Chapter 1

Space was dead except for the thrum. The engines firing merrily from the rear carried the sound through the vessel along its metal plating and expensive alloy underpinnings to be echoed through the many ducts. The deck plates, while subtle in their motion, vibrated just enough for Marcus to feel beneath his booted feet as his fingers moved off the keys where he adjusted his trajectory and then the silence fell again. Dead space.

He never got over the silence though he was able to cope better than most. Drifting through the vast expanse toward one’s destination was lonely and many had given over to space madness from it. He knew several who installed devices throughout their ship to have ambient sound of some kind. Some always had music playing. Others still burned fuel if nothing was available. But Marcus was more disciplined than that. He used the quiet to think and study. The quiet was often distressing, but it was when sounds came that one truly needed be worried.

He adjusted himself in his faux leather seat and looked at the readout to his right. Everything was well within tolerance and his vital supplies; food, fuel, and air were within expected quantities. His left hand stretched while still reading from his right and he punched in commands to run a few unautomated diagnostics and scans without looking.

It would take a while for all the results to come in so he grabbed his glass eye from its resting spot around the stick and gingerly set it on his head in the proper position. It only took a few seconds for his neural chip to interface with the neural band of the device, a yellowed alloy that ran in a thin band across his forehead, and the lone transparent red screen hovering a few inches in front of his left eye began to load his settings. He read messages and scrolled through a few files before he decided he would listen to some music. It only took a second for the glass eye to link with the ships comm systems and a soft melody flowed from the network like a wave into the cockpit rising to a crescendo before tapering off only to rise again.

Little beeps overlaid the music at odd points but it was an hour and a half before Marcus looked at the readout to examine all the scans and diagnostics at once. Everything was fine. He queued up another set of music on the glass eye while beginning a preprogrammed external scan on his console. He sat back and sighed in boredom but the second composition had just started when the music abruptly died as a pleasant woman’s voice came over the system. “High priority substance detected in sufficient quantities; Margin of error 19%”. The ships voice component faded into the background and the music was starting again but Marcus killed it before it reached its regular volume. He removed the glass eye and looked at his readout. In flashing bold red letters stood out the word “Aurgustun”

The readout clocked away as the quantity continued to rise. A quick tap brought up detailed information. The detailed list gave specific though brief information on the element. “Element 126 known as ‘Aurgustun’ is a noble gas that was first discovered through man made attempts in the year 2087. Its current primary use is as a filter to excite photons to a hyper activate state which gives beam weapons their heat in modern lasers and cutting equipment for mining and construction. It is highly volatile and standard safety procedure beta 12-5 should be taken for shipping and transport.”

The phrase “beta 12-5” was a hyperlink that would lead to the proper safety procedures but Marcus had read it before. Indeed he didn’t even read the brief information about the element as he knew it by heart. Instead he scrolled below to watch the count rise and to locate the position. Other man-made elements and alloys began to pop up on his screen. He minimized them and threw them to the corner occasionally watching their counts rise. Hydrogen ions were depleted in the area and he sighed in relief, but the quantities he was getting suggested one of two things; either a massive battle, or very large ships.

Double checking his readout on hydrogen ions, he tapped a few keys on the control. There was a hum as the engines on his small ship rotated to the proper positions and a few thrusters fired. Then the thrum was back as the engines sprang to life. He ran several programs designed to let him safely navigate both asteroid fields and salvage sites and as he neared the location his ship automatically slowed and scanning began.

His scans ended and he plotted a course to get near enough of the substances of interest to bring them into his hold. He had been harvesting for only an hour when the ship spoke again. “Intermittent homing beacon detected in personal grid 541-2. Would you like to set a course?” Marcus sighed. That was the problem with salvaging new wrecks. Survivors were always so prickly about it. “Yea, I guess. Plot us a course, Leslie, but keep current evasion protocols activate. Let’s not repeat that again.”
“Sir, I’m only a program and do only what I’m told”, the ship responded as the hum of the rotating engines began and the thrusters fired.
“I understand that, but I don’t normally tell you to keep the artificial gravity on or to continue to recycle the air do I? This is common sense stuff,” he huffed back as the thrum returned.
“I have no common sense, Sir.”
“I’ll not be taking sass from you young lady.”
“I’m incapable of sass, Sir.”
Marcus sighed. “Just get us there in one piece, Leslie.”
“Yes Sir.” And the voice was gone.

Why had he installed that dimwitted AI? He could have sold it for a decent price almost anywhere, though truth be told anywhere but a ship, and a ship of Korrim design no less, would have taken a major overhaul. But he was older. And some days he was lonelier than others now. Quickly approaching his mid-thirties he often craved conversation, even the simulated conversation of a computer AI on those long flights between ports. Leslie had filled that roll.

She was good, but only being activate for a few months, they were both still getting used to each other. On her first activation she began deleting his programs because they were not part of the standard model of navigation and flight operations of a Korrim military vessel. They were also not locked and labeled in the proper fashion. He was lucky to stop her before it went too far. A few weeks later she almost killed him when he was ready to leave a salvaging area he had found and she just took off paying no heed to massive amount of floating debris in the area. Had he not manually activated his shields and had they not been more powerful than the standard he would have become part of that very debris field. He very nearly deactivated her on the spot. But time went on and they began to get used to one another. She began to understand what his wishes truly were and he began to anticipate what uninformed decision she would make next.

Marcus stood up and walked around the cockpit. The chair was comfortable but he needed a stretch. He kicked the deck plates with the toes of his boots to settle them in place though in truth they were quite settled and tied expertly and tightly; laced all the way up like the professional solider he used to be. His flight pants were tucked into those boots and he checked the pockets to make sure everything was in place for the hundredth time that day. He then smoothed his plain black shirt and made a quick run around the waistline of his pants to make sure it had not become untucked. Then, interlacing his fingers, he put his hands on his head and breathed deeply.

Marcus was not vain, but he was quiet the model of a man. Standing at 212cm he was impressive in height and he was fit and muscular. His ebony skin was flawless and though the march to his mid thirties was nearing its end, he showed no signs of graying or hair loss on his close crop dark hair. His brown eyes, too, were flawless orbs, never needing vision correction and always taking in everything. He was intelligent, and his wits were quick. He loved to read everything he could lay his hands on almost as much as he loved to fly. The only thing that he loved more was the search; finding those things lost to the void of space be they ships to salvage or minerals to mine on asteroids. The discovery was thrilling.

He had only made a couple of trips around his small cockpit when Leslie’s voice came over the comm again. “Confirmed: Cryrostasis pod. Model ELG104 Mk:VI.”
“Do you have a visual?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Marcus moved back to his seat but the picture did not emerge.
Marcus sighed. “Would you please put the feed on the viewscreen, Leslie?”
A picture emerged on the top right corner of the viewscreen. He quickly set it to cover a full half of the screen. Then he swore under his breath.
“Do you think it might be possible to light it up so I could see it?” he said scathingly.
“Yes Sir,” she reply. Nothing happened.
Marcus ground his teeth in frustration. “Leslie, would you please light the pod up for me?”
“Yes Sir.”
The flood lights came on and swiveled on their mounts. The distance was great but the pod could be made out now, though just an occasional gleam of metal and now that his vision was focused on the proper spot, he could occasionally make out alternating blue and red lights.

The ship moved closer to the pod and it became more illuminated by the search lights. The pod had a complex axis of rotation which gave the idea it had been battered by several pieces of debris. Finally the light shone on the front of the pod and Marcus swore loudly as he made out the markings. The pod was clearly marked as belonging to the Coalition.

“Shall I destroy the pod, Sir,” asked Leslie.
“What? No! Damn it Leslie!” Marcus paused getting his wits under control again. He could fire on the pod. A single shot would end the problem, but he did have what he hoped was a higher sense of morality. He sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. “Tractor it into hold 4 and activate the medical bay. No telling how long he’s been out there.”

Marcus threw the console to one side. “Keep salvaging what you can. I’ll be back when I get this sorted out. You know the priorities. Don’t kill us little girl!”
“I will endeavor to make it so.”
Marcus grunted and made for the door.
“Marcus,” Leslie said as he was almost out the door.
Marcus stepped through and continued down the hallway toward the cargo holds near the rear of the ship. “What is it, Leslie?”
“You should have killed him.” The doors hissed closed to the cockpit and the hum sounded again as thrusters set to work to position the ship. He marched down the hallway, footfalls echoing off the empty walls. The human in him was appalled at Leslie’s suggestion, but the ex-soldier in him couldn’t help but agree.

So I got a bit further ahead last night. Doing a quick polish and going to actually post Chapter 2 here in just a few minutes because, you know, it really is Saturday now

Chapter 2

The lights were dim down the hallway, but Marcus knew the ship well. It was a robust little ship. A work in progress; an old class Y Seeker of Korrim design that had seen better days when he got it for a steal and had it fixed up. A new power converter, a used data core, miles of conduits, cables, and wires, and a four month’s worth of pirated and salvaged program installation and system debugging finally saw the ship fit for space.

He had upgraded and modified the craft several times over the years. But he never bothered with the non-essentials. The living quarters left a lot to be desired as he had always been the only passenger, but all eight rooms were intact even though they resembled prison cells more than ship quarters. Only four had a padded bunk and two others had a chair. The only table to be found was in his quarters though it was rarely used. The computers didn’t work in any of the rooms save for his own. The engine room was a nest of cables and wires that ran along the floor, walls, and ceiling many looping down or protruding from their mounts to create a complex spider’s web waiting for its prey. A jumbled mess of unlabeled conduits of power that fed into unlabeled junctions was a deathtrap for an aspiring engineer. The other rooms in the ship were either equally sparse or equally messy except the cargo holds. They were, by comparison, pristine. Four large chambers each with bio force fields surrounded thick armored hull plating to protect the ship from any unknown bio-hazards and unforeseen explosions made the cargo hold a virtual fort. Each of the holds was well stocked with tools, supplies, and equipment to aid in the deconstruction or removal of the ship’s salvaged cargo. It was how Marcus made a living now, and as such received the most attention of all the rooms on the ship with the cockpit coming in a close second.

It was in front of one of these cargo holds, hold four to be exact, that Marcus found himself standing. He placed his hands on the door and slowly lowered his head until it made contact with the steel/plastic hybrid. The war was over. A shaky peace had been held for over five years now. Part of the cease fire was no military vessel of Federation, Alliance, or Coalition was to breach the other’s borders without expressed consent and with proper documentation. Those borders were well define and had been painstakingly erected over the course of ten years while men, women, and resources continued to be sacrificed. Getting a permit to travel into another faction’s space with a ship even minimally armed had been next to impossible. Yet here he was, deep in Alliance space with a freezepod clearly marked as Coalition among debris that could only be from heavily armed vessels. Slowly he lifted his head and brought up the controls by the door. He pressurized the room and filled it with breathable air. Then, manually locking the bay doors to prevent Leslie form making another poor decision, he opened the doors in front of him and walked through.

The pod was the only thing in the room. He walked to it with some trepidation though he inwardly had to chuckle at Leslie’s ability to set the thing right side up without expressed desire. He glanced through the sight which extended from head to mid chest and saw the pale white corpse. He was an older man, already bald and what silver hair he had left created a halo around his head. His cheeks were hollow but from genetics and not lack of food. He was thin but fit, his shoulders were wide and his arms had muscle left on them. It was the clothes that were a cause for concern. Tight fitting insulated, and durable, he wore the blue, gold, and black of military Coalition.

Marcus took in every detail about the man before turning to free an anti-grav lift from its parking space along the wall. He wheeled it over to the pod and set the brake, activating the small tractor beam inside the handle. With the grace and speed of someone who had done this a thousand times, he quickly had the pod loaded and activated the small repulsor beams below which gave the lift the illusion of anti-gravity and thus its name.

He pulled the cart out of the hold and then closed and sealed the doors before unlocking the bay doors. As he carted the freezepod down the corridor he ran over his options in his mind. As he ticked them off one by one in his head, he found viable options few and none of them pleasant. He still might have time but he wouldn’t know until he got to medical.

The beauty of the modern cryrostasis pod was it froze the body but kept the mind activate by shutting down autonomic responses in the brain such as breathing and heartbeat while allowing other areas such as the hippocampus to continue functioning by artificially oxygenating the blood and recycling it as well as a synthetic cerebral fluid and a sedative. The trick was survival times because they varied so drastically. Almost everyone could survive for five hours but after that the results varied. Some could survive for six hours, others eight. There had been documented reports of some surviving for as long as twenty without noticeable damage. However, at some point, the brain began to break down and irreversible damage occurred.

Everyone who ever found themselves in need of the emergency device always described it as a heightened sense of dreaming. They would dream vividly but much like lucid dreaming, they would be aware of the dream. Many psychological and medical experts had theories on why the brain would breakdown, but testing their theories was a difficult and an inexact process as failures resulted in death.

Marcus entered the medical bay with the lift and pulled it alongside the surgical bed before raising it to the same height. He found the module he was looking for on a nearby cart and plugged it into the port on the side of the capsule. The readout began to display information.

Cryrostasis Pod information grid:

Model: ELG104
Design: MkVI
Enacted to Service: Coalition Fretten Fighter Nemock – Class 2 LT
Name of occupant: N/A
Rank of occupant: N/A
Identification Number: N/A
Stasis Message: N/A
Timer: T -1:23/5:00
Additional Information: N/A

Well that was a lot of help thought Marcus as he slammed his hand on the top of the chamber. He unplugged the module and set it aside and flopped into a chair to contemplate his next move. He thrust his frustration to the side and tried to focus on what he knew.

The occupant was in a Coalition outfit in a Coalition pod from a Coalition fighter. The problem was the occupant appeared to be older than most fighter pilots. He would have been a very unlikely choice to climb into the cockpit as his body wouldn’t have taken the quick artificial G-Swings that accompany fighter pilot duty. Likewise a Coalition Class 2 fighter was shielded fighter that lacked the fuel capacity to travel very far; less than 12 light years at full tilt under cruise speeds. It was generally launched from a mother ship once combat was entered and its fuel was then used in abundance to support its superior speed and maneuverability especially as a classified LT or Light Tactical ship. The mass of debris could very well account for a couple of large capital ships, but what would an armed and armored Capital Coalition ship be doing this deep into Alliance territory. Likewise, if this pilot had been ejected for a full two and a half hours before he arrived, shouldn’t more Alliance forces be here by now to assess the damage and look for survivors. The whole damn thing made no sense.

“Leslie,” he called.
“Yes Sir.”
“Any ships nearby?”
“The amount and disbursement of debris makes it impossible to tell how many ships are in the immediate area.”
Marcus swore. “Are there any INTACT ships in the area?”
There was a pause. “None, Sir.”
“Is there any within our sensors range?”
There was another pause, this one longer, “None, Sir”.
“How close to the nearest Alliance military base?”
“Felma Research Base is approximately four light years, Sir.”
Two hours away.
“How far to nearest Coalition Border?”
“Am I to assume you wish a trajectory that circumvents Alliance systems and common routes?”
You had to give it to her, when it came to tactical assumptions within a current conversation she was often correct. Still he paused before answering. “Yes.”
“25.26 light years.”
“All dead space?”
“Yes, Sir. There would be no gravitational bodies sufficient to help accelerate the ship’s velocity at, however traffic would be minimal.”
“Doesn’t really help if we don’t have anything to give us a push start.”
He quickly did the math. He had enough fuel to get to the border with a single solar body, but if there was no base nearby he didn’t have enough for the return trip. He also didn’t have the luxury of time for a border run. The man’s life was only assured for another hour and a half unless he woke him. And the man would need at least 24 hours before he could enter a pod again safely. He closed his eyes, leaned back in the chair a raised his hands to the top of his head interlinking his fingers. He ticked off his options again, each one sounding poorer than the last. Finally he threw himself out of the chair and plugged the module back into the pod. The readout began to display the pod information again. He saw the time. T -1:16/5:00. A little over one hour was left then borrowed time.

He turned and left the medical bay, the doors hissing open then closed behind him. As he marched down the hallway he called to Leslie. “How close are we to full?”
“We need approximately another twenty-seven minutes to fill the holds.”
“Cancel that. We’re leaving. Set a course for that nearest Alliance military base.”
“Am I to ignore the debris this time?”
Sarcasm? From Leslie?
“No, Leslie. Get us out of the debris first. That is part of the course plotting.”
“Yes, Sir.”
By the time Marcus got to the cockpit, the course was laid in. He sat in his chair and initiated maneuvers. The hum of firing thrusters and pivoting engines filled the cockpit then the deck plates vibrated as the deep thrum of the engines seeped through the ship. The scans outside the field were complete and the window for acceleration to light speed had just been found when an alarm went off. Marcus had been on this ship for a very long time and knew the alarms by pitch and cadence. A ship had been detected.

He swung the panel to his right into position and a couple of pressed buttons later he had tactical data. It was an Alliance military vessel of Terio design. Heavy shielding, heavy plating, and lots of fuel storage. He knew the ship type. It was a powerful fighting ship. A few seconds later the trajectory came up. It was heading straight toward them.

“Shall I raise the force fields and take control of tertiary weapons systems,” Leslie asked in that same calm voice with which she addressed everything.
“No, Leslie,” he said. “They are probably just late getting to the party. Besides, I’m sure they can take the passenger off my hands so I don’t have to taxi him around. It gives us more time to salvage.” He glanced down at the panel. “Fifteen minutes until he gets here. We’ll just float until he arrives. I don’t want to give him a reason to shoot at us.”
“Marcus,”
“Yes”
“This is a bad idea.”
Her second opinion of the day, and the second time the solider in him felt she was right.

Chapter 3

Ten minutes out, he hailed them. “Attention inbound Alliance HT Fighter, this is Federation salvage ship Jerry Lowell with proper documentation. We have important information on salvaged artifacts from this debris field. Please contact us on a secure channel.” There was no response. After a few seconds he ran a repeat of the message. Still no response came. “Keep trying, Leslie. I’m going to go check our friend and make him ready for offloading.” He got up and made his way to the door.
“Don’t do that, Marcus.”
“Huh?” There was firmness in her voice that was never there before.
“The situation is hot. I need you here.”
He laughed. “The situation isn’t ‘hot’ Leslie.”
“You are a well decorated ex-solider of the Federation in a modified and armed Federation ship in Alliance space with Coalition military personnel on board next to a debris field of unknown origin. The situation is ‘hot’.” She paused but Marcus didn’t speak. “If the situation plays out how you are hopeful it will, there will be time enough to move your… guest. If not, I need you here.”
He couldn’t argue the logic.
“Alright, Leslie, if it’ll make you feel better,” and he walked around and fell back into his seat.
“I don’t feel, Sir. It is just by far the most prudent step.”

The time ticked away and another five minutes passed. “Are you still trying to hail that Alliance ship?”
“Yes sure. I have the message repeating itself every ten seconds.”
Marcus glanced at his panel to confirm the comm. signal was being sent out. “That means one of two things. Either they aren’t receiving it, or they are receiving it and can’t reply.”
“There is a third possibility that is more likely, Sir.”
“What’s that?”
“They are receiving it and are choosing not to reply.”
Marcus felt cold. He knew he was in a bad situation and things that didn’t make sense had a way of turning into things that tried to kill you in his experience. Another minute passed, then another.
“Alright Leslie, raise the force fields.”
“Yes, Sir.” There was a familiar sound as the emitters charged and then sprang to life and a new low frequency hum could be heard in the silence. The quiet was often distressing, but it was when sounds came that one truly needed be worried.

It was instinct alone and he would never remember consciously doing it, but he removed the glass eye from around the stick and sleeved it in a pocket alongside his chair. He then moved the stick a little closer in range. Another minute passed, then another. Thirty seconds. Twenty. Ten. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. The ship appeared out of nowhere in a streak of matter with shields active and target locked. Marcus jerked the stick to his side and was ready in an instant for anything but then a secure comm. channel opened. “This is the Alliance Military Fighter Voldell to the Federation salvage ship Jerry Lowell. Lower your shields immediately and transmit your documentation or you will be fired upon.”

Marcus wavered. The Voldell could have been sent that command over comm. channels before he arrived. Yet more things that failed to make sense. The comm. line sprang to life again. “I repeat for the final time: Lower your shields and transmit your documentation immediately or you will be fired upon.”
He was out of time, but he decided to try to negotiate. It was a gutsy move, but he was out of time. He activated the comm. “Negative Voldell. The nature of the artifact I have necessitates I keep my shields up. I am, however, sending you my documentation now.” He pulled up his documents and sent them to the ship. A few moments later the Voldell came back on the comm.
“Describe the nature of this artifact and your reason for being here.”
“I’m a salvager as those documents attested. At 0827 I detected Aurgustun in sufficient quantities to trip my sensors. I arrived at this debris field at 0900 to find it much the way it is now and began a scanning and salvage operation. While engaged in this activity I was alerted to a weak homing signal around 1000 hours. I found a cryrostasis pod from a Coalition fighter ship containing an unknown male of unknown age or rank in a Coalition Military uniform. He is currently still in stasis in my medical bay. I had laid in a course to Felma Research Base when our sensors picked you up. We decided to wait for you instead of making the trip.”

The comm. was quiet for quite a long time before it came back to life. “The Alliance appreciates your efforts. I will now take the prisoner into custody. Please lower your shields and jettison the pod. The military will compensate you for your service.”

“Acknowledged”

Things still didn’t make sense and something wasn’t right. It might have been the sound of the man’s voice or just a gut feeling, but something was off. Still, Marcus had no logical cause for concern. After all he was getting everything he wanted. He’d made peace with the ordeal, he was getting rid of a weight, and if the Voldell was being truthful he’d even be rewarded. Still, it didn’t sit right.

He made it to the medical bay and checked the timer. T-0:49:02/5:00:00. It was less than an hour so the seconds count had began. He pulled the module from the pod and then lowered the lift. It took less than a minute to get to the pod launcher. His own pods were stationed by the launch site. He carried four. Always be prepared. The tractor beam in the anti-grav lift made short work of the chore of positioning the pod in the launcher and he began the trek back to his cockpit.

He knew the poor old bastard would be subjected to all manner of interrogations, but it was the real world out there not some work of fiction. It was harsh and ugly and post-war was often as brutal as war itself. His skin was fine. But his conscience was not assuaged by that argument and his heart grew ever heavier with each step he took.

Far too quickly he was back at command and he hailed the Voldell. “Voldell this is the Jerry Lowell. I’m ready to lower shields and eject the pod.”
“Acknowledged. I’ve dropped my shields. Proceed wh…”
Marcus heard the alarm as he saw the streak of matter appear. Tactical read it was another Alliance HT fighter. The Voldell, its shields down, didn’t have a chance as the newcomer unloaded its arsenal on the sitting duck. If his own shields were down, the explosion of shrapnel would have finished off Marcus as well. Instead he saw all too clearly the pieces of the fighter deflect off his shields as the ever present hum increased in pitch.

Marcus had the stick in hand while debris was still ricocheting off his shields and he threw it forward speeding down underneath the recently destroyed ship. The new ship was identified as Beta-1 on his readouts and before long it was behind him. There was no talking this time as the ship began firing on him as soon as he was in its sights. Leslie didn’t even ask before taking control of the two turrets. The Jerry Lowell was a large vessel meant for making short runs with cargo and no match for a fighter, but Marcus was an accomplished pilot. He had seen more than a few battles and been able to escape them all, but he couldn’t throw his attacker.

He moved with efficiency and grace that is belied the ship’s given abilities. He ducked and weaved to spin and shoot, only to duck out of line of fire again. Still it was a losing battle. While Marcus was most likely the better pilot, the fighter was the far superior vessel in firepower and maneuverability and the hits scored by the fighter versus his own was adding up to a losing fight.
“Leslie,” he shouted, “Get us a scan to get out of here!”
“Already working on it, Sir.”
“Work faster damn it! We don’t have long.” Marcus threw the stick over with a twist and activated the port side thrusters spinning the ship in a sinking spiral. Then he synced the nose and rear thrusters flipping the ship over end and now traveling backwards on an asynchronous axis, unloaded an oblong spiraling volley of fire. The targeting was off of course but it insured at least a few strikes on the Beta-1 as it tried to navigate a seemingly random influx of fire. As Beta-1 deviated, Marcus flipped the ship back around.

“What kind of shields,” he asked Leslie as he swung around into an evasive maneuver.
“Judging by the frequency and fire taken, it appears to be standard issue, Sir.”
“How are our forward emitters?”
“Within ninety-eight percent of tolerance. We’ve taken very little forward damage.”
Marcus turned the ship and headed toward the debris field and the thrum from the engines left no doubt they were running at full strength.
“Sir, if you are planning on doing what I think you are planning, you’ll just be clearing a path for him to follow us.”
Marcus began an evasive circular route to avoid incoming fire. He could see the missed blasts streak off into the distance and feel the blows from behind hitting his shields and rattling the ship. The pitch was getting higher from the rear emitters.
“Twenty percent of emitter tolerance on aft shields. Failure imminent.”
“I know. I know. We’ll make it.” He reached over with his left hand and pounded in a few commands. A moment later, the ship was rocked from impact as he began taking hits from entering the debris field at full speed.

“Light him up, Leslie! Everything you got to weaken those forward shields! Keep those rear shields up for as long as you can!” He had given up evasive action and instead plowed straight forward through the field. He saw Leslie tapping into battery power to keep the turrets at full power and rotating the rear emitters trying to keep some protection on their rear. Twenty seconds until he cleared the debris field the rear emitters reached a screech and finally went silent as they failed. As soon as they died, Marcus slammed his hand on his controls and cargo hold 1 was decompressed. Leslie didn’t miss the chance. With the speed of calculation only an AI could compute she locked on and fired just as the first barrels of came in contact with the shields of the enemy ship. The laser super heated the Aurgustun and beautiful plasma eruption overloaded Beta-1’s emitters instantly. Another slam on the controls decompressed cargo hold 2 and all manner of shrapnel was blown out behind the Jerry Lowell. The fighter’s hull, without the protection of shields, was shredded.

The Jerry Lowell exited the debris field proper with their forward shields on the verge of collapse and turned hard to starboard. Marcus traveled a few thousand kilometers before he let off the drive to travel on inertia. The screech from the forward emitters had subsided into a low hum and the aft emitters had cooled enough to reinitialize. He punched in an evasive program and after a bit of maneuvering on thrusters he killed the shields. The silence was overwhelming.

It took a few minutes to get himself under control. Then he pulled the control panel over and began to go over the sensors. After a few seconds he broke the silence. “What the hell, Leslie! Why did we not see that ship coming?”
“I don’t know, Sir. Scanning was operative at the time. It never showed up.”
He dug deeper finding nothing and slammed his fist on the panel.
“While I’m sure that helps you, Sir, it does nothing to help the situation.”
“I know,” Marcus vented leaning his elbows on the panel and burying his face in his hands. “We got to get out of here too.”
“Were to, Sir?”
It was a question to which Marcus didn’t know the answer. Someone in an Alliance fighter engaged him in diplomacy. Someone in an Alliance fighter engaged him in a fire fight. He was fairly certain that both actions were over his guest locked in stasis. He was equally certain that others would know about the situation and so jettisoning the pod and forgetting it existed wasn’t an option as it was the only bargaining chip he had. He couldn’t stay here, and he didn’t want to risk the Alliance Military firing on him when they had more than one fighter. That really reduced his options.

“Do the preflight check on the boson converter and head for the sun, Leslie. Lay in a course for the Edward-Howell Station that doesn’t have a lot of traffic and gets us across the border without a check.” He brought up a chart punched up some coordinates after taking a look. “There should be good. We’re going home.”

A few minutes later another star chart popped up on the viewscreen with a line indicating a route. “Is this sufficient, Sir?”
He studied the chart for a few moments. “Yes, that will do.”
There was the hum as thrusters moved the ship into position and the engines rotated. Then the thrum began and an alarm went off indicating the boson converter was flooding the ship with antihiggs-boson particles slowly lifting it out of the higgs field. The world began to blur as they neared light speed and the pain that came with reduced body mass took over. Just before lifting out of the higgs field completely the cold took over as the ship was dropped below absolute zero near instantly.

He never got over that feeling. Consciousness was an odd thing and though everyone’s experience was the same, no one could account for the human mind continuing to function. When exiting the higgs field all matter turned to energy and began traveling at the speed of light. The threshold saw the end to all thoughts and feelings. There was no more senses save for the sense of self and sight though sight only afforded one an alternating palate of pure black and white. The threshold lasted for different times for different people, another mystery for which science couldn’t account though they had a list of theories that spanned all realms of theoretical physics, though to any matter based person the change was constant and less than a picosecond. Then it was over as the transition from matter to dark matter was finished and the hole was punched through space-time. At the instant of inception, dark matter was repelled by the forces of space-time curvature in an opposite yet equal fashion and thus already traveling at the speed of light faster than light travel was possible.

The shock to the system was intense and as Marcus’s body began to adapt to what had happen his vision cleared. After several seconds, he was a functioning person again and more out of routine than necessity he checked the systems. When he was convinced everything was fine, he rose and started to leave the cockpit.

“Where are you going, Sir?”
“Medical Bay.”
“Are you ill or injured?”
“No, but our guest doesn’t have a lot of time left on the clock.”
“You plan to wake him then?”
“Yes. I need to get some answers from him because I can’t be sure if people will talk to me or shoot at me.”
“I suggest you arm yourself, Sir.”
Marcus chuckled “Leslie, he’s coming out of stasis and won’t be in any condition to fight even if he wanted to.”
“Yes, Sir. But you were the one who said you couldn’t be sure if you would be talked to or shot at.”
Marcus walked back to his chair and picked up a hand beamer and magnetic holster and strapped them on. He told himself a certain level of caution was warranted given the circumstances, but he knew it was the solider in him he had previously ignored. Well, the solider and Leslie.

A rather interesting story. I like how you've taken the time to flush it out and explain a few things with back ground history.

It has been 17 days and sadly no chapter 4. I hope to see more work from you in the near future.

Thank you for the kind words. An explanation and the next chapter is going up now

Chapter 1, third paragraph, I assume you meant 'automated diagnostics' since unautomated means it's manual...?

This 'glass eye' device, I assume it's something like a monocle, that has electrical properties? Being that it activates and interfaces with a persons' brain and/or nervous system? Rather than an actual eye, that goes in a human eye socket?

Some of your sentence construction is a tad confusing, such as the following:

Why had he installed that dimwitted AI? He could have sold it for a decent price almost anywhere, though truth be told anywhere but a ship, and a ship of Korrim design no less, would have taken a major overhaul.

Anywhere but a ship? Does this mean only Korrim designed ships are capable of an AI? Or that this type of AI (how many other types are there?) would only work with a Korrim ship? Etc, etc. Slightly irrelevant to the musings put forth, but interesting questions to look back on.

Active, instead of activate? Is also seems that while this AI is 'dimwitted' in Marcus' experience, it seems to be learning his habits, thought patterns, etc, etc.

I love the description of the ship and it's restoration in Chapter 2. Reminds me a lot of Firefly and somewhat of the Millennium Falcon, though I am not sure Marcus is a smuggler, nor up for that kind of other-side-of-the-law shenanigans.

Also, Federation/Alliance/Coalition, aren't they more or less the same thing? Unless they are dominated by a single species, like Terran Federation, Kligon-Romulan Alliance, etc, etc? I imagine it's just short-hand thinking, but it seems merrily redundant for the reader.

An aside, mid-thirties in this universe is 'getting on in years' with the expectation of greying or thinning hair? Even loss of fitness, possibly due to weightlessness (in case of no artificial gravity, among other things)? And 212cm? That's quite tall for a human, nearly 7ft.

I wonder, what were Marcus' specialties as a soldier, and for whom (meaning which branch, rather than which faction)? He can apparently restore a Korrim ship (which still has little significance in the grand scheme of this universe) and reinitialize an AI within a few months, and begin salvage operations. Single-handedly.

One thing I've found strange, is the lack of italics when Marcus is thinking, and general lack of punctuation when this happens, a couple corrected examples:

Well that was a lot of help, thought Marcus as he slammed his hand on the top of the chamber.

Sarcasm? From Leslie?

Also, 12 light years for a fighter? That seems rather....generous, unless the classification of a fighter is much larger than most sci-fi games/movies/shows lead us to believe? Also, could "powerful fighting ship" be more specifically defined? Is it a large/small fighter? Or a corvette, perhaps? Are most fighters jump-capable (assuming Marcus' ship is a small frigate-like ship)? And what is an 'HT Fighter'? This is starting to sound like a game that has way too many classifications for things across too many variable races....

As a matter of expediency, I think you can just write 'comm' instead of looking like a short-hand, as in 'comm.' We all know, thus far, that is means communications, and no need to over-punctuate.

His skin was fine.

Seems an awfully strange place for that short sentence to be, at least to me. Maybe combine it with the following sentence somehow?

His body was fine, though his conscience was not. [enter the heart weighing more with each step]

I am not sure of the word structure in this:

He moved with efficiency and grace that is belied the ship’s given abilities.

Shouldn't it be more like:

He moved with an efficiency and grace that belied the ship’s given abilities.

Though the word belie never did sit right with me for some reason......

"Were to, sir?" should probably be "Where to, sir?"

Someone in an Alliance fighter engaged him in diplomacy. Another someone in an Alliance fighter engaged him in a fire fight.

Boson Converter should be capitalized, I think. Anti-Higgs Boson.....Semantics, I know, but we have barely found the 'normal' Higgs Boson Higgs Field should also be capitalized, yes? So this form of light-speed travel is really a faster-that-light travel? By how many factors? Is there a limit to the distance a single jump can traverse? Can people be stuck in this FTL universe? I'm sure someones' consciousness can.....Hm....

Thank you for taking the time to point out some things. I’ll answer them as best I can.

To start with, yes the glass eye is indeed some electrical device and not an artificial eye that fits into a socket. Basically it is like a metal headband with a small armature that extends outward. At the end of the armature is thin red piece of glass that acts like a screen as it sets in front of one of the user’s eyes. I’m trying to find the fine line of just mentioning something that exists and is common in this world and the other side that you have to explain how what and why an object is doing.

As for the AI, it was designed to work with a Korrim designed military vessel. Marcus’s ship is a Korrim ship though not military. The AI can be used for a multitude of purposes (in bars, in corporate settings, etc), but each step away from what it was originally designed for requires that much more work. As for the “dimwitted” AI, it was designed to learn and adapt. However, only having been recently activated after a wipe, from Marcus’s POV and current frustration levels, it is dimwitted. Also it was designed for military use, not civilian, thus her actions, thoughts, and speech are decidedly militaristic but evolving.

Federation/Alliance/Coalition. They are indeed separate entities, each with their own flavor. Don’t worry, that info is coming

212 cm = OMFG! 188 should be closer to what I meant (6’2”)

I wonder, what were Marcus' specialties as a soldier, and for whom (meaning which branch, rather than which faction)? He can apparently restore a Korrim ship (which still has little significance in the grand scheme of this universe) and reinitialize an AI within a few months, and begin salvage operations. Single-handedly.

Mystery is a good thing. I promise the information you wish is forthcoming

I have had no good way I could think of to show internal thoughts. I’m trying to keep text formatting to a minimal as well because it takes time to translate it to a board function. I’ll work on it.

Also, 12 light years for a fighter? That seems rather....generous, unless the classification of a fighter is much larger than most sci-fi games/movies/shows lead us to believe? Also, could "powerful fighting ship" be more specifically defined? Is it a large/small fighter? Or a corvette, perhaps? Are most fighters jump-capable (assuming Marcus' ship is a small frigate-like ship)? And what is an 'HT Fighter'? This is starting to sound like a game that has way too many classifications for things across too many variable races....

I wanted to establish some fighters have jump travel over short distances to possible planets. Generous? Maybe. “Powerful fighting ship” will be better defined later. “HT” stands for “Heavy Tactical” (read “powerful fighting”) as opposed to “LT” or Light Tactical. It was going to come up soon in explanation (part of that fine line I was talking about earlier), but no harm in telling you now. It does have a way too many classifications for things. That is the nature of any world. However, there will be simplifications along the way to help ease you in such as “powerful fighting ship”.

Your advice on over-punctuation is noted and I thank you for it.

Skin and conscience. That should indeed be a compound sentence. I have no idea why it wasn't.

Efficiency and grace. You are correct. Sounds much better.

Were/Where. You are correct again.

I’m still working on what should be proper and not. Been busy more with the how and the why, not the capitalization of the “stuff”.

Finally the comment of mid-thirties and getting on up in years etc etc. This is confusing but not on purpose. The reason is, it is still confusing to me. Not long out of a war, would someone in the their mid-thirties be considered an “elder” because of the loss of life reducing the average lifespan or was the population so vast it doesn't matter? Has lifespans increased with advances in medicine or has sloth set in offsetting medical advances? These are questions I was debating while writing (and am still debating) thus the confusion is not purposeful but is there none-the-less because it hasn’t been fleshed out by me.

I’m happy you've paid attention to these details. Thanks for pointing out several things I need to fix (eventually). I hope you are enjoying this story. Your continued comments and critiques are welcomed.