capabilities was a long range micro-fusion engine.

  The drone started recording as soon as it launched. At first, the broken Rock Crusher had atmosphere and bodies spilling from its wounds. The ship went dark as its electrics died, its lights sputtering as if gasping for one last breath. The other vessel had attempted to evade at the last moment, and its shields took the brunt of the impact. As the shields failed, the entire port side of the craft crashed into the Rock Crusher. A tear had opened in the enemy craft. Equipment and debris evacuating into space with the escaping atmosphere.

  The drone drew closer. It recorded the enemy vessel as emergency shields deployed along the gash in its hull. A handful of the crew had performed an EVA, attempting emergency repairs. Within an hour of the Rock Crusher’s death, the drone sat alone, watching as the enemy ship limped its way out of the area.

  The default programming would have instructed the drone to stay on station, having the S.O.S. beacon pinging on regularly timed intervals on all channels. However, it had received overriding orders. The drone scanned the area, confirming no life signs among the debris. That job finished, it moved onto the next task in a series of checklists.

  The drone’s micro-navigation computer ran its calculations. It launched the tiny craft on a route opposite the one the enemy vessel had taken. The plot took the tiny drone out of the Belt. The drone’s micro-fusion engine raced it towards Morales Station. As it did, the communication suite scanned for the ship it was told to approach. In his last minutes, Captain Dan Booker knew his duty. The drone was on a mission to find his old commander. Carter Bowman was the only man that Dan would trust with this information.

  An Interloper ship deep in the Solvonus system meant two things. Neither of them good.