Starchildren Options

[Kane]

Two stories at once is a lot for me, so these updates may not be as frequent. I also did not plan on this but a certain young woman in my head refused to be quiet.

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Prologue (May 7th, 2330)
Ebbside, Neon City, Volii Alpha


Andromeda awoke with a start. Somebody was pounding frantically on the door to her sleep crate and had ruined a perfectly deep slumber after a long day of work and even longer night of partying to celebrate her birthday. There was no way in hell it was daylight already which meant she probably left her slate at Euphorika. Again.

The bleary-eyed young woman fumbled in the dark for her glasses while the pounding on her door continued. If whomever it was out there kept it up much longer, she felt like her head would start pounding, too. Having finally fished her glasses off of the cold floor Andromeda slid them on and then clicked her bedside lamp to life. Most of her clothes were strewn about the floor of her metal box, which also explained why she was now so cold.

Two minutes or so later, she was half-dressed, and her nearly decrepit Solstice was clutched tightly in her left hand. Please don’t fizzle out on me now old girl, she thought. Looking down at the worn laser pistol in her hand, she sighed and silently chided herself for never spending any credits on a decent gun. The little pistol had been thrown out for good reason, yet Andromeda had fished out of the garbage anyway and fixed it up in the most half-assed way possible. Each time she squeezed the trigger was just another gamble on whether or not the damned thing would even fire.

This time she prayed to gods she didn’t give a [censored] about that it wouldn’t let her down. And then she finally opened the door.

Andre burst into her sleep crate and slammed the door shut behind him.

“It’s about goddamn time you answered! What the hell took you so long, Dro?”

Andromeda blinked in surprise at the urgency in his voice. She’d known Andre for over six months now, and the man was usually as cool as a cucumber. Even when he drunkenly tried to flirt with her. Andre had taken a courier job for HopeTech on Valo and was reassigned here to Neon City, much to his initial dismay, but they had grown close in the time since. The man was of average height with dark skin and kind brown eyes that sometimes hid behind a mop of unkempt blue hair.

“Slow down, Andre,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

“No time to slow down. The ‘big deal’ is that your [censored], Dro. Absolutely [censored].”

“Wha -”

“Gather up what you care about the most and stuff it in your bag. Security thugs are closing in already �" I set up a prox alert for when they get within twenty meters.” Andre saw her bag sitting on the floor near the door, grabbed it, and handed it to Andromeda. “Pack! Now!”

“Andre, I am not going to move another goddamn muscle until you tell me what the [censored] is going on!”

“[censored]. Fine. Start packing and I’ll explain while you go.” He waited until a few things had been shoved unceremoniously in her bag before continuing: “Those Ryujin files you hacked yesterday for your anonymous buyer? They were tagged for Bayu’s personal records. Dunno how he tracked you down so quick but if you wanna live to see your twenty-sixth birthday then we need to get you the hell out of this city.”

Her blood froze. Benjamin Bayu. The Administrator of Neon City and possibly the most corrupt man in the settled systems. His fingers crept into every business venture on the planet and the security force was at his beck and call. No one did business in Neon without giving him a cut, and his ruthlessness against would-be competitors was legendary. Everyone who lived in Neon lived comfortably by skirting his brutality.

If she was on his radar at long last, then she had definitely taken the wrong job, pile of credits notwithstanding. Being a Cyber Runner in Neon always ran the risk that Andromeda would one day cross paths with that monster, but she had always been careful about her choice of contracts in the hope of avoiding Bayu. Her luck had finally run out and yet she still was uncertain about leaving the only home she ever knew.

“I can’t just up and leave!” stammered Andromeda, freezing midway through emptying the contents of her wall safe. “My whole life is here! It’s all I’ve ever known!”

“Doesn’t matter. Bayu will have you killed just to make an example - “ Andre ceased talking abruptly at the sound of rapid beeping emanating from his slate. His face took on an unhealthy pallor and he nervously ran his hand through his hair. “Time to go. They got there sooner than I expected.” Andre pulled another slate out of his jacket pocket and gave it to Andromeda. “Here, take this and give it to Doc Manning at the clinic. He’ll give you a short makeover to fool security at the spaceport.”

“Andre, I...” Andromeda was at a loss for words. The sudden shock of what was happening and the thought of fleeing her life �" Neon, Andre, the friends and people she’d grown up around �" was too much. Hot tears fell down her pale cheeks and splashed on the floor of her crate. She raised a hand to brush them away, and then shoulder her bag. “This isn’t over,” she finally said with a firmer resolve than what she felt inside. “Bayu isn’t chasing me out of my [censored] home forever. I’ll come back for all of you, I promise.” Andromeda stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Andre’s cheek. “I promise.”

“We’ll do what we can to clear your name. You need to go. Now. They’ll be here any second. I can keep them occupied for a few minutes but they’ll tell me to get lost before long. Go!”

Andromeda pulled her hood up to hide her vibrant fuchsia hair and fled into the night without another word. The garbled chatter of Neon Security radios echoed up from the alleyway to her right, so she moved silently away from them and ducked into a dark alcove that was still within view of her crate. It was hard to much of anything, but she recognized the dim form of Andre now standing back outside of her door and soon heard him pounding on it once again.

“Yo! Open up, Jen!” Andre’s voice rang out. “Open up!”

Flashlights illuminated and three security goons stood at the ready, their guns trained on her friend. Andre’s hands flew skyward while the nearest guard began to pat him down.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” demanded another guard.

“Damn, take it easy, bud,” said Andre. “My friend lives here and she’s gonna be late for her shift at Generdyne again. Just trying to get her ass on the move!”

“Jen, huh? Yeah, sure pal.” The guard shoved him aside and addressed one of his partners. “What do you got, Reg?”

“Andre Mitarn, known associate of one Andromeda Renault. Courier for HopeTech.”

“Did ya hear that you lying piece of [censored]?” laughed the first guard. “Jen my ass. Where’s the girl?”

“If I knew where Jen was I wouldn’t be here, officer.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, punk. Reg, you know the drill �" get him out of here.”

Andre lowered his hands to leave while Andromeda released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Her friend turned to walk away but Andre only made it a few paces before two sharp cracks rang out through Ebbside. He fell to the ground in a pool of blood while Andromeda watched in silent horror. She shoved her hand in her mouth in a desperate bid to stop herself from crying out.

“Dump that sack of [censored] over the side. The chasmbass will get rid of the evidence for us.”

Two of the security goons forced open the door to her sleep crate and disappeared inside while the third dragged off Andre’s lifeless body and heaved it over the railing and into the churning waters far below. Andromeda slipped away unseen and headed silently for the Neon Core, wiping away the tears as she went. The nearest door to Bayu Plaza wasn’t far, and within five minutes she had stepped through it and darkened her glasses against the garish light that gave Neon City its name.

Every type of store and service imaginable spanned the length of the Core, brilliant neon signs and lights shining down upon everyone who walked the expansive length from Ryujin Tower to the Trade Tower. Even late at night (or early in the morning, as it was now), the walkways were teeming with citizens, tourists, guards, scumbags, and dregs.

Andromeda’s destination was Reliant Medical and thankfully it was only a short distance away. Doc Manning seemed to never sleep and with her life crumbling around her, Andromeda was grateful to see him sitting at his counter.

“Ah, there you are, Dro! Andre warned me you were coming �" c’mon around back and we’ll get you fixed up.” He paused at the signs of grief that had stricken her normally carefree face. “What’s happened? Wait… where is Andre?”

It took everything Andromeda had to not scream in frustration and anger. She settled for kicking helplessly at the front of his counter which only resulted in a stab of pan shooting through her foot. “They [censored] killed him, Joe! Bayu’s security goons iced him without a second thought and threw him over the rails of Ebbside!”

“Bastards,” sighed the Doc. “I keep hoping this city will change some day but I don’t think I’ll ever live to see it. Despite younguns like you fighting back, Bayu’s grip never seems to relent. All the more reason to get you out of here, I guess.” Doc Manning waved her towards the back again and dismounted from his stool. “Go on, I just have to lock up real quick.”

The back room had a small biological modification chair that the doc had somehow procured from one of the Enhance! stores that were peppered throughout the local galaxy. It must have cost a small fortune, but she once again found herself thanking gods she didn’t care about for its existence in the back of the clinic. Doc Manning followed her in a few seconds later and instructed her to take a seat in the chair.

“Okay, so Andre...” Joe trailed off and made a gesture that Andromeda had never seen before. His hand moved across his face in the shape of a ‘T’.

“What was that for?” she asked him.

“The cross? It’s from an old-Earth religion that most have forgotten about. I’ll explain some other time. Anyway… so Andre most have been tipped off pretty early and with a good bit of info. Bayu has your name, financial history, work records, and physiological profile; but not your DNA records. We lucked out there. A few cosmetic changes will get you past the spaceport sniffers.”

“Joe, I can’t pay for any of this,” said Andromeda. “All my accounts are probably seized and I have less than two-hundred credits in my bag.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Dro. You’ve already done so much for the hard working people of this city that your friends are lining up behind me to get you safely out of this place.”

Andromeda sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue from the box Doc Manning held up to her. She knew it would be a long time until she saw those friends again, and the thought of that hurt more than anything else. Then she laid back in the chair and closed her eyes while the doctor powered up the alteration arms. She knew it would take thirty seconds to a minute for the machine to fully boot, so Andromeda pressed her friend on what would happen next.

“I have another slate from Andre,” he said. “It will transfer enough credits to get you on an outbound freighter, and provide a new identity. But the tricky part will be getting you to the port with perfect timing. We need to have you at the gates just as the ship’s thrusters begin to burn, so that the guards will hopefully rush you through without looking to closely at your records.”

There was lot that could go wrong with that. However, she trusted her friends implicitly and so she closed her eyes again and let the doctor go to work. The procedure was relatively painless, but she did flinch from the occasional needle or sharp prod. Some calibrations to the machine were in order when she returned. If I can return, she thought. Benjamin Bayu had a long memory, and she doubted he would forget about her anytime soon.

Ten minutes elapsed before Doc Manning leaned back on his stool and powered down the alteration arms. He grabbed a mirror from a side table and handed it to Andromeda. The same brown eyes stared back at her, but Joe had completely changed her hairstyle and its color: the long ponytail she had entered the clinic with was gone, and only a small knot was tied up in the back. Instead of fuchsia, her locks were now dyed an incredible opalescent prism of stunning colors, and the strands on the right side of her face fell down past her cheeks while being tucked back tightly on the left side.

She noticed the bare skin of her neck and left cheek and inhaled sharply. “Did you get rid of my tattoos?! Those were really personal to me, Doc!”
“Relax, I just covered them up with some foundation. Keep your hood up a the spaceport or the rain will wash it away and give up the goose. They’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Oh, and leave your piercings here. Those are easily replaceable.”

Andromeda frowned but did as advised. She popped the studs out of her ears and nose, removed the loop from her septum, and slid the barbell out from her nose bridge. Doc Manning collected them all in a small steel pan and then dropped them into a medical waste bin. Andromeda slid out of the modification chair and gave him a hug.

“Thanks for everything, Doc. I’ll be back to repay you some day.”

“I already told you your credit is good, Dro. Just promise me you’ll be careful out there.”

“I’ll try. But you should know better than most that the trouble usually finds me first.”

“That I do!” laughed Doc Manning. “Damn, almost forgot �" lose the glasses, too. I have some lenses for you instead.”

She removed her glasses and chucked them in the bin with her piercings. The good doctor handed her a set of icy blue colored contact lenses and after a couple minutes of struggling, she managed to pop them in to obscure her natural eye color. Another hug for the Doc Manning. Then he tapped a slate to hers and ushered Andromeda out the back door of Reliant Medical. Syndal, her best friend from university and one-time lover waited somberly in the trash ridden alley running behind the shops.

“Time to go, doll,” said her diminutive cohort. “Ship leaves in six minutes.” Syndal was tiny even compared to the slight 1.6 meters Andromeda rose to. The top of her head just barely made it to Andromeda’s nose. She put a hand on the back of Andromeda’s head and pulled her down to a reasonable level, kissing her very briefly on the lips. “For luck,” she explained to Andromeda’s quizzical stare. “Don’t think we’re ever getting back together or anything.”

“Fair enough,” said Andromeda. “Are we taking the main elevator down?”

“Have to. It’s all you have time for. “Let’s go, and try to keep up. Security is swarming the Core for you.”

Andromeda nodded and followed along in Syndal’s speedy wake. It was easy to unobtrusively hang a few steps back and still keep tabs on the impressive length of platinum hair falling past her friend’s hips. It swayed to and fro in the constant gentle breeze flowing through Neon City. The draft was one of many effects of living on massive platform built high above the roiling seas of a water world. A world that Andromeda had never left. Or had ever planned to leave. Those idle thoughts helped keep her features neutral when they stepped back onto the main thoroughfare and snaked their way towards the spaceport elevator.

Neon Security had fallen for the gambit. None of them paid her any mind, despite having her former appearance projected on the inside of their helmet visors. Syndal led her right past squad after squad of the corrupt officers until they reached their destination.

“You’re on your own from here,” said Syndal. “Take the lift down to the port and make a show of rushing, but don’t outright sprint. Play the part of the late departee who is trying to make their flight. The guards down there are a different detachment than the Core goons and generally skew towards being less of an asshole than the ones chasing you up here.”

“Okay, I’ll try. Never was much of an actor but I can do this. I have to do this.”

Syndal slapped her on the ass. “Quit stalling. You’ve got less than two minutes.”

“Right. Bye, Syn. And thank you.”

The elevator doors opened and Andromeda rode the lift down to the docking port. Two guards flanked the it at the bottom but the alterations Doc Manning made to her appearance seemed to have fooled their scanners. She showed them her slate and they told her to get moving else she miss the freighter. Settling for a speedy trot, Andromeda sighed gratefully and flitted down the long catwalk spanning over the ocean below, squeezing her hood tightly to her face. The warm, wind-driven rain splattered against her while she half ran to the ship waiting for its final passenger.

It was an ancient Deimos model that took up most of the landing pad. Bright lights illuminated faded letters above the ramp: The Gryphon. A crew member ushered Andromeda inside with little patience and directed her to a jump seat in the main cabin. Unsure of how the seat worked, her fingers trembled while she tried to strap herself in.

“First time in space, dearie?” A middle-aged woman next to her smiled gently at Andromeda.

“Yeah. I’m scared shitless if I’m being honest.”

“There’s nothing to it.” The kind woman reached over and showed her which buckles went where, and pointed out the safety pouch under the cushion. “Mouth guards in there if you’re worried about biting your tongue off. Once we take off, just keep your mouth closed and you won’t need them.”

Andromeda thanked her, and the woman went back to humming an off-tune key. Voices rang out over the loudspeaker and warning signs began to light up all around them. The entire ship rattled and shook, and the message on the flight console on the wall across from her changed from ‘docked’ to ‘achieving thrust’. Seconds later the engines roared into life and the sudden g’s from massive acceleration pressed Andromeda back into her seat. Unable to move so much as a finger, she closed her eyes and whimpered slightly as the ship gained altitude.

And then the pressure was gone. She opened her eyes and the porthole in the ceiling above revealed the deep black of space, dotted with innumerable points of light blinking back at her from incomprehensible distances. For the second time in as many minutes, her breath had been taken away for very different reasons.

She had done it. She had escaped Neon City and the closing grasp of Benjaim Bayu.

The tears came again anyway. Her life as she knew it was over and she had no idea where things went from here. She didn’t even know where this ship was bound. She was alone among the stars. And then the engines powered down while the grav drive engaged, folded space around the ship, and leapt from the Volii System in a blazing show of cosmic light and energy, carrying Andromeda far way from danger with a dumbfounded expression on her face..

This post has been edited by Kane: Jun 20 2025, 12:59 PM

[Kane]

Grits & Acadian: The hours bit gets me too, lol. Cydonia is a dangerous place! Who doesn't love enjoying a drink at the bar while controlled explosions happen two hundred feet below you!
Sarah is good at what she does and we'll see her flex that leadership even more in the next part.

She'll never not have a rifle again!

This also won't be the first time her hacking skills come in handy...

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Seven - A Daring Rescue
Nova Galactic Staryard, Sol System

The spacer stumbled to his knees and when he stood up to re-orient himself, Andromeda’s eyes locked with his. A nicked rescue axe dripping with fresh blood was gripped tightly in his right hand, and he looked at the newcomer with a malice she’d never seen before. Nor could she understand how anyone whom she’d never met could feel such hatred for a complete stranger. It did, however, make what came next that much easier for Andromeda.

She raised her new rifle, peered through the scope, and squeezed the trigger. A 7.77mm self-propelled caseless round ignited to life and cut through the thin atmosphere of the station and drove a hole right through the spacer’s chest before he could stagger back to his feet. The recoil-less rifle barely moved in Andromeda’s grip, the sight still trained where her enemy had just knelt. She lowered the rifle and looked at the man’s life she had just snuffed out, but this time she felt a strange sense of pity, rather than the regret and sadness that came with the first person Andromeda killed on Vectera. She was beginning to understand how people like Sarah, or even Barrett, managed to live with themselves after taking another human’s life. The wild rage in that spacers eyes bore none of the empathy Andromeda felt in this moment, and he would have driven that axe through her skull with no remorse.

“Dro, snap out of it!” Sarah’s voice crackled into her helmet and dragged Andromeda’s mind back into readiness. “They are closing in on our position!”

This time it was an Ecliptic mercenary who rounded the corner and fell to three laser bolts from Sarah. And then two more attackers followed in just behind the first, but they fell quickly to the combined guns of the Constellation duo. Then a heavy silence fell over the atrium that filled Andromeda with an angst that was somehow worse than the constant sounds of gunfire they’d heard up to this point.

“I’m going to take a look down that corridor,” said Sarah, “Cover me.” Sarah crept forward slowly until she reached the junction and peered up and down both directions. She turned and waved Andromeda to her side, gesturing down the hall to their left. “There are more of them in either direction, but that map of the station layout on the wall next you indicates a dead end that way. We’ll go there first and make sure none of these bastards get a jump on us from behind.”

Andromeda nodded and followed her down the hall. They stayed behind cover as often as possible and were able to get a jump on just about every miscreant that crossed their paths. The rifle and her newfound rationalization against those trying to take their lives filled Andromeda with a confidence she’d never expected to find after how poorly things went at the Argos outpost. Slowly and methodically, she and Sarah swept through the Nova Galactic Staryard until not a single spacer or Ecliptic thug remained.

“Grab that slate and see what is says,” said Sarah.

They stood in the center of an unfinished ship module deep within the bowels of the station, searching in vain for signs of Vanguard Captain Moara. The indicated slate Andromeda picked up was the only thing of note they’d found thus far, except for a different slate she had found earlier on a dead spacer that told of a secret base somewhere in the Denebola system.

This one had an audio recording saved on it that crackled to life after a few taps on the screen: “This is Vanguard Moara. Sorry if I had to reclaim some UC property, but this whole staryard is overrun. I've patched up my ship, and I'm heading to Neptune. Going to put in another request to get the Fleet out here to deal with these Spacers. But until then, if any of you thugs are listening, I'm the damn ghost stealing your stuff in the night. Clear out while you have the chance.”

“He baited them to an attack?” surmised Sarah with a tone of incredulity. “Bold move. I guess he felt more comfortable fighting them on his own terms.”

“So our next stop is Neptune?”

“Indeed it is. We’re going to break protocol this time though, and use the grav drive in-system. We don’t know how much longer Moara can survive out there on his own, and it will take days to reach Neptune on sub-light engines.”

“Why can’t we do that normally?” frowned Andromeda. “It’s way more efficient than hurtling through space for endless hours and burning through all of our fuel.”

“The grav drives have a very small, nearly undetectable effect on local gravity fields, including the orbit of celestial objects. It’s theorized that too many disturbances near stellar bodies will cause catastrophic consequences such as a planet shaking free from its path around a star, or a moon from around a planet.”

“Then how can we leap to places like Jemison, or Volii Alpha without triggering those same sort of events over time? Wouldn’t that affect anyplace we jump to?”

“No, only when it’s in-system. The grav drive effects spread out from where we fold space, and the intensity weakens over distance like the ripples in a lake after you toss a stone in the water. But if you fold space twice in a localized vicinity…”

“The waves can clash before they dissipate,” finished Andromeda.

“Precisely. We’ll make and astrophysicist out of you yet, Dro. Come now – let’s get back to the ship.”

* * *
Neptune, Sol System

If Andromeda thought simply flying a ship had been unnerving at first, then nothing could have prepared her for engaging with another ship in a three-dimensional dogfight in orbit around the blue orb that was the gas giant Neptune. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened when the Frontier re-entered normal space and was immediately fired upon by Moara’s ship.

His wager went ill, and the antagonized spacers boarded his Vanguard vessel and seized control of most ship systems, including navigation and weapons. But the Captain himself retained control of comms, and immediately signaled them for help. Recognizing the dire straits Moara got himself into, Sarah took over targeting control and left the flying to Andromeda.

“Keep us in range and do not lose sight of that ship. I’ll try to disable the engines so that we can board it.”

Andromeda increased the Frontier’s speed and fired up every maneuvering thruster the ship had to help keep their target within weapons lock. “Just for the record, I think this is an even worse idea than boarding that station!” Alarms started blaring on her center console indicating a missile lock on the ship. “Uh, Sarah – what do we do about that?!”

“Don’t let it hit us!”

“Oh, really! I hadn’t thought of that!” Andromeda tried calling up some of the pre-programmed evasion plans from the nav screen but her gut didn’t trust them. Instead, she jammed a finger down on the manual control icon and grasped the steering column that rose from the floor.

“Dro, that may not be the best idea!” yelled Sarah, glancing over at her with apprehension. “You’re not exactly a flying ace!”

“Too [censored] bad! If I have to rely on a touch screen for this then our corpses will be floating in the abyss!” The missile lock alert blared louder as the warhead came within five-hundred meters of the ship. Andromeda’s face paled at the sight of it barreling towards them. She flicked the screen upwards and cast the trajectory onto the cockpit window’s HUD and counted down from three under her breath.

“ANDROMEDA, IT’S GOING TO HIT US!”

At ‘one’, Andromeda hit the engine boost trigger and veered sharply to port. The sudden increase in velocity and the errant trajectory change confused the missile’s targeting vectors causing it to sail harmlessly past the Frontier and off into the empty black of space.

“You were saying?”

“Show off. But we’re losing my lock on Moara’s ship. Get it back in our sights so that I can take another crack at it.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Andromeda. “Take the helm.”

“What? Why?”

“We’ve been doing everything your way on this mission. It’s time to try it my way before we got blown to bits by a ship that outguns us considerably. Take the helm, please, but keep us out of weapons range.”

Sarah frowned but she heard the confidence in Andromeda’s tone and decided to let the rookie do her thing. Finding out what capabilities Constellation’s new recruit possessed was the secondary objective on their little excursion anyway, so she transferred flight control to her screens and resumed chasing the captured ship. “Okay, Ms. Renault. Show me what you can do.”

“Thank you, Ms. Morgan.” Andromeda winked at her and whipped out her personal slate again, linking it back into the Frontier’s computer core.

“Dro, what are you -”

“Shh.” The minutes rushed headlong into the past while she clicked away at the screen of the slate. Putting all of her Cyber Runner skills to task, Andromeda was able to breach the subsystems on Moara’s ship, but the UC’s ship core firewall protections were orders of magnitude above their comms satellites and she ran into a dead-end against the military-grade encryption surrounding flight control. “Damn it, I need… hold on a sec.” She thumbed their own comm system switch and pinged the channel Moara had used to call for help. “Captain, do you still read me?”

“Loud and clear. Any luck getting these bastards to slow down?”

“Not yet. I need your transponder code.”

Silence interspersed with a light static followed her request. Then Moara’s gravelly voice broke over the comms channel again: “Are you [censored] serious, lady? I’m supposed to just give you complete control over my ship and pray for the best?”

“It’s either that or those spacers bring it to bear on this ancient bucket and then put a bullet in your head.”

Maora sighed heavily. “Point taken. Transmitting it now. I really hope I don’t regret this.”

“You won’t. I promise.” Andromeda closed the audio channel and called up the line’s metadata. Embedded in it were the codes she sought, and less than one minute later she had overrode the encryption on Moara’s ship and seized complete control of all its systems. “And goodbye engines!”

The engines on the ship they pursued flickered out and it drifted harmlessly through space, completely defenseless.

Sarah stared out the cockpit window at the derelict ship, her mouth agape. “Son of a… we should have recruited a Cyber Runner a long time ago. Fantastic work, Dro! You’ll have to teach me that trick sometime!”

“Don’t get too excited,” said Andromeda. “It only works if you have someone like Moara who was willing to give over his transponder codes.”

“Or if it’s piece of junk ship that doesn’t have the luxury of using MAST security protocols.”

“Um, maybe. We’ll have to test that theory out some other time.”

“Quite right. Shall we board the ship and finish off those pricks?”

“Lets. I’m ready for this ordeal to be over. That bed you gave me at The Lodge is calling my name already.”

Two minutes later, the Frontier’s airlock bridge extended and secured itself to Moara’s ship. The door unsealed itself and Sarah led Andromeda in with their gun’s ablaze only to find a skeleton force occupying the various habs and control rooms. The unorganized group of ragtag castaways had no formal training and they fell quickly to Sarah’s tactical sweep of the ship. The final miscreant dropped to the floor outside of the cockpit and the man they’d pursued throughout the Sol System finally greeted them gratefully.

“Thank my lucky stars someone decent happened along,” said Moara. “Is there any way that I can repay the two of you? Credits, ship parts, a round at the Spear?”

“None of that is necessary, we were happy to do it,” smiled Sarah. “Us regular folk need to stick together out hear if we hope to stand a chance against these maniacs. However, there is the matter of that item you have hanging over your flight console.”

Andromeda glanced over and noticed the Artifact for the first time. It looked identical to the one she picked up against her better judgment on Vectera.

“The hunk of metal? You know what it is?”

“We do. We also know you likely couldn’t sell it.”

“Everyone I took it to thought it was a scam. Couldn’t get a read on it.”

“Mm, it doesn’t play nice with scanners.”

“Hey, it’s yours if you want it. Least I can do.”

“Excellent! Dro, would you mind -”

“Abso-[censored]-lutely not, Sarah. Not after what happened last time.”

Sarah shrugged her shoulders and grabbed the Artifact without hesitation. A few seconds lapsed and she seemed no worse for the wear, so they thanked Moara again and headed back to the Frontier. Andromeda took the helm, un-docked the two ships, and laid in their course back to Jemison.