Chapter 1
Ru’ol
Ignoring the empty navigator’s seat on my left, I clutched the yoke of the Scintilla tightly.
I pushed away the voice in my head that insisted this was wrong—that I was sitting in his seat.
I shoved those thoughts aside. I didn’t need them, and I couldn’t afford them while flying through a cluttered field of debris.
My scanners were lighting up with something intense—a power signature unlike anything I’d encountered before.
I was pretty sure I’d just hit the jackpot as I steered in a zigzag pattern around broken pieces of ships, clusters of jagged-edged metal, and occasionally scuttled ships still intact.
Piloting a small salvage ship into the scrap field near Strewn was no easy task, especially without a proper navigator to plot a course.
Most salvage ships were built without navigators, so I wasn’t an exception; this job attracted loners of all kinds.
I couldn’t wait to figure out what I’d picked up on.
I’d crossed this section of the massive scrapyard not too long ago, and my scanners hadn’t seen it then.
It was new—or it was something that had recently turned on, possibly because of the massive solar flares that had run rampant across this system yesterday.
My tail lashed angrily against the back of my seat at the memory of being stuck on crowded, noisy, and often smelly Strewn.
The shipyard master ran the place with an iron hand; it was, after all, the most profitable shipyard in the Zeta Quadrant.
Ships coming out of this yard were sold to both sides of a war, to every military force in the system.
They claimed neutrality, but slaves or gladiator fights were not tolerated aboard the station.
That meant entertainment had to come from other sources, like gambling.
With how crowded the station had been yesterday, fights had broken out left and right.
I still had a bruise just below my left horn from a flying appendage, though all I’d done was try to back away.
My fighting days were done; I’d left the Kertinillian Army for a reason the moment my draft had been completed.
Whatever those solar flares had done—least of all wreaking havoc on the moods of people hiding inside the station—I was happy with the result.
I considered the small bruise worth it if this power signature turned out not to be a fluke.
Something generating this much heat was bound to be worth a fortune.
Nowadays, I lived for the thrill of such finds.
My buyer was going to be so happy with an item like this.
I cleared the nose of the Scintilla around the broken rear half of a Long Hauler, its squat back gaping open to the cold vacuum of space.
There! I saw something small spinning slowly just ahead, blue light glowing from the ends of the thick cylinder.
That had to be it, and I carefully approached, not wanting to steer too close in case the thing blew up.
My scanners beeped in warning, and I lowered my eyes for just a second to see what was going on.
“Ah, fuck,” I said, reading the signature of a ship approaching.
I knew that ship, and I knew who was in it.
There was only one kind of outcome if we were both after the same thing in this field: a fight.
Flicking my eyes back to the strange cylinder floating in space, I was surprised to see that it seemed much closer than before.
The signature of the Raptor streaked across my sensors—the pilot of the pretentiously named ship was flying recklessly through the debris.
I could either bail and give up on this precious piece of salvage, or take a riskier approach to haul this item in.
The Scintilla didn’t have any weapons to speak of, just the kind of defense systems and lasers designed to help me navigate the scrap field.
The Raptor’s owner was a big bully; he thrived on scaring other salvage workers away from their finds.
If someone managed to haul in something significant, he wasn’t above resorting to some good old-fashioned intimidation in person either.
He hadn’t tried it with me yet, and I was almost disappointed by that.
A little rivalry was normal among the salvagers—encouraged, even—but there were no hard feelings once we were at the bar.
That’s not how this was supposed to work, but Yatzel was a piece of work.
I was just thinking that when my comm pinged with an incoming signal.
Oh, so he wanted to threaten me into backing off, did he?
I laughed out loud as I slammed the answer button while engaging my magnetic hooks.
“What do you want, Yatzel?” I said with a smirk.
“Do you need directions back to Strewn? Are you lost or something?” I added, just to rile the bastard up.
I could see him on my viewscreens now. The Raptor was a red-streaked salvage ship outfitted with drills and hooks like the Scintilla on the front, with a bristling array of guns mounted on the top of the ship.
If he’d asked me, I would have suggested he mount some of that stuff on the sides—this just looked ridiculous.
I couldn’t imagine the Strewn mechanics being happy with those modifications.
Might be, he’d gone somewhere cheaper to get them done.
That was actually more likely; Yatzel was a cheapskate and not well liked around these parts.
“Back off, Ru’ol, this is my find,” Yatzel demanded in a rough growl.
I imagined he spoke with spittle flying in every direction, his crooked teeth leaning out from behind his partially missing upper lip.
Good thing I had the very best translator tech installed in my noggin, or I might not even be able to understand him. Huh, maybe that would’ve been better.
“Don’t think so, buddy,” I quipped back.
“I got here first, so you’ll just have to skedaddle.
” I waved my hands at the com screen as if he could see me, though I hadn’t engaged the camera for this call.
My ship shuddered when the magnetic hooks clunked as they hit their target. Yes, as always, my aim was impeccable.
My tail curled over my shoulder, flicking switches in preparation for a rapid departure.
The hooks were gently reeling in the strange object, and soon Yatzel would realize that I’d already gotten hold of it.
I was pretty sure he’d step up his tactics when he noticed.
He was a fucking bully and never outgrew that schoolyard phase.
I didn’t know many bullies who did, to be fair.
Must be a complete inability for self-reflection.
Thinking back on the bullies who had regularly beaten me up when I’d first started attending school on Ker, I pulled back my lips for a snarl Yatzel couldn’t see.
I hated bullies. Sure did show them when I grew two heads taller over the summer—didn’t make me a nice, soft target anymore.
I never would again, so I always hit first.
“Yeah, well, I claimed it first, so it doesn’t matter.
Leave, or I’ll make you leave,” Yatzel delivered as promised.
It even sounded like he’d smacked a fist into his palm.
My sensors blared with an alarm. No, he’d probably slammed his meaty hand on the arm weapons button.
“Stop that right now, or I’ll blow out your engines.
You’ll be for the scrap heap yourself then.
Is that what you want, you stupid, disfigured Kertinal? ”
“Oh, sure, I love it out here,” I said. My mind was not so much on what Yatzel was blathering about as on urging my magnetic hooks to pull in the object as fast as I dared. With those weapons aimed, I really needed to get a move on.
Engaging the rails attached to the belly of the Scintilla, I reeled the mag hooks to the back of my ship, spinning her nose around as I did so to face the Raptor head-on. I didn’t have any weaponry that could penetrate the ship’s excellent shielding, but I didn’t need to.
“I love it out here,” Yatzel said in a girly voice, a poor attempt at mocking me, I’d guess. Perfect timing. With a flick of a switch, a small explosive charge launched itself, exploding just off the Raptor’s bow. Yatzel cackled with laughter. “That it? You missed, you idiot!”
“Did I?” I said, just as the broken rear portion of the Long Hauler split into two large pieces before fragmenting further. The debris spun against the front of the Raptor, pinging off its shields and obstructing its view.
I didn’t stick around to listen to his swearing.
The object was three-quarters of the way in, and it had to be enough.
Pressing on the yoke, I rapidly darted the Scintilla away from the Raptor and its predicament, swerving around some more broken pieces of a ship before ducking the nose of the Scintilla beneath an intact cruiser.
On the viewscreen displaying feeds from the rear of the ship, I could see the object being towed along on the mag hooks. I really hoped those were going to hold; I didn’t dare pull it in more. If I did, it would slam into the hull—a sure way to destroy the thing and my ship.
The Raptor had already recovered. I could say what I wanted about Yatzel’s lack of character—he was a damn good pilot.
For a moment, I thought he’d actually shot at me when a blue light started filling up the viewscreen.
Then it flashed across all my sensors, and alarms started blaring immediately.
The Scintilla was tossed about like a tiny raft in rough water.
I had no control any longer and no sensors or sight to even see where I was going.
I thought I was going to die, crashing into a broken ship at crazy speeds, blown to bits by one of Yatzel’s oversized guns.
I swear the guy had to be compensating. I should have claimed that piece of land on one of the many Kertinal worlds.
Homesteading in peace would have been much smarter than this.
At least I’d see Ar’tax on the other side…
The blue light disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, receding from the front of my ship until I was gazing at a blue-and-green planet that was rapidly approaching.
The planet grew larger in just the second it took for me to glance at my sensors and check their readings.
“Error: Unfamiliar location,” announced the nav console.
I doubted that, but I didn’t have time to examine it further.
“Danger, approaching reentry at dangerous speeds,” the ship announced. Ya think? That planet was now filling up my entire viewscreen. My sensors were reading dangerous heat streaking around the nose of the Scintilla as we started burning up in this planet’s atmosphere.
The strange object was still dangling from the mag hooks, but it was no longer glowing blue from either end.
“You did this to us, you stupid thing,” I said as I rapidly worked to stabilize our descent.
I couldn’t avoid a landing, but I’d like to try not to die in the process.
Thinking I was about to die once was one time too many for the day; I didn’t need to add another to the tally.
“Reentry too fast, slow down,” the ship said placidly.
I growled while muting the thing, one hand clutched in a death grip around the yoke as I tried to pull the nose up as much as I could.
Almost! Yes, there. I had slowed the ship down enough that we weren’t rattling apart in the atmosphere, but the landing was going to be really rough.
As the Scintilla streaked through the sky on the night side of the planet, I was dismayed to see the lights of cities glowing beneath me.
This place was inhabited. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be good or bad for me, and I didn’t think I wanted to find out.
At least my sensors were telling me this place had safe levels of oxygen to breathe; that counted as a definite win.
I had little control over the exact direction of the ship, but I was relieved it was descending—still rather rapidly—over what looked to be thick forests covered in blankets of snow.
In the distance, a lake glimmered like a black mirror.
It was my best bet: putting the Scintilla down in the water would mean she’d take the least damage.
Now, I just needed to hope that, when I launched myself out with the eject seat, some huge lake creature wasn’t going to eat me. With my tail, I slammed on the panel near my head, popping it open so that my emergency kit dropped into my lap.
Course set, I tucked myself tightly against the seat and harness, then pressed the eject button.
The canopy above my head spiraled open like an iris in less than a microsecond.
The charges below my seat then activated, launching me through the newly opened hatch and into the crystal-clear, freezing cold night air of this planet.
As I streaked through the sky, the wind whipping at my clothing and my mane, I realized I wasn’t landing in the water.
Oh, shit. I cursed as a dwelling inside the forest rapidly came into sight.
This was going to hurt. I crashed down onto the roof of the little cabin, the harness ripping free.
My bag went flying, and I went head over heels across the roof until I slammed headfirst into a rock hard surface.