Andi worked her hands over the controls, as much to find a focus for her nervous energy as to actually accomplish anything. The scanner data was still coming in, and the image on the screen was becoming sharper, clearer.

  It was a ship not too unlike Nightrunner, and the possibility that a crew just like theirs had been there recently—and the residual radiation levels indicated it hadn’t been all that long—cast a pall over the bridge. Andi looked back at Lorillard, and he simply returned her gaze, wordlessly.

  The image in front of her was becoming crisper and clearer, and now she could see a recreation of the ship’s hull. And a series of holes all along its center.

  She had hoped that whatever disaster had befallen the vessel, it was a mechanical problem, a systemic malfunction of some sort. But now there was no doubt.

  The ship had been attacked.

  “Activate subroutine sixty-three, Andi.” Lorillard’s voice was deep, serious in a grim way she’d never heard before. Andi reached down to her keyboard, her hands typing in the numbers the captain had given her. Her screen lit up, and as her eyes focused, she knew immediately what subroutine sixty-three was.

  Nightrunner’s weapons system.

  The small ship had two laser turrets, nothing by the standards of naval warships perhaps but, from what little she knew of such things, pretty hard-hitting compared to most of the weapons carried by freighters and other prospecting craft.

  “Activating weapons systems, Captain.” The discovery of the dead ship hardly made it certain that Nightrunner would be attacked…but she found herself entirely in agreement with the captain’s caution.

  “Barret…get up here right now.” Lorillard was hunched over the comm. As far as Andi knew, Nightrunner had never gotten into a serious ship versus ship battle, but Barret had served a term in the navy, the only member of the crew with that sometimes questionable honor.

  And as Andi thought about it, the one time she’d heard him talk about him time in the service, he’d mentioned being a gunner, or a gunner’s mate, or something.

  Something that made him the likeliest candidate to man Nightrunner’s weapons.

  A few seconds later, the door slid open and Barret walked through, grabbing the handholds on the wall to steady himself in the one-tenth normal gravity. “What’s up, Cap?”

  “We may have some trouble, Barret. There’s a ship out there, another prospector’s vessel from the looks of it, and somebody shot the hell out of her. She looks dead.” Lorillard’s words seemed to bring down a wave of cold across the bridge. “Get set up at the third station. We’re charging up the guns…just in case.”

  “Got it, Cap.” Barret’s tone was far more serious than it had been. He turned and moved toward the third chair on Nightrunner’s small bridge. Andi had never seen all three stations occupied before, but then she’d never seen the ship as close to going into battle as it seemed just then.

  “Andi, I want those young eyes of yours on the scanners. You see any kind of energy reading out there, I don’t care if it’s some guy lighting a cigar, you shout it out right away. Understand?”

  The seriousness of Lorillard’s tone slammed into Andi’s gut like a fist. She’d been in fights before, even deadly ones…on the ground. But this was something new, and she suddenly felt very out of her element. She could watch the scanners well enough, but she felt the closest damned thing to useless if it came to a fight. And, Andi Lafarge wasn’t the type who liked to sit and wait while others decided her fate.

  “I’m on the scanners, Cap. Nothing new yet. The trace readings around the contact are almost certainly residual radioactive decay. AI calls it a 98.6% chance.”

  “Just keep your eyes focused.” A pause, then Lorillard again, speaking to Barret this time. “How are we doing on charging the lasers?”

  “Thirty-five seconds, Cap. The things haven’t been fired in a while, and I had to run a quick check on the system before I could feed in the full power flow.”

  Andi had no real idea exactly what was happening, but it made enough sense to her. Firing the lasers and burning them out, or worse, seemed like a really bad idea.

  She leaned forward, bringing her eyes closer to the screen. She was looking all around, searching for any signs of activity. The station itself read as nothing but pure mass. She knew that had more to do with the resistance of the imperial hull materials to scanners than it did to any certainty that the entire station was non-functional. For all she knew, there were batteries on that monster—ones far larger than those Nightrunner carried—even then tracking their approach, waiting for some old, but still functioning AI to give a command to fire.

  “Everybody…get strapped in back there. Just in case we have some trouble.” Lorillard hadn’t filled the rest of the crew in, most likely because he didn’t really know anything. But even what they’d heard, coupled with the call to Barret to come to the bridge, had to have everyone on edge.

  Andi was feeling the pressure. She forced herself to remain still, rigid, focused like a laser on the job Lorillard had given her. But still, her mind wandered. She was no timid child, no frightened orphan slipping nervously around in the Gut, trying to avoid trouble. She was an experience prospector, and a fighter with training from a Confederation Marine and the blood of her enemies on her hands. But now she was sitting in a tin can, a hundred lightyears or more from Dannith, waiting to see if some ancient defensive grid was going to incinerate her along with the entire ship.

  She took a deep breath, and then she exhaled, repeating the exercise with controlled breaths. It was something the Marine had taught her, a way to help center herself before battle. She’d always used it before when facing danger on the ground, but she imagined it would work just as well in space.

  “Both turrets are charged, Captain, and ready to fire.”

  Andi sat quietly, focused on the scanner, but glancing quickly toward the captain every ten or twenty seconds. He looked calm, though she suspected that was an acting job, one for her benefit, and for the other members of the crew.

  She had thought many times about fighting, survival, endurance, but always in the context of individual action. She was a loyal friend and shipmate, but her mind had always directed her own actions. Now, for the first time, she really thought about leadership. Watching Lorillard hold back his fear, broadcast an aura of confidence she knew he couldn’t really feel, she began to understand what it took to lead people, to generate real loyalty from a group of followers. To be what they needed, even as they moved forward into danger.

  That is leadership…

  Suddenly, she saw something. A small flash on the screen.

  “New contact, coordinates 230.157.302!” She was instantly angry with herself for the shrillness of her voice, for the panic and worry she’d allowed into her tone. “Energy spike, Captain…there was nothing there a second ago.” She was confused, and she had no idea what to do.

  But Lorillard was already snapping out an order. “Barret, open fire. Blast that thing now!”

  Andi grabbed onto the armrests of her chair, an instinctive move. The adrenalin was coursing through her veins, and she could feel sweat pooling all over her body. She was about to experience something new.

  Nightrunner was going into battle.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Free Trader Nightrunner

  Osiron System

  Year 301 AC

  Andi sat in her chair and watched, feeling like she was going to crawl out of her skin for the very reason that all she could do was watch. Barret had control of the ship from his station, to allow him to adjust the vessel’s aspect, to bring the lasers to bear. The target she’d spotted was clear now on the screen, and even more so its purpose and intent. The energy blast she’d just picked up had seemed strange to her at first, like nothing she’d ever seen before. But the AI gave her the answer before she figured it out.

  It had been a laser pulse. The scanner contact had fired at Nightrunner.

  The shot had been a miss, though it had come pretty close. She wondered if it had been poor targeting, but then it all fell into place. Barret had altered the ship’s vector slightly, and he’d done it at just the right time to pull Nightrunner away from the shot’s trajectory. It hadn’t been deliberate evasion. No, it was that other tactical factor, the one Andi already knew was sometimes paramount above every discipline of war.

  Luck.

  It was a dangerous ally to rely upon, however, and one looking even less promising as a second contact appeared on her screen, just like the first.

  They were satellites of some sort, she realized, or at least floating weapons systems positioned around the station. But were they imperial tech? Or just something positioned there by a crew that beat them there?

  That answer, too, was obvious on more thought. Laser buoys or satellites were hardly beyond the available tech in the Confederation—though something like the devices they were facing would be tough for any civilians to procure—but the devices had just appeared, as if from nowhere. Something had blocked Nightrunner’s scanners from picking up the contacts…and whatever was doing that, it was beyond any Confed science she knew about.

  The lasers were part of the floating platform’s defensive network, almost certainly, and they had destroyed the orbiting hulk. She was sure of it, all the details falling into place.

  She felt a cold feeling go down her spine. She’d faced some old imperial defenses before, but nothing anywhere near the guns threatening Nightrunner. She watched, shouted out a warning about the second contact, and otherwise sat frozen, with no idea at all what she could do.

  The bridge lights dimmed slightly, and she heard a high-pitched whine. Barret had fired Nightrunner’s lasers. She felt her stomach clench, fighting back the wretch that tried to expel what remained of her last meal. She watched the scanner, feeling her heart sink when there was no immediate sign of a hit.

  But Andi was still getting used to the distances in space travel and combat, and perhaps half a second after she’d hoped to see something, the first contact vanished from the screen. For an instant, she was afraid it had slipped back into whatever stealth mode had hidden it before, but then she saw the energy readings, the radiation.

  Barret had scored a hit. He had destroyed it.

  “Andi, bring us about 009.211.291.” Lorillard’s voice, and the urgency of his command, almost reached inside her and grabbed her by the spine. She turned in an instant, and even before she had conscious thought of obeying, her hands were moving over the controls, entering the navigational instructions.

  “Thrust up to fifty percent.”

  Again, she followed the order instantly, without thought of the intent or even the wisdom of the command.

  “Nav plan seven, Andi…engage the AI.” Again, she was impressed with the constancy in Lorillard’s voice. It was odd. The captain had seemed edgy before, concerned. But now that they were fighting for their lives, he was like a block of cold steel.

  Leadership again, she knew. She took note, just in case she got out of the current mess and had use for the data someday.

  She entered the codes and hit the button to engage the nav AI. Nightrunner’s computer took over immediately, and the ship began jerking wildly, as the positioning jets moved all around, small blasts of normal thrust pushing the ship every which way.

  She saw another flash on the screen. The second satellite had fired. The shot came close, closer even than the first, but it too, had missed. That, Andi realized, was entirely the result of the evasive maneuvers. There wasn’t a question in her mind they’d all be dead otherwise, or at least struggling to patch the damage from a hit and restore hull integrity.

  Barret fired again, a clean miss this time. Andi knew the general theory of evasive maneuvers, and that the AI should be adjusting the gunnery solutions to offset the changes from the wild and seemingly random moves.

  She also knew it was a far from perfect system.

  Nightrunner jerked hard again…and then the ship spun around wildly.

  Andi felt herself thrown against her harness, so hard she thought she might have cracked a rib. Then the ship went end over end, making three complete revolutions before the AI regained control and righted the vessel.

  Andi was confused, unsure what had happened. Then, she heard Lorillard.

  “Damage control, Yarra. How bad?”

  Nightrunner had been hit.

  She felt a shiver, and a wave of almost uncontrollable fear that lasted perhaps two seconds. Then her intellect pushed its way back to the forefront of her mind.

  We’re alive…

  Whatever she’d imagined might happen if the ship took a hit, in reality, this time at least, it hadn’t been the worst. She knew that by the simple expedient that she was still there, strapped in, drawing breath.

  The quality of the air told her that life support was still functioning, at least on some level. There was a slight tinge to the air, a minor burning sensation with each breath, but nothing that seemed critical.

  The continued jerking motions told her the AI and the engines were still there, too, though she realized the frequency and intensity of the maneuvers seemed somewhat lower than they had been.

  Engines still functional, but damaged…

  She turned her head abruptly, eyes focusing on Barret. He was still at the controls, still clearly trying to line up a shot.

  But would the lasers fire? Were they, too, damaged?

  She didn’t know…and she had an unsettling feeling that Barret didn’t either. Lorillard was still on the comm with Yarra, but he’d pulled his headset on, and she couldn’t hear what the engineer was saying.

  Leadership again. He doesn’t know what she’s going to tell him, but he damned well knows we’re all scared…

  She turned back toward Barret. He was almost ready to fire, the still-operational meter on the display showing five seconds to a full charge.

  That meant next to nothing, she realized. It could be displaying incorrect data, or the recharge system could be fine, but the turrets or the lens could be damaged. The lasers could fire perfectly, but even an infinitesimal irregularity on the mounting, from the shock of the hit or a hundred other causes, would throw off even a perfect shot.

  At a distance of over ten thousand kilometers, the slightest fraction of a degree in misalignment was enough to send an otherwise perfect shot far wide of its target.

  She sat, silent, and she realized she was holding her breath. She stared across the tiny bridge, doing nothing as a bead of sweat pushed its way from her scalp and slid down her face.

  Then, the lights dimmed. A quick glance at the screen confirmed the weapons had fired. And an instant later, the contact disappeared from the screen.

  It took a long instant, maybe three or four seconds, for her to realize just what had happened. Barret had taken out the second enemy laser buoy.

  She felt hope, and as she stared at the screen, seeing nothing new appearing, she took a deep breath and let the relief flood over her.

  We’re…no, not safe…not safe at all…but maybe out of imminent danger. She stared at the main station on the screen, the hulking, circular structure, made up of three concentric rings, and she began to see dread. Suddenly, she understood what they had come to do, the staggering reality of it all pushing her to her limits.

  She looked at the hulking monstrosity they’d come to find, and now she saw something that hadn’t seen there before, something sinister. She’d been nervous about the mission from the outset, and she knew the captain had been, too.

  Now, she knew why.

  Now, she had an idea of what real imperial defenses looked like. And the idea of somehow docking with that thing, going inside. It seemed impossible. Or, at least, it seemed foolhardy, almost like the specter of certain death.

  That didn’t matter, though, she was sure of that. It was what they had come find, come to do.

  Andi Lafarge had never backed down from a threat…and she wasn’t about to start now.

  * * *

  “I almost had to put the ship in hock to afford it, but I knew that adjustable docking ring would come in handy one day.” Lorillard stood in Nightrunner’s narrow central corridor as Yarra and Gregor pulled on the large metal bars protruding from the airlock. The chunks of reinforced steel were resisting their efforts with considerable stubbornness. That much was obvious from the fact that Gregor was sweating so profusely, his shirt plastered to his back.

  The loud grunts had also been a pretty unmistakable sign.

  If Nightrunner’s resident giant was having a hard time jamming the thing into place, that said something. Andi had seen Gregor carry two giant chests, close to a hundred kilos each, one on each shoulder, and give a good belly laugh at a joke while doing it.

  It wasn’t clear if the docking ring was the problem, or just the fact that the ancient imperial airlock was too different from anything in the Confederation. Andi was just about to give up on them ever getting it in place, when Gregor stumbled backwards, almost falling to the deck, and the thing slid suddenly into place with a loud clang.

  The giant sucked in a deep breath, one that sounded like it must have consumed half the breathable air on Nightrunner, and he stared at Lorillard. “Next time you buy something like this secondhand, Cap, make sure its not rusted and half twisted out of shape.”

  “There’s nothing in the Confederation that would be an easy match for that dock. Imperial military, I’m guessing, this whole place.” The corridor was silent for a few seconds. Imperial tech was one thing, daunting enough. But military hardware and facilities were another thing entirely.

  A much riskier thing for all involved.

  Lorillard flashed a crooked smile and tried to draw attention from thoughts of what might lay inside. “Besides, that’s what we’ve got you for, Gregor.” Lorillard’s smile widened, and Andi could hear a wave of snickers move along the assembled crew. “You don’t want to work your way into complete obsolescence, do you, big guy? If we didn’t need some muscle once in a while, I’m wagering we could find someone cheaper to feed.”