"Speak plainly, Commander."

  "We cannot replace it." The words came out quietly, almost apologetic. "The composites that comprise the weapon housing, the focusing arrays, the power coupling systems—none of it can be replicated with current technology. We can seal off the damage, prevent further degradation, but the Möbius will never fire from that turret again."

  Sarxon absorbed the information without visible reaction. Inside, something cold settled into her chest and refused to leave.

  The Möbius was irreplaceable. Every component of its construction represented knowledge that had been lost for millennia, techniques and materials that the Umbral Empire's finest engineers could study but never reproduce. At least at present. The ship could be maintained, preserved, protected from the slow entropy of time, but it could not be restored. Every wound it suffered was, at present, considered permanent.

  And she had just given it its first scar.

  "Have the repair crews do what they can," she said. "Prioritize hull integrity over everything else. I want those breaches sealed as soon as possible."

  "Understood, High Commander." Ashe inclined his head slightly, the gesture conveying both acknowledgment and something that might have been sympathy. He withdrew toward the operations station, leaving Sarxon alone with the weight of her failure.

  She sat in silence for a long moment, watching the stars through the viewport. The Umbral fleet's signatures were visible on the tactical display. Capital ships holding position, fighters returning to their hangars, the organized pattern of a military force that had just watched its quarry escape.

  Her anger came slowly, building from somewhere deep in her chest, spreading outward through her limbs like fire seeking fuel. She had done everything right. Had anticipated Marshall's moves, positioned her assets, closed every avenue of escape. Yet, he had slipped through, leaving her ship damaged and her reputation in ruins.

  "Ensign Thrace."

  The communications officer looked up from her console, her expression carefully neutral. "Yes, High Commander?"

  "Get me Captain Horm. Now."

  The connection was established within seconds. Horm's face appeared on the main viewscreen, her expression composed and professional.

  "High Commander Abrelle. I was about to contact you regarding⁠—"

  "Explain to me," Sarxon cut her off, her voice carrying an edge that made Thrace flinch at her station, "how your entire fleet failed to stop a single ship."

  Horm's composure flickered, but only for an instant. "High Commander, the Ascendant may be small, but she's still a relic ship. Her capabilities are⁠—"

  "I'm aware of her capabilities." Sarxon rose from the command station, taking a step toward the viewscreen as if she intended to reach through it and seize Horm by the throat. "I'm asking how your fighters, your capital ships, your entire Fourth Fleet allowed it to breach your formation and escape."

  "We engaged with everything we could, High Commander." Horm's voice remained steady, though Sarxon could see the tension in her shoulders. "The target's defensive systems absorbed our weapons fire and converted it to power. Its point defense network neutralized our attack runs. And its pilot demonstrated...unexpected skill in evasive maneuvers."

  "Unexpected skill." Sarxon let the words hang in the air, laden with contempt. "An Earther with weeks of experience outflew your trained fighter pilots."

  "With respect, High Commander, the Ascendant's propulsion clearly allows maneuvers that conventional vessels cannot match. Our pilots did their duty. Nearly a dozen of them were killed in action. The failure was not in their effort but in the fundamental mismatch between our technology and the Ascendant's." She paused, her expression suggesting that she was weighing whether or not to voice her final thoughts on the matter. "Besides," she continued, "we couldn't afford to risk destroying the Ascendant when we needed to disable her. That limited our ability to bring our more powerful weapons to bear."

  Sarxon's hands curled into fists at her sides. She wanted to rage at Horm, to find someone to blame for this catastrophe, to transfer the weight of her failure onto shoulders other than her own. But the captain's words carried the ring of truth, and some part of Sarxon—the part that had been trained to assess situations dispassionately—recognized that Horm was right. While Sarxon was willing to destroy the Ascendant to keep it from the other empires, she wasn't sure the emperor would agree.

  "How did he get off the planet?" she demanded, her voice dropping to something quieter but no less dangerous. "My ground forces had the tower surrounded. The assault ship was blocking the only exit. How did Marshall escape?"

  Horm's expression shifted slightly, a shadow passing behind her eyes. "We received reports from the surface, High Commander. The assault ship blocking the tower's opening was struck by another vessel. A scavenger transport."

  "Struck?"

  "Rammed, High Commander. The scavenger ship accelerated directly into the assault ship's hull at high velocity. The impact knocked our vessel out of position, creating a gap in the blockade. The Ascendant launched through that gap before we could compensate."

  Sarxon stared at the screen, processing this information. A scavenger ship? Someone had deliberately crashed their own vessel into an Umbral warship, sacrificing themselves to give Marshall an opening?

  He hadn't done this alone. He had help. Allies she hadn't known about, resources she hadn't anticipated.

  "Who?" The word came out sharp. "Who was operating that scavenger ship?"

  "Unknown, High Commander. The vessel was destroyed in the collision. We're attempting to trace its registration through standard channels, but⁠—"

  Sarxon cut the connection, Horm's face vanishing from the viewscreen. She turned to face Ashe, who had been observing the exchange from his position near the operations station. "I want the head of the scavenger company whose ship was near the scene. On my comms. Now."

  Ashe hesitated for the barest fraction of a second. "High Commander, coordinating with the scavenger companies may take some time. They're not military assets, and their communication protocols are⁠—"

  "I don't care about their protocols. Ensign Thrace has already established contact with them. Use whatever channel she opened. Threaten them, bribe them, I don't care. I want answers."

  Ashe inclined his head. "Understood, High Commander."

  The minutes that followed stretched like hours. Sarxon returned to the command station, but she couldn't bring herself to sit. Instead, she stood before the viewport, watching the stars wheel slowly past as the Möbius maintained its position.

  Her father's face swam up from memory, unbidden. She envisioned the disappointment exhibited in his features when he learned what had happened. The cold calculation as he weighed her failure against the empire's needs. The moment when he would realize that his daughter had become a liability rather than an asset.

  She pushed the thought away. There would be time for that later. Right now, she needed information.

  "High Commander." Thrace's voice cut through her thoughts. "I have Guildmaster Nellik on the line. He's the Overseer for Maker's Keepers on Thrax."

  "Put him through. Audio only."

  The comm channel crackled, and a voice—older, rougher, carrying the worn quality of someone who had spent decades scraping a living from the galaxy's forgotten corners—emerged from the speakers.

  "High Commander Abrelle." The overseer's tone walked a careful line between respect and wariness. "I understand you have questions about our operations on Thrax."

  "The scavenger ship that rammed my assault vessel. I want to know who was aboard."

  A pause. When Nellik spoke again, his voice had grown more cautious. "High Commander, our indentured crews operate with considerable autonomy once deployed. We track their positions to ensure they don't attempt to flee their obligations, but we don't monitor their specific activities in real-time."

  "Then check your records." Sarxon's patience was wearing thin, fraying at edges that had already been stretched too far. "Which of your crews was operating in the capital region? Which ship was assigned to that area?"

  Another pause, longer this time. Sarxon could almost hear the man weighing his options, calculating the consequences of cooperation versus resistance. When he spoke again, his voice carried the resigned tone of someone choosing the path of least resistance.

  "The ship was registered to Orven Taask. He's been bound to our company for nine years. Effective scavenger. Good instincts for finding valuable salvage in places others had written off."

  "Orven Taask." Sarxon committed the name to memory. "Was he operating alone?"

  "No, High Commander. His children work alongside him. Faelen and Myris Taask. The three of them function as a family unit, which is admittedly unusual in our line of work. Most indentured crews are assembled from strangers."

  "Tell me about them. How did they come to be in your service?"

  The overseer's hesitation this time was more pronounced. Sarxon could sense him wrestling with something, some piece of information he didn't want to share.

  "Overseer Nellik." Her voice dropped to something quieter, more dangerous. "I am not asking."

  A long exhale came through the speakers. "Nine years ago, Orven Taask killed a man. A debt collector named Avren Wroth, employed by one of the lending syndicates that operate in the outer systems."

  Sarxon felt her attention sharpen. "Explain."

  "Orven had borrowed heavily to pay for his wife's medical treatments. Some degenerative condition the standard facilities couldn't address. When she died, the syndicates came to collect. Wroth was...aggressive in his methods. He threatened to take Orven's children as payment. Sell the boy to one of the labor cartels to work off the debt, the girl to a pleasure market for…well, you know what for."

  The guildmaster's voice grew quieter, as if speaking of things he'd rather not remember. "Orven broke Wroth's neck with his bare hands. In front of witnesses. In front of his own children."

  Sarxon processed this silently. A father protecting his family from a fate worse than death. "Why wasn't he executed?"

  "The syndicate wanted their money more than they wanted justice. Orven had skills. He worked at a university before his wife got sick. He was an expert in⁠—"

  "Let me guess," Sarxon interrupted. "Maker tech."

  "You got it in one, High Commander. The syndicate offered Orven a choice. Face tribunal for murder, or accept indenture to Maker's Keepers to work off the debt plus interest plus the value they'd placed on Wroth's life. A thirty-year term."

  "And the children?"

  "The children knew almost as much about Maker shit as their old man. Instead of splitting them up, their indenture was added to Orven's obligation. The three of them have been working together ever since, trying to find something valuable enough to buy their freedom."

  Sarxon stared at the stars beyond the viewport, turning this information over in her mind. A family bound together by tragedy and debt, forced to pick through the bones of dead civilizations for scraps they could never keep, watching their freedom slip further away with each passing year as interest accumulated faster than they could pay it down.

  "The relic ship that escaped my forces," she said carefully. "The scavenger transport rammed my vessel to create an opening for it. Why would Orven Taask sacrifice himself to help someone else escape?"

  "I couldn't say, High Commander." Nellik's confusion sounded genuine. "I don't know anything about a relic ship or whoever might have been piloting it. All I know is that Orven's beacon went dark after his ship collided with your vessel. If he's dead and his children aren't, his debt transfers to the kids, who are still indentured to our company. They'll owe us the remainder of his term plus penalties."

  "The children survived. They're aboard the ship that escaped."

  A sharp intake of breath. "Then they're fugitives now. Breaking indenture carries severe penalties. If they're ever caught...they⁠—"

  "I'm less interested in their legal status than in their motivations." Sarxon's voice hardened. "If Orven saw a relic ship landing in the same city where he was scavenging, what would he do?"

  The overseer was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice carried a bitter understanding. "A relic ship would be worth more than a hundred lifetimes of scavenging, High Commander. More than enough to pay off any debt, any penalty, any obligation. Orven would have seen it as his family's only chance at freedom. He would have done anything to claim it, including picking it right out from under your nose."

  "High Commander," Ashe said, getting her attention. "Reports from the survivors on the ground indicate they encountered four adversaries defending the Ascendant, using Maker weapons."

  "Four," Sarxon repeated. "Are you sure?"

  "The report is corroborated among the survivors."

  Sarxon returned her attention to the comms. "Overseer Nellik, it appears Orven and his children helped the pilot escape. Why might he do that, instead of killing the pilot and taking the ship?"

  "I don't know. But I can tell you that Orven Taask was no idealist. He killed a man to protect his children. He spent nine years crawling through ruins and breathing toxic air to keep them alive. Whatever he did, he did it because he thought it would benefit his family. Not out of loyalty. Not out of friendship. Out of calculation."

  Sarxon considered this. A man desperate enough to commit murder, bound by decades of servitude, suddenly presented with an opportunity worth more than he could ever earn through legitimate means. And his children, raised in that same desperation, watching their father sacrifice himself to give them a chance at something better.

  "There's something else you should know, High Commander," Nellik said. "Orven and his kids weren't on that shuttle alone. They had a warden leading the search, making sure they didn't try to steal anything or run away. He hasn't reported back, and since your man said four adversaries, I can only assume he's dead or a prisoner."

  "Dead, then," Sarxon said, recalling the carnage at the barn on Earth. "The pilot isn't one to take prisoners. Faelen and Myris. What are they like?"

  "Survivors. They've been in indenture since they were fourteen and sixteen. They know how to read situations, how to recognize opportunity, how to do whatever's necessary to stay alive. If they're aboard that relic ship now..."

  He trailed off, but Sarxon understood the implication.

  "They might try to take it for themselves."

  "I'm not saying they would, High Commander. But if the pilot is alone, if he doesn't know how things work out here, if he trusts them because their father died helping him escape..." Nellik let the thought hang unfinished. "Scavenging is a hard life. The only way out is to find something valuable enough to matter. And there's nothing in this galaxy more valuable than a Maker ship, even if it isn't one of the nine."

  Sarxon cut the connection without another word.

  The bridge hummed around her, officers attending to their duties, damage control teams reporting progress on the hull repairs. Everything was continuing as if the past hour hadn't fundamentally altered the course of her career.

  Two survivors from a murdered debt collector's final visit. A family forged in violence and bound by desperation. Now aboard the Ascendant with an Earther who had no idea what kind of people he'd allowed onto his ship.

  They might help Marshall. They might kill him the moment his guard dropped. Sarxon couldn't predict which, and that uncertainty gnawed at her. While Marshall had been stumbling his way through the galaxy, these two could disappear, along with the Ascendant. Or perhaps they would try to sell the ship to the highest bidder. That wouldn't help the Umbral Empire. The Valecynth Empire could outbid any of the others.

  Not that the pair would survive long enough to collect.

  "High Commander." Thrace's voice again cut through her thoughts. "Incoming priority communication. Encryption signature indicates origin from Delvran."

  Sarxon's stomach tightened. Delvran. The homeworld. Her father.

  Already.

  45

  "I'll take it here." She settled back into the command station, her hand finding the control that would activate the pod's privacy barriers. "Commander Ashe, you have the bridge."

  "Understood, High Commander."

  The barriers rose around her with a soft hiss, curved panels sliding up from the pod's base to seal her in a cocoon of silence. The ambient noise of bridge operations—the murmur of officers, the soft chime of consoles, the ever-present hum of the ship's systems—faded to nothing.

  Sarxon sat in that silence for a few seconds, hesitant to activate the connection. What could she possibly say that wouldn't make this the worst conversation of her life?

  She couldn't stall forever, so she took a deep breath, fixed a professional expression on her face, and activated the display. Her father's face materialized before her, rendered in the pale blue light of the projection system. General Sarxes Abrelle's expression was carefully neutral, but something in the set of his jaw suggested he already knew this conversation wasn't going to be pleasant.

  "High Commander Abrelle," he said, confirming this wasn't a social call. "How is the hunt progressing?"

  She opened her mouth to respond as the Möbius's commanding officer should. But seeing her father's face stopped her. "Father." Her voice came out smaller than she intended as she shifted the tone of the communication to personal. "May I speak off the record?"

  He studied her through the projection for a long moment. She watched the calculation play out behind his eyes—the military commander weighing the risks of unofficial communication, the father considering his daughter's tone.

  "You may."

  The words unlocked something inside her that she hadn't realized she was holding so tightly. Her shoulders dropped. Her jaw unclenched. The mask she wore for the bridge crew, for her subordinates, for everyone who expected her to be the unshakeable High Commander cracked, and everything she had been containing spilled through.