Soren breathed deeply, his mind racing. They couldn't run, and they couldn’t fight. So what could they do?

  “Captain," Keira spoke up, her voice cutting through the chaos. “We aren’t completely out of options on the offensive front. I have fire control for an energy weapon that appears to occupy the entire front half of Deck Five. It appears to be online.”

  “Appears to be is a dangerous phrase right now,” Soren replied, remembering that Rashad had mentioned an experimental beam weapon. “But I don’t like what I see over the barrel. It may be our best chance.”

  "Or we could use the cloaking system," Jack suggested, his face grim. "Again, assuming it works."

  Soren hesitated, torn. Hide and run, or stand and fight? He didn’t have much time to consider the options. The enemy outnumbered and outgunned them. At the same time, they were corvettes, and while the Wraith was incomplete, she had the build of a heavy warship like a Komodo. She also had a damn crack crew who would fight like wolves when cornered.

  "Sang," he said, "bring us around, put us bow on to one of those bastards. Keira, work on a firing solution with the beam weapon. Let's see what this thing can do."

  "Aye, Captain," Keira replied, her fingers working her console.

  Sang threw the Wraith into a dizzying series of maneuvers, the inertial dampeners struggling to compensate. The stars wheeled, the ruined station flashing past, and then they faced one of the flanking Valkyries head-on, the angular ship filling the screen. Immediately, the forward shields flashed, catching hell from the corvette’s railguns as they opened up, perhaps sensing Soren’s deadly intent.

  "Target locked," Keira reported, her voice tense.

  "Fire," Soren ordered, eyes narrowing.

  A blinding lance of pure white energy erupted from the Wraith's bow, stabbing across space and spearing the Valkyrie dead center. For a moment, the enemy ship’s shields flared and held, absorbing the stab. But only for a moment. Then the shields flickered and faltered, and the beam began to burn through the enemy ship's hull, slicing it open like a searing hot knife through butter.

  The beam held the Valkyrie transfixed in its deadly embrace as its interior was laid bare to the vacuum of space. Secondary explosions rippled through its structure, so quickly there was no time for the crew to even attempt an escape from the dying ship.

  “Captain,” Ethan cried over the comms, his voice strained. “Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop. “The power draw is too high. You’re redlining the reactors.”

  “Keira, cut power to the beam,” Soren said.

  The searing lance winked out, leaving a slagged, glowing ruin where a warship had once been. One down, four to go. The odds were still stacked against them, and their secret weapon had turned out to be powerful but limited. There was only one thing left to do.

  "Helm, bring us about," Soren ordered, his mind already two steps ahead. "Keira, engage the cloaking device. Let's see if we can disappear."

  “Engaging,” Keira replied.

  The bridge dimmed, the viewscreen flickered, and for a moment Soren wasn’t sure if the cloaking technology was in the same state as the jump drive. The lights returned to normal, though nothing else seemed to have changed.

  "Cloak engaged," Keira reported, a note of wonder in her voice. “According to my station, we're invisible, Captain."

  Soren was glad her interface claimed they were cloaked, but he wasn’t quite ready to believe it. There was only one way to find out if the feedback was accurate. “Sang, randomize our heading and speed. Unpredictable maneuvers, let's see if we’re really invisible.”

  Sang put the Wraith through her paces, using mostly vectoring thrusters to wobble, juke, and jive, using the fullness of space to clear the line of fire as quickly as possible. The enemy ships, robbed of their target, at first continued to fire wildly, missiles flashing past the Wraith's twisting form to detonate harmlessly in the void. Switching to railguns, the Valkyries spread bullets across space, hunting for the Wraith.

  “Keira, lower the shields,” Soren ordered.

  “Captain?” she replied, confused by the command.

  “If they hit the shields, they’ll know where we are,” Soren explained.

  “But if they hit us without shields—“ Jack started.

  “We stand a chance of surviving,” Soren finished. “Especially since they can’t aim for anything specific. Keira, lower the shields, and don’t question my orders again.”

  “Aye, Captain,” she replied, voice quivering in response to his tone. “Shields down.”

  Slowly, carefully, Sang guided the ship away from the battle area, putting distance between themselves and the searching Valkyries, their railgun fire coming close but never managing to hit them. The crew worked in tense silence, monitoring systems, ready to react at a moment's notice.

  But as the minutes ticked by, it became clear that their gambit had worked. The enemy ships slowed their fire, then stopped altogether, settling into a search pattern as they tried in vain to reacquire their vanished prey.

  Soren leaned back in his seat, allowing himself a moment to breathe. The cloak had performed beyond all expectations. Wraith was truly living up to her namesake, a ghost on the battlefield.

  But even as relief washed over him, a niggling sense of unease crept into his thoughts. The Valkyries were old ships, long since decommissioned, and yet here they were, attacking an FUP facility without warning or provocation. And there was something off about them, something subtly wrong that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

  Were they remnants of the CIP, seeking revenge for their defeat all those years ago? Proxima loyalists, clinging to a lost cause? Or something else entirely, some new threat emerging from the shadows?

  The hours crawled by, the enemy continuing their fruitless search. Soren would have liked to rotate his crew and allow them a chance to rest, but he just didn’t have the extra bodies. Twelve hours, fifteen, and still the Valkyries prowled, refusing to give up their hunt.

  At last, when even Soren's iron will was beginning to fray under the strain of constant vigilance, the enemy ships broke off, bright light flaring around them as they jumped away, leaving behind the shattered remnants of the station and a mystery that would gnaw at him for days to come.

  In the sudden stillness that followed, Soren found himself staring at the drifting wreckage, the weight of all those lost lives settling heavily upon his shoulders. In his brief time here, Rashad had proven himself a stalwart ally, and his crew collateral damage in whatever was happening here. Their deaths would be avenged, he silently vowed. But first, he needed answers.

  He turned to his crew, seeing the same haunted look in their eyes, the same determination etched into their faces. They had come through their first fire together intact and unburned.

  "Stand down from Red Alert," he said, his voice rough with exhaustion and emotion. "Secure from battlestations. I’d love to let you all hit your racks, but we need our guns loaded, gear stowed and the hangar cleared. Harry, you’re in charge of unpacking.”

  As the bridge crew began to disperse, murmured conversations springing up as they tried to make sense of what they had just witnessed, Soren turned to Jack, his expression grim.

  “What do you think, Jack? Did those ships come for us or the station?”

  “My guess is both,” Jack replied, a puzzled look on his face. “But Soren, this isn’t Ganymede. No one is supposed to know this facility exists.”

  “So how the hell did they find it?”

  “Exactly my question. Along with, why was it a target? The Wraith is a nice ship, and will be even nicer once we get everything working, but it’s still only one ship. It seems like a strange opening move if the goal is to start a war.”

  “Agreed,” Soren said. “I also wonder if those ships had anything to do with Galileo’s disappearance. Montoya said they found a shot up Valkyrie orbiting Wolf.”

  “The plot thickens,” Jack said. “Whatever’s going on, I don’t think we’ll find any answers here.”

  “But maybe if we can find Dana, the answers will come along with her.”

  He turned back to the viewscreen, the stars glittering in the endless black. Somewhere out there, his daughter was waiting. And he would tear the galaxy apart to bring her home. But as he contemplated the monumental task before him, Soren couldn't shake the feeling that he had just stumbled onto something far larger and more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. The shattered remains of the station seemed to mock him, a deadly testament to a deeper threat.

  As the Wraith drifted, cloaked and silent, Soren knew that he was sailing into waters not only uncharted but shark-infested. He would have to rely on his wits, his crew, and the deadly capabilities of his new ship to see him through. But even with all of that, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was playing a game whose rules he didn't fully understand against an opponent who had yet to show their face.

  It was a daunting prospect, but Soren had never been one to shy away from a challenge. He had faced down the Coalition of Independent Planets, survived their prisons and battle fleets, and had come out the other side stronger for it. He would face this new threat with the same determination, the same unflinching resolve.

  With a final, lingering look at the graveyard of twisted metal that had once been a hub of innovation and progress, Soren turned his back on the carnage, his thoughts fixed on the future.

  CHAPTER 13

  Soren watched the stars drift by on the viewscreen, his thoughts a jumble of unanswered questions and mounting concerns. Nearly twenty hours had passed since the devastating attack on the station, and the Wraith remained cloaked, drifting through the void like a ghost ship.

  Only Bastian occupied the bridge with him, taking over for Sang at the helm and filling in at the other stations when needed. The rest of the crew remained spread across the ship, with engineering trying to get the jump drive running and the others distributing the supplies they’d loaded into the hangar bay.

  “Bastian,” Soren said. “I think it’s safe to shut down the cloaking system now. I don’t want to put any more stress on the power supply than necessary.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the muscular helmsman replied, rising from his station and crossing to the tactical display. He pushed his dark, curly hair away from his eyes to better see the screen before tapping on the control board. “Cloaking disabled.”

  “Thank you,” Soren said, stifling a yawn. He had been awake for nearly thirty-two hours after a poor round of sleep the night before. He could feel the hook of exhaustion tugging at his mind, threatening his sharpness.

  The bridge door slid open, and Jack appeared to his right, touching his shoulder. "Soren, you need to get some rest," he said, his voice low but firm. “I got four hours. Let me take over for a while."

  Soren turned to his friend, ready to argue, but the look in Jack's eyes stopped him. He knew Jack was right. He couldn't lead effectively this way, and his crew needed him at his best.

  "Alright," he conceded, rising from his seat. "But I want a full status update before I go."

  Jack nodded, taking Soren's place in the command chair as Soren activated his comms.

  "Ethan, what's the status on the jump drive?" he asked, blinking tired eyes.

  "We think we know what the problem is, Captain," Ethan answered, voice weary. Like most of the crew, he hadn’t gotten much rest yet, either. “There’s a power coupling between the jump drive and the reactors that was never installed. The good news is, the coupling is here in its box. The bad news is that since we’re already underway, we’ll need to do some work to divert power around the area before we can put it in. It's a delicate fix, but we should have it operational in about ten hours."

  Soren nodded, relieved that they had at least identified the issue. "Good work. Keep me updated. Harry, how are we looking on the supply front?”

  The quartermaster took a few seconds to reply. “Captain, we've got everything organized and the crew is moving supplies to their proper resting places. The galley is amazing, state-of-the-art equipment. We could feed an army in there."

  "But?" Soren prompted, sensing the catch.

  "But it’s standing room only, literally." Harry shook his head. "The chow hall has no tables or chairs. Neither does the recreation room. And the fitness center is just an empty space, no equipment at all. And don’t get me started on berthing. This ship is as barebones as it gets, I’m afraid.”

  Soren sighed, rubbing his forehead. It seemed that for every advantage the Wraith had, there was a glaring omission to balance it out.

  "What about our weapon systems?” he asked, almost dreading the answer.

  "The crew is loading the guns as we speak," Harry reported. "But Captain, we're severely short on missiles, and we only have enough railgun ammunition for about three minutes of sustained fire."

  Soren's jaw clenched, the reality of their situation sinking in. They were a warship with barely enough teeth to bite through a biscuit. He thought back to the devastating power of the beam weapon, how it had sliced through the Valkyrie's shields and hull.

  “Keira, Ethan, we need to run some tests on the beam weapon," he said, his tired mind already working on the problem. "Figure out its limitations, its power draw, how long we can fire it before it overheats. If it's destined to be our main offense, we need to know how to use it more efficiently."

  "I'll get on it right away, Captain,” she replied. “I’ll coordinate with Ethan once he’s finished the jump drive repairs.”

  “Negative. Once the supplies are distributed, I want all of you either eating, bathing, or sleeping. And I don’t care in what order. Unfortunately, you’ll have to find something in the galley you don’t have to cook. Make sure you get enough sleep. If you’re half as tired as I am, we’re in no shape to risk another confrontation until we’re well rested. Bobby, what’s the projected jump ETA to the Wolf system from our current position?”

  “About fourteen hours, Captain.”

  “Plenty of time for all of us to rest up. Thank you all again for being here. You’ve already proved your mettle and calm under fire, but I never doubted you. Any of you. Soren out.” He turned to Jack. "The ship is yours, Admiral. I'll be in my quarters if you need me."

  Jack gave him a mock salute, a glimmer of humor in his eyes. "Aye, Captain. Rest well."

  Soren left the bridge, stepping into the quiet corridor. With a start, he realized he couldn’t remember where his quarters were. The tour with Rashad felt like a lifetime ago, the details lost in the chaos that followed, and his weariness fuzzing the memory even more.

  He wandered the ship, taking in the stark, unfinished spaces. Cables hung from open panels, and tools and equipment were scattered in the walkways. But beneath the surface imperfections, he could sense the Wraith's potential, the raw power and advanced technology that set her apart from any other ship he had ever served on.

  He knew better than to head too far aft—he would find the internal components of the main thrusters there—or too far to the center of the ship, where lift support systems would be located to best protect them from damage. He also knew the beam weapon occupied a large chunk of the front half of the ship and, by its positioning, assumed it had a direct link to the reactors, which were likely on the lower decks amidships, where the cores could be jettisoned in the event of a critical overload.

  While the ship was composed of twenty decks, he remained on Twelve, the same level as the bridge, knowing the crew would need easy access to the ship’s control center from berthing. Coming across sickbay, he ducked his head inside, noting an intake station and six separate bays to tend to the injured. Each was furnished with examination tables, with scanners and other equipment hovering above them, but exposed wiring revealed an unfinished state. Boxes brought up from the hangar rested on the sterile white counters. So much of the installation still needed to be finished.

  Exiting, he continued to explore, allowing his mind to relax as he took in other sections of the vessel, certain he was on the right path. He passed the galley, catching a glimpse of gleaming stainless steel and advanced food preparation systems. Next to it was the cavernous space of the empty chow hall, a stark reminder of how many crew the Wraith was intended to carry and how many crew necessities like tables and chairs were missing.

  Further down, he found the recreation room and the fitness center. Media libraries, game systems, and reading material could help off-duty crew regain their mental edge. At the same time, exercise equipment was something they always needed to help them burn off excess energy from being cooped up in a ship with all the give and take that came with close human interaction. Especially when they began experiencing stressors like the conflict they had just witnessed. But nothing was filling either space, nothing that would offer a reprieve from the tension he knew his crew would be facing. And he had no idea what to do about it.

  It was something he was going to have to think about.

  At last, he found the officer's quarters tucked away in a quiet section of the ship just off the corridor leading to the enlisted racks. They were spacious, clean, and bright but, like everything else, remained incomplete.

  Soren entered the captain’s quarters, quickly scanning the suite divided into a sitting room, bedroom, and private head. The outer bulkheads were lined with programmable video screens, currently displaying the camera feeds of space outside the ship. A terminal was set into the bulkhead near the door, and a single blinking light indicated its standby mode.

  Moving to the bedroom, he discovered, to his surprise, that someone had already delivered a bare mattress, a blanket, pillow, and his duffel. He unzipped his pack, took out his service uniform and laid it across his vacant desk. He returned to his duffle for the comfortable sweats he’d packed to sleep in. He knew he should shower before putting them on but was too tired.

  He changed into the sweats and sat down heavily on the mattress, suddenly feeling the weight of his exhaustion. But before he could rest, there was one more thing he needed to do.