Chapter 20

Hyperspace.

Approaching the SSX-M-156-344-115-93 system.

"Hyperspace emergence in 3...2...1...Emergence."

The report was....muted this time. In fact, the entire ship felt muted. Sarah didn't even lean forward in her seat, she just looked up at the system's hologram hanging in the middle of the bridge in silence, before looking at Elteria.

"Status?" She said softly.

"Nothing notable on the scanners, just..." Elteria swallowed. "Just debris and the beacon, that's it. No energy signatures. I'm cataloging some debris that weren't in the astrogation chart, but none of them are remotely close to us. We're within our target zone, 350 kilometers from our target point."

"Excellent." Sarah looked at the hologram representing the system, and sighed. "Stand us down from battle station, and get us to normal watch cycle for the patrol. If anyone....if anyone needs a moment, you can take it now."

No one left their post on the bridge, and Sarah smiled. She could still hear some muttered prayers, but she'd have been more concerned if she hadn't heard them honestly.

After all, even she could feel the weight of this system bearing down on her shoulders.

For it was a Shattered Star system. A system where every planet, asteroid, everything that could contain a human habitation had been obliterated. And the worst part was....there had been humans living there. 2.6 million years ago, this system had been thriving, a shining beacon of mankind's achievements and progress under the Terran Empire.

Then the Terran Empire had collapsed. It had fallen into a civil war of such senseless savagery, and started a genocide so great it had plunged humanity into a multi-million years dark age. Even after all this time, the Infinite Systems Federation was but a pale shadow of the Terran Empire, the Greatest Empire To Have Ever Graced The Stars. Hell, no one even knew how large that empire had been! A million explored galaxies on the Federation's star charts, and they haven't even left what the Terran considered their fringe colonies!

And this was the Terran Empire's legacy. Gutted star systems, all trace of life snuffed out of them by the thoroughness of genocidal madmen. Where once the Thaumor galaxy had sported at least 30 billion potentially terraformable worlds out of it's 300 billion star systems, it now sported less than 300 million. Over 99% of all the worlds humanity had claimed were gone, reduced to gas clouds or asteroid fields, sometimes even outright annihilated when their stars were destroyed in the apocalypse that had followed the Terran Empire's fall. What was left was second rate systems, nature preserves, or systems with such a light population simple orbital saturation bombardment had been sufficient to satisfy the maniacs that had been waging their campaign of extermination that no one could have survived.

These systems were usually avoided by travellers. Most of it was a matter of superstition, but it was undeniable that there was....something weighing upon people's souls when they traversed them. In any case, anyone that came here was usually only for a brief pit stop, to immediately depart for another system once their hyperdrive had cycled. There was only so much time a ship could spend into hyperspace without courting a hyperdrive failure after all.

Of course, there were some that came to these systems to exploit their vast mineral wealth, or fruitlessly try to hunt for some forgotten treasures, but those tended to be rare in the Low Verge. Habitats were possible in these systems, but at this level of technology they were seldom comfortable, and worryingly prone to failure. There was a reason the people of Calver were so hellbent on technical ability above all else after all. The fact that there, by definition, was no planet to anchor the space stations, and vast, highly unpredictable meteor swarms and debris fields scoured the systems constantly, also made such settlements....hazardous, at best. One of the unofficial requirements for joining the Near Verge, besides interdimensional jump drive technology, was the ability to fully colonize and 'rehabilitate' shattered systems, usually through massive infrastructure projects and the creation of megastructures that could span from planet sized space stations to star-wrapping ringworlds. That was one of the reasons the nations of the Near Verge could muster the kind of industrial power they did, and even had the raw materials to fuel said industry.

"Ma'am?"

Sarah blinked, and looked at Elteria.

"What is it?"

"I've just detected an energy spike in a piece of debris. Focusing passive scanners....got it. Looks like some kind of sensor satellite. Slapped on an asteroid."

Sarah frowned. It was probably some kind of Dominion surveillance satellite, but....after the kind of tricks the SLF had pulled off, she wasn't taking any chances.

"Can you alter the patrol pattern to take us into battle laser range of it?"

"I already have, we'll be in range in about 31 minutes."

Sarah smiled wolfishly.

"Well, carry on then. And prepare all weapons for a full scale engagement." There was no way that satellite would lose them, not with them having emerged from hyperspace and flashed to everyone within a hundred million kilometers a big 'Hey I'm Here!' neon sign. Or the entire system actually, if you were paying attention. A hyperspace emergence flash was quite noticeable after all. And if they went dark there was a fair chance it would power up it's active sensors to look for them...and approaching it without shields was probably a very bad idea.

"Aye aye ma'am. Prepping for full scale engagement. Missile launchers and point defence guns ready. Battle laser will be charged in 1 minute. Standing by for combat acceleration."

"Excellent. Sound battle stations in...15 minutes." She smiled apologetically to the rest of her bridge crew. "Sorry people, it looks like you'll have to earn your paychecks today!"

Everyone chuckled, and the tension that had been infesting the room ever since they'd emerged from hyperspace dispersed. It wasn't quite gone, but you couldn't outright taste it in the air anymore, which was an excellent thing. A demoralized, jumpy crew was never a good thing after all, especially when potentially heading into combat.

"Aye aye ma'am."

*****

"Arriving at closest approach vector....now."

For a split second, nothing seemed to happen...then the light briefly flickered as the ship went to maximum acceleration, screaming at a thousand gs towards the satellite as every active sensor they had painted it with every kind of conventional radiation imaginable.

And for a solid 3 seconds, nothing happened, then...

"Energy spike! It-"

Elteria didn't need to complete her sentence, as the telltale icon of a nuclear detonation appeared on the bridge's holographic projection.

"-Self destroyed." Finished Elteria. "Probably an onboard fusion bomb, although it might have been a gravitational reactor core overload. Can't tell at this distance."

Sarah nodded.

"A bit more paranoid than even our SLF friend then. Any concrete data?"

"Not much, but..." Elteria threw up what little scanning data they'd managed to get before the satellite blew itself to hell. Well, with their sensors it was actually pretty substantial, but still, Sarah preferred better. "This installation is...weird. It's professional mind you, but it's not what I'd call standardized."

Sarah frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"The components, they returned different sensor readings. It's like it was made out of components cobbled together from a dozen places. Quite professionally put together, but still, a lash up at best."

"An Ugly." Completed Sarah.

"Essentially, yes."

Sarah nodded thoughtfully. That was...interesting. Ugly with a capital U usually designated a ship or other spaceborne object just...assembled from off the shelf parts without any regards to anything beyond pure immediate functionality. They were called like that not only because of their ramshackle appearance, but also because they were generally never the most reliable of devices at the best of times.

"Someone is playing games here." Elteria winced, but nodded as the captain continued. "Can't be the Dominion, their strength is their industry, they wouldn't bother with a lash up like that, they'd have a specialized platform, and the self destruct would have ensured few would have realized that. So that means someone else."

"I'd say pirates or raiders, but..."

"Pirates suck at putting stuff together." They weren't incompetent per say, but personnel qualified enough to put something like that together were always in short supply on the wrong side of the law -hell, it was why the SLF had kidnapped Seria after all-, and their skills would be far better spent repairing or upgrading the pirate's ships. "And raiders don't have the resources."

Elteria nodded. 'Raiders' was a general designation for communities off the galactic maps, usually settled in forgotten star systems or even shattered star systems. The problem was that being cut off from the trade flow of the galaxy made life...difficult. And that went doubly for shattered systems. That meant that more often than not, these systems -usually called 'clans'-, often with one reason or another to try to keep their existence's off of the record, resorted to raiding more prosperous colonies for their industrial capacity and finished goods.

They'd also used to be the center of the slave trade, taking a rich bounty of qualified persons, or young attractive people fit to be sold on the market...right up until they'd garnered the attention of an Imperial Frontier Fleet cruiser.

That particular raider clan had been supremely unlucky in that they'd somehow managed to destroy that cruiser. No one exactly knew how...and the Imperial warfleet that had responded to the dying cruiser's distress call hadn't left anything for curious historians to analyze, having sterilized the shattered star system that clan had occupied with a thoroughness only the Terran Empire could have matched. Rumors were they hadn't actually killed every raider, just eliminated the guilty and dispersed the innocent throughout the universe, but no one knew for sure and the Empire wasn't telling. What was sure was that they'd brought back the slaves to their respective homeworlds, and left, leaving a mark on the galaxy no one was going to forget about for millenia to come.

"So if it's not them....a local star system."

"Or some...larger polity."

Elteria nodded.

"Yeah. Like our friends from the Condor or Alientia sectors."

Sarah sighed.

"Well, it's none of our business. Just keep the active sensors online and pinging everything nearby, just to be thorough, and get us back on the patrol pattern. We'll just signal it to the Dominion for a small fee, and be done with it."

Elteria nodded, and started talking to the navigator, and yet....Sarah's mind kept going back to that satellite. That, and what had happened in Sepia....It painted a bigger picture. She had never made it to a proper flag rank, but she'd been groomed by her superiors for an admiral position eventually, and she knew how to recognize larger patterns when she saw them. She didn't have enough of the pieces to have an idea of what yet....but her subconscious was already telling her that whatever it was, she probably wasn't going to like it.

Sarah patiently waited for a few hours, but finally the Flowers emerged in a flash of energy without anymore anomalies turning up. Which was nice, because she could really do without nasty surprises like spy satellites reporting her comings and goings around the galaxy. She didn't think whoever they were working for had any particular grudge against her, but the Silver Syndicate's reach was long, and she'd rather not find out if they had some...friends to feed them information in exchange for generous 'gifts'.

"Ma'am, com request from the Flowers." Said the communication officer, and Sarah nodded. She'd been expecting that call after all.

"Captain Gries." She greeted him as the mustached old man appeared on her screen, and her fellow captain smiled. They'd moved on a first name simply because Sarah had asked for it, but the other captain seemed to think it was some form of token of friendship. Oh well, it wasn't like he was unpleasant company, and he was jovial if nothing else.

"Captain Sarah!" Exclaimed Gries. "I see everything went well once more, although my sensor department reported an odd anomaly, an expanding cloud of cooling gas?"

Sarah hesitated for a second, then mentally shrugged. There wasn't really a point on keeping Gries out of the loop after all, if nothing else any compensation for the information would most likely be awarded only upon delivery of the sensor data of the satellite.

"We had a slight...encounter with an unknown satellite. Unfortunately, it self destructed before we could seize it."

Gries frowned, but nodded. He was a civilian freighter captain, but he was no fool either. There weren't that many reasons for people to stick a satellite near a hyperspace beacon in a shattered system after all.

"I see...Well captain, ready for the next jump? I'm afraid the next system might prove even more...lively."

"Indeed. My crew and I are fully ready. Just make sure to get out of the line of fire, but stay close enough so we can support you if they decide to target you."

Gries nodded solemnly. Normally, even his lightly defended freighter's antimissile defenses would have ridiculed that of even a Dominion gunship, but he evidently had heard the stories about how the Eternal Seeker had survived a 55 strong missile salvo at point blank range, from Near Verge missiles no less!

"I will make sure to carefully brief my navigator. Apart from that, anything else you require?"

Sarah shook her head.

"You told us everything we need to know about your previous encounter with your attackers." Like that the pirates had jumped him in transit from the hyperspace beacon to the planet, in the outer system to be precise, and that they'd used in system gunships for the job. His sensor recordings weren't that great, but Elteria had been able to coax an awful deal out of them. Like for example that the gunships weren't Uglies, and were definitely proper ships. Not warships perhaps, but definitely something a system government would build for self defence, quite possibly a camouflaged Dominion gunship monitor class as well. "We'll handle it. Just make sure to stay under the guns of Arion's defenses while we clear them out. I wouldn't put it past them to send someone off to kill you out of sheer spite."

Gries nodded, although his face was slightly dubious. Not from doubting her concerns, more of Arion's defenses value. Mainly because that world was even worse in that regard than Sepia, if you looked closely. According to their official data, they had a glorious system defence fleet composed of 2 corvette monitors and a dozen patrol cutters, plus a light cruiser sized asteroid defence platform. That sounded impressive...except that according to Gries one of their corvettes was basically a pile of scrap that barely had power half the time, most of their cutters never left orbit anymore, and their fortress was a pile of crap made by the lowest bidder that would have rotted in place if it physically could. Arion's defence spending wasn't just stingy, it was outright appalling, and whatever paltry amount was actually given to their fleet was largely siphoned off by corrupt officers and officials, or so it certainly seemed from the outside.

Still, it should be enough to ensure Gries' safety, not that Sarah had any other option. She certainly wasn't going to drag the lumbering freighter around to hunt down gunships and a pirate base! Especially not when their client was onboard said freighter.

"Alright then. I suppose we're ready as we're ever going to be. Just signal us when you are ready to jump captain. And tell your crew to prepare for a fight."