Soren nodded, a flicker of pride sparking in his chest. "Good man. Get with Ethan and Lina, run the numbers. Wilf, you assist where you can. I want an answer asap."

  The two joined Lina at Ethan’s station to tackle the problem. Soren turned back to the viewscreen, his gaze drawn inexorably to the floating hulk of the Valkyrie.

  Time seemed to crawl as the Wraith drifted closer to the naval formation, Sang occasionally adjusting their course and speed to maintain their position. On the bridge, the tension was thick enough to break a knife.

  At last, Tashi straightened and turned toward Soren, a huge grin on his face. Ethan, Lina, and even Wilf looked pleased with their work. "Captain, we've got it. To hide a drone between us and the Valkyrie, we need to maintain a position between eighty and one hundred meters from the derelict, at an angle of no more than four degrees from the naval ships’ positions.”

  Soren winced. The last part might be harder than the calculation. “Bobby, can we take a position like that?”

  “Standby, Captain,” Bobby answered, using his terminal to calculate the positions of the flotilla’s ships compared to the Valkyrie and their own. “Aye, Captain. There’s a small lane we can slip into.”

  “Thank goodness Karlov loves a tight formation,” Jack commented.

  Soren exhaled slowly, a small measure of tension easing from his shoulders. “Bobby, set the course. Sang, follow the pattern. Nice and easy."

  He could see Sang’s shoulders tighten, her hands gripping the controls more firmly. Maneuvering so close to the wreckage inside of an invisible tunnel was no easy feat, requiring a delicate touch and nerves of steel.

  "I know you can do this, Sang," he said, injecting calm confidence into his voice. "There's no one I'd rather have at the helm. Just take it slow and steady."

  Sang nodded, a small, determined smile touching her lips. "Aye, Captain. Running the pattern.”

  As the Wraith crept forward, Soren keyed the comm again. "Bastian, prep a drone for launch. I want it ready to go the moment we're in position."

  "On it, Captain," the pilot replied, already moving from his place as Sang’s backup to the drone control station. He navigated quickly through the interface behind the joystick and throttle setup, selecting one of the drones and running through pre-flight checks with practiced ease.

  The bridge fell silent, every breath held as Sang guided the ship into place with exacting precision. Soren's eyes flicked between the viewscreen and the sensor display, watching for any sign that the naval ships had taken notice of their presence. From far out, Karlov might have asked questions before opening fire. At this range, and without shields, nothing could save them if Karlov spotted them and took them for the enemy.

  But the seconds ticked by without incident, the Recon vessels continuing their silent vigil over the planet and the floating tomb of the Valkyrie. They were as still as statues, their crews utterly oblivious to the phantom ship hovering just beyond their sight.

  "Holding steady at ninety meters," Sang reported, a note of relief in her voice.

  "Well done," Soren said, exhaling his built-up tension. "Bastian, launch the drone. Put the feed up on the secondary viewscreen.”

  "Aye, Captain. Drone away."

  On the viewscreen, a small shape dropped from a protrusion in the Wraith's hull that surrounded the hangar bay, allowing them to launch ships without disturbing the cloak. Thrusters flared slightly as Bastian guided it the short distance to the Valkyrie.

  The drone closed the distance quickly, its onboard cameras and sensors streaming data back to the secondary. As it neared the ruined ship, he brought it to a pause, taking a moment to survey the damage.

  "Looks like most of the hits were focused amidships," he reported, his voice tight with concentration. "Huge breaches in the hull, vented compartments. Did you say a Komodo did this? Because it sure looks like it.”

  “I didn’t say,” Soren replied. “You’ve always had a good eye. Proceed, Bastian. But be careful. There's no telling what you might find in there."

  With a deft touch on the controls, the pilot sent the drone darting forward, threading it through a gaping rent in the Valkyrie's armored hide. The viewscreen flickered, the picture dissolving into static for so long Soren feared something else had malfunctioned before the image resolved again, showing the cavernous interior of the assault ship's launch bay.

  "I'm in," Bastian said, a note of triumph in his voice. "Bringing exterior lights online, stand by."

  The drone's floodlights flared to life, banishing the gloom and revealing a scene of utter devastation. The launch bay was a shambles, debris floating in the zero-gravity, scorch marks marring the bulkheads. But amid the chaos, a curious sight caught Soren's eye.

  "Bastian, pan left," he ordered, leaning forward in his seat. "There, those berths along the wall. Are those...?"

  "Drones," Bastian confirmed. "Valkyrie-class ships typically carry a complement of twelve. But I only see eleven here."

  "One is missing?"

  "Yes, Captain."

  It was odd. A battle involved enough to cause as much damage as could be seen here should have had the assault ship launching everything it had.

  "What about the starfighters?"

  Bastian made a quick count. "All accounted for, Captain. They're still locked down in their berths instead of loaded into the launchers.”

  Soren exchanged a puzzled glance with Jack. "Why would they hold back their fighters in a battle? It doesn't make sense."

  "Maybe they were caught by surprise?" Jack offered, but there was doubt in his voice. "Ambushed before they could get them out?”

  "Maybe," Soren said, but he wasn't convinced. There was something more going on here, some piece of the puzzle they were missing. "Bastian, proceed with your sweep. Let's see what else we can find."

  Deeper into the ship, past the barracks spaces and common areas, flotsam from the attack continued to float in the atmosphere. Torn pieces of foil and mesh from bunk spaces drifted through the halls, along with large rivulets of blood and other fluids. It appeared the Recon crews had already collected the bodies.

  "Captain," Keira said suddenly. "I have an idea. If we want to know how prepared they were for this fight, we should check the ammo loading mechanisms for the railguns. See if they managed to get off any shots before…well, before this happened."

  Soren turned to her, a glimmer of approval in his eye. "Good thinking. Bastian, you heard the lady. Take us to those gun batteries."

  "Aye, Captain. Proceeding to starboard battery one."

  It was a tense few minutes as Bastian navigated the damaged corridors of the Valkyrie, the drone's lights playing over scene after scene of devastation. Everywhere they looked, the scars of battle were evident—blackened bulkheads, twisted metal, the eerie stillness of a ship with its crew violently ripped away.

  At last, they reached the first of the railgun batteries. Bastian brought the drone to a stop, its camera panning over the massive weapon emplacement.

  "Keira, talk me through it," Bastian said, his voice tight with concentration. "What exactly am I looking for?"

  She leaned forward, her eyes narrowed as she studied the feed. "There should be an ammo feed mechanism just aft of the barrel, with a bank of magazines behind it. The guns fire from the top left, so open that one. If it’s full, it means the battery wasn’t used.”

  Bastian adjusted the drone's position, maneuvering to the top left. He used the craft’s onboard robotic arm to unlatch the first bank. There was silence on the bridge for a long moment as they all stared at the image, waiting for the reveal.

  Then Keira exhaled sharply, a note of surprise in her voice. "There. Fully stocked. The gun was never fired."

  A murmur of disbelief rippled through the bridge. Soren felt a chill run down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. This was wrong, all wrong. A ship as badly mauled as the Valkyrie, caught in a pitched battle, and they hadn't even managed to get off a shot?

  "Check the other batteries," he ordered, his voice rough. "Quickly."

  Bastian complied, sending the drone zipping through the ship to each railgun emplacement in turn. But at each one, they found the same thing. It was as if the Valkyrie had simply rolled over and died, offering no resistance to its attackers.

  Soren could only shake his head in disbelief. "This makes no sense," he muttered. "No fight, no resistance. What the hell happened here?"

  "It gets stranger and stranger," Jack agreed. “I bet the answers are logged plain as day on the data recorder. Montoya said it was missing, right?"

  "Right," Soren confirmed. He turned to Bastian. "Take us to the bridge. I want to see for myself."

  The pilot nodded. The drone darted forward once more, picking its way through the shattered remnants of the ship to the bridge. And there, in the blast-proof compartment where the black box should have been, was only a gaping void.

  "It's gone alright," Bastian reported.

  Tashi, who had been watching the proceedings with wide eyes, spoke up hesitantly. "What does it all mean, Captain? I don't understand."

  Soren sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "I'm not sure, Tashi. From the evidence we’ve seen so far, it appears the captain of this ship decided not to fight back when attacked. Was the attacking ship cloaked like us and they never saw what hit them? There’s only one Wraith. Did they know their attacker? Possibly. If so, did they know they couldn’t win? It’s strange not to at least try.” He shook his head as if that could help bring him clarity. “Like Jack said, the data recorder could probably answer all of our questions. But it looks like whoever attacked this ship beat us to it.”

  "Maybe not," Wilf said suddenly. All heads turned to him, surprised. He had been so quiet, they had almost forgotten he was there.

  "What do you mean?" Soren asked.

  "What if they took it out themselves? The crew of the Valkyrie, I mean. What if they removed their own recorder and put it in that missing drone and sent it away before the ship was lost? You know, to keep it safe from whoever was after them?"

  A stunned silence followed his words as they all turned the idea over in their minds. It seemed unimaginable. What would be the purpose? But the more Soren thought about it, the more it made a certain kind of sense.

  "They would have had to know the attack was coming," Ethan said slowly, working it through. “And jettisoned the recorder before the enemy arrived. Otherwise, their sensors would have spotted the drone before it could escape.”

  "Exactly," Wilf said, a note of excitement in his voice. "They were being chased, hunted. They knew they were in trouble, so they made sure their data would survive, even if they didn't."

  Soren nodded, a smile touching his lips. "Well reasoned, Wilf. I think you might be onto something." He straightened in his chair, a new sense of purpose flooding through him. "Alright, people. New plan. We're going to find that drone."

  "But Captain," Keira said, her brow furrowed. "The drone could be anywhere by now. It's like searching for a needle in a galactic haystack."

  "Then we'd better get started," Soren replied. "Because I have a feeling that data recorder is the key to everything. The key to finding Dana." He turned to Jack, his expression questioning. "What do you say? Up for searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack?”

  “Have you ever read Sherlock Holmes, Soren?” Jack replied. “The game is afoot.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The Wraith prowled, silent and invisible, through space, sweeping the area around Wolf 1061 with its sensors and hunting for the missing drone. Soren knew from the start it wouldn’t be quick or easy unless they happened to get extremely lucky.

  It wasn’t long before he accepted that wouldn’t be the case. As the hours stretched into days without any sign of their quarry, life onboard the experimental, half-finished ship began to take on a consistent pattern, which all of them easily fell into.

  For the veterans of his crew, it was a return to old habits, with adjustment for the lack of amenities and creature comforts. While they missed some of the niceties, they were too focused on the mission to worry about them very much. For the civilians, being on board the ship was still a far cry from life in the Dregs. Soren had given them a second chance to live out their dreams of spending their lives among the stars while providing them a proper home, true camaraderie and respect.

  Considering their problems, his worry for his daughter, and the mystery surrounding her disappearance, Soren believed things were going reasonably well. At least for the moment. He was even gaining confidence in the cloaking system, which had run full-time since they arrived without a hiccup, avoiding even Recon’s advanced sensor suites while it maneuvered through the area.

  On the third day of their search, Soren was midway through his now-routine jog through the lower decks when footsteps approached him from behind. As the person fell into step beside him, he was surprised to see it was Asha.

  "Captain," she said by way of greeting, slightly out of breath as she slowed to jog beside him.

  "Asha," he replied. "I didn't expect to see you down here."

  She shrugged, a small smile tugging at her lips. “I heard from the Admiral that the lower decks make for good running, so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. I’ve always been a runner. I did the Boston marathon once. Came in like a hundred and something, but I finished it in less than six hours.”

  “Not bad,” Soren said. “I never had the opportunity to run a marathon. I’ve always been more of a sprinter. Not even close to elite. But it’s good for the heart, and bad for the knees. Or would be. Mine are second installments, courtesy of the Navy.”

  “You were injured in battle?” Asha asked.

  Soren chuckled. “If an enemy’s ordnance reaches the hardened center of a warship, there won’t be any survivors. No, it happened during my time as a POW. The CIP wasn’t always gentle.”

  “Oh, Captain, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag back those memories.”

  “It’s fine, Asha. It all happened a long time ago, and I’ve lived an incredibly fulfilling life since then.”

  There was a beat of silence, then she spoke again. “In that case, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Captain... all those stories my mother used to tell me about you. How much of it was true?"

  Soren considered the question, memories of a lifetime flashing through his mind. The battles, the losses, the hard-won victories. "Most of it, I suppose," he said at last. "Though I'm sure some of the details got embellished over time. That's the way of these things."

  Asha nodded, absorbing this. "She always made it sound so heroic. Like something out of a movie. But being here, seeing what it's really like..." She trailed off, shaking her head. “It’s a lot of waiting around, isn’t it?”

  Soren laughed more thoroughly this time. “Yes, I suppose it is. Which is easier when you have furniture.”

  “But there’s stress, too. Knowing there’s some force out there that means us harm. Knowing they’re plotting something, but we have no idea what. And that we could be attacked at any second. What happened at the station was terrifying. They try to train you for that, but all the sims in the world…well, it feels real, but in the back of your mind you know it isn’t. The sense of danger isn’t the same.”

  “Nothing can replicate live fire,” Soren agreed. “But Asha, I’d much rather no one younger than me ever has to have real experience with war.”

  “I appreciate that, Captain. That doesn’t seem possible right now though, does it?”

  Soren sighed. “Unfortunately, no.”

  Asha was quiet for a moment, her expression thoughtful. "I understand why my mother was so proud to serve under you. Why she always spoke so highly of you and with so much respect."

  Soren felt a pang of emotion at the mention of Asha's mother. "She was an outstanding officer," he said. "And a good friend. I was lucky to have had her on my crew."

  They jogged in companionable silence for a while, the only sound the steady thrum of their footfalls on the metal deck.

  “So, Asha, you asked me a question, do you mind me asking one of my own?”

  “Not at all, Captain,” she answered.

  “I’ve been wondering what it’s like to live in the Dregs. You see reports on the news, or read about this or that happening there, but sensationalism and a few hours wandering around hardly scratches the surface of the truth.”

  “For me, it was just a matter of survival. Making it from one day to the next with a roof over my head, food to eat, and no holes in my body, from drugs or otherwise. It felt good to try to help people, but… Most of all, it’s embarrassing. Nobody in the Dregs wants to be there. Most of them have just given up trying to reach for something more.”

  “Did you give up?” Soren asked.

  Asha was quiet for a moment while she considered. Then she nodded. “I think maybe I was starting to. Which, now that I think about it, kind of pisses me off. I⁠—”

  She was cut off by the sudden chirp of Soren's comms. "Captain to the bridge," Jack's voice echoed in his head. "We've got something on sensors."

  Soren was already slowing to a halt, Asha stopping beside him. His heart rate quickened for reasons that had nothing to do with the physical exertion. He turned to Asha, an apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Asha. I missed the last part of what you said. But duty calls. To be continued?"

  She waved him off. “I totally understand, sir. Will I be needed in sickbay?”

  “I seriously hope not,” he replied. “But best to be prepared, just in case.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  They went their separate ways. Soren took off at a sprint, navigating the corridors with freshly practiced ease. He was bursting onto the bridge in minutes, slightly out of breath but eyes sharp and focused.

  "Report," he barked, crossing to the command chair in a few long strides.

  Mark, huddled over his station, looked up as Soren entered. "Captain, we're picking up activity from the Navy. Looks like drones."