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The flickering holo-image that appeared was difficult to make out. A dark shadow blinking in and out of existence, with huge spiked structures reaching forward from the main body of the ship like long rapier swords. The blades were as long as the main body of the ship that was formed from two large, black spheres sitting in line, creating a bulbous mass. Finally, a long straight tail protruding directly out from the rear tapered down to a fine point.

  Mitri looked at the signal. The Union was always developing new systems and new ships, but this was like nothing he’d seen before or even thought possible. It moved in small leaps, relocating from one position to another in moments without appearing to travel through the intervening space, but that may have been due to the poor quality of the Rising Nation’s holo-stage. Or, perhaps this was something entirely new.

  Mitri staggered to the weapons console and brought all hail cannons online.

  “It looks like the Union has us in their jaws now. Send a signal to the Faction relay station in the belt and transfer all data on this new type of ship.”

  Lewis called out, her voice edged with panic as the ship flew out of control. “Communications are blocked, but the systems report says the transmitter is fully operational. That new ship is jamming our signal.”

  Mitri pursed his lips. He had dodged the Union cruiser for weeks and thought he had gotten away, and now this new ship appeared as if from nowhere. He was trapped.

  “Stand by to fight. Check your personal weapons. If we lose our drive, they’ll try and board us, so don’t let them take you alive. You will only live to regret it.”

  Commander Bates looked at the signal on his holo-stage. The dark ship moved in stuttering leaps, disappearing one moment and appearing elsewhere the next. The fine twisting structures on the leading edge appeared to shift position every time the ship reappeared.

  “Detecting an energy signal from the forward edge of the unknown vessel.”

  Bates leaned forward and watched the image on the holo-stage. A blue flickering beam leapt away from within the twisting structures at the front of the dark, unknown ship. The blue beam connected with the fleeing Faction ship, the energy thinning to fine white strands that crackled over the outer hull. It instantly lost all power and tumbled through space, its drive section cooling rapidly.

  “The Faction ship is firing its hail cannons,” Brosh called out. “It’s targeting the unknown ship.”

  “So it’s not a Faction ship,” Bates said, “Is it secret Union test equipment? Notify Union Fleet Command and ask if any ships are operating in this sector.”

  “All communications have been blocked,” Brosh replied immediately. “The signal is away, but I’m not getting the Union receipt codes.”

  Bates watched as the dark ship leapt to a new location, the long structures at the leading edge of the ship pointing directly at the Preserve.

  “Blocking my communications is one thing,” Bates said, stepping toward the holo-stage, “but facing off against me is way too aggressive for my liking. Target the ship. Mass beam and high-energy laser to full power. Fire when ready.”

  The Preserve’s energy weapons fired. The mass beam connected with the dark hull of the unknown ship, crushing one of the long beams at the front. Then the craft moved out from under the mass beam in a jerking motion, slipping instantly to one side. The high-energy laser flickered onto the target with a blinding flash as the dark hull of the unknown ship vaporized, erupting in a plume of plasma as the high-energy laser burst out the far side.

  The dark ship moved, leaping hundreds of kilometers in a fraction of a second, vanishing from one location and reappearing in another. The lasers reacquired the target and fired again.

  The long arms at the front of the ship broke away and the mass beam struck again, crushing a section of hull. The laser struck again and blasted a cavity deep into the dark shape.

  The command crew shouted out in triumph. Bates watched the data streaming in on the holo-stage, transfixed by the slightest development in the battle.

  Then the holo-stage lost power and the holo-image vanished. The Preserve’s command deck lights failed and plunged the deck into darkness. Commander Bates staggered back to his chair and climbed up into the seat. He opened the small compartment in the armrest and took out his sidearm. Activating the electron blade at the end of his pulse pistol, the white blade gave off enough light for him to see.

  “We have lost all power,” Bates heard someone say. Then he felt the deck vibrate beneath his feet. He felt a sick feeling in his stomach. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. A blue, crazed, crackling light flickered over every surface, lighting up the command deck. The blue lightning thinned to crackling white lines of energy. A power conduit blew sparks across the command deck.

  “Abandon ship.” Bates sat back in his command chair. He was not going to abandon his command, but the ship was lost, all power gone. “All hands, this is Commander Bates. Abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship.”

  Then the white lines crackled across the deck and over to his command chair before climbing up. As the white lines of energy wrapped around his body, he heard a voice, at once distant and close. It was all around him and inside his head.

  Mitri skidded across the deck of his ship and up against the bulkhead. The holo-stage flickered back to life for a moment. He saw the dark, monstrous ship launch a blue crackling beam at the Union cruiser. The cruiser vibrated violently as the blue beam flickered over her hull, moving in a surging motion toward the drive section, then thinned out to fine white energy lines that crackled over the drive assembly. The Union ship fell into darkness, a hundred porthole lights and exterior hull lights blinking out. The light illuminating the ship name, Preserve, went out, the name lost to the dark. The drive flare died, the ship lost control, and they drifted lazily through space.

  Then Mitri saw the blue beam reaching and crackling across space to connect with his own ship. All power failed and the blue crackling lightning rippled across the deck beneath his feet. The last thing Mitri thought was that he had fought to the death. The Union would not take him alive.

  With the last breath of air in his lungs, Mitri shouted.

  “Long live the Faction.”

  And as his legs gave out, he fell to the deck and heard a distant sound deep within his own head.

  Skarak.

  Skarak.

  Skarak.

  2

  Will Boyd sat at the flight console of the Odium Fist and plotted an intercept course with the Union heavy transporter. The heavy was moving at high speed toward the inner system, as was standard operating procedure for any Union transport this close to the outer asteroid sphere. The ship had held its heading for the last ninety minutes, so it was about to change course.

  Boyd had already calculated the standard course adjustment for the Union ship and calculated a new intercept course. He was ready to nudge the Fist even closer to her prey.

  The Union heavy adjusted her course precisely on schedule.

  Boyd turned in his chair, hand and arm over the back, and looked up to Captain Poledri.

  “You see?” Boyd said, beaming up at Poledri. “Standard Union move.” Boyd turned back to his flight console. “So predictable. Too damn easy.”

  “Yes, very clever of you, Boyd. Guess you weren’t such a bad choice for my pilot after all,” Poledri growled.

  “I know pilots can be brash, but I’ve had enough of your arrogance, Boyd,” Carl Raye said from the weapons console.

  “Set new course and match speed,” Poledri said, ignoring his second-in-command. “Carefully. We don’t want to alert her.”

  Boyd brought up the Odium Fist’s drive and slowly pushed the ship onto its new heading. They would soon be in range, and then it would be impossible to hide from the Union ship. Soon the heavy would know she had caught the attention of a Faction hunter. Soon Boyd would be boarding her, taking control of the ship, and seizing the supplies and goods for the Faction.

  And with every fresh operati
on, with every ship seized, Will Boyd became more trusted. His skills as a pilot were undeniable. It had been pure luck for Poledri to find such a great replacement just hours after his former pilot had been killed in that freak landing bay accident.

  Boyd knew it had been too convenient for him to be at the Faction base the same day the Odium Fist’s pilot got sucked into a drive plate. It had been a carefully-planned accident, and he was sure Poledri didn’t suspect a thing.

  But now Boyd was pilot. He knew the crew didn’t like him very much, he could see it as clearly as the pulse pistol on their hips, but he wasn’t there to make friends. He had a job to do.

  Then something in the heavy’s course data drew his attention. Boyd was always suspicious—it was how he had stayed alive so long. The course correction was standard, but the thrust output from the drive was not. Boyd noticed the drive system operating at less than fifty-percent capacity.

  “Captain, there’s something not right here,” Boyd said. He accessed all data on the heavy’s maneuvers from the last few hours and the multiple course corrections she had made. “She’s not using enough power.”

  “What are you talking about, Boyd?” Poledri walked over and leaned on the back of Boyd’s chair.

  “She’s not using enough power to turn that amount of mass. This ship is practically empty.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough when we board her,” Poledri said. “If she’s not carrying any goods, we will still have the ship. A Union drive system alone is a worthwhile haul.”

  “But why would a heavy be coming out of the sphere empty?” Boyd asked.

  “Who cares? In a few hours, she’ll be mine.”

  Boyd turned to Jemmy Noland at the scanners.

  “Run another scan of the ship, Jem,” Boyd said. “Scan her density.”

  “Are you giving orders now, Boyd?” Poledri said, stepping in between Boyd and Noland.

  “No, Captain, I’m just curious. Something isn’t right with that ship and I want to know why.”

  Poledri glowered at Boyd. It was dangerous for Boyd to irritate his new captain in this way, but the Faction was full of self-confident, independent thinkers. Such insolence would never be tolerated in the Union fleet, but the Faction crew would have been suspicious if Boyd had not been so arrogant. Besides, it was useful to Boyd to be disliked. People left him alone in his off hours.

  Poledri turned to Noland and gave the briefest of nods, instructing Noland to scan the ship again. Then Poledri fixed Boyd with a stare, his scarred right eye as piercing and cold as the blue left.

  The scan came back and Boyd studied the results. Poledri leaned closer and read them for himself off Boyd’s console.

  “She is running light,” Poledri conceded. “I’d expect her to be dense with ore, or at least black ice. But she is carrying something.”

  Boyd had a thought, a worrying thought.

  “It’s a trap. The only thing we are going to find on that ship is a well-armed company of Union Fleet Marines. She’s a pirate hunter, making out like a heavy transport. A nice juicy bait to draw us in.”

  Poledri was shaking his head slowly when Noland called out.

  “Union heavy is slowing and coming about. They’ve seen us.”

  Poledri looked at Boyd. “You’re the expert. Have they seen us?”

  Boyd shook his head. “No, it’s just a crazy pivot. They are just checking their rear. If we keep our energy output below threshold, she won’t be able to see us.”

  “New signals,” Noland called out. “Union fighter craft moving in at speed.”

  “Are you sure they haven’t seen us?” Poledri said, angry this time, his hand tugging at the back of Boyd’s chair.

  “No, they haven’t. Just hold course and speed and we will slip by them.”

  Poledri gripped Boyd by the shoulder. “Get us out of here, Boyd,”

  “No,” Boyd said, watching the progress of the Blade-class fighters and the heavy on its crazy pivot maneuver. “The moment we power the core we will be detected for sure. I’ll take my chance against a heavy loaded with Marines, but those Blades will be out for us, looking to punch a hole in our drive assembly the moment we kick up the power.”

  Boyd watched the signals on the holo-stage with rising dread. He had tracked this heavy and knew exactly how to stay hidden. It was Boyd’s job to stay hidden. But with Poledri breathing down his neck, thoughts of being discovered and captured crept into his mind. He dispelled them and remained calm. This was no time to panic.

  The fighters moved into close formation with the Union transport.

  The only possible escape was to head back out toward the outer system and conceal the Odium Fist in the asteroids of the sphere. Capture by the Union would be a bad result. Boyd had spent months building this position in the Faction with Poledri. If he was captured now, it would all be for nothing.

  Capture. The worst of results. This was clearly a Union honey trap designed to capture Faction members alive, but the presence of fighters meant that if Poledri deployed his hail cannons and started a fight, the Odium Fist would surely be destroyed. A single fighter was hard enough to deal with, as its maneuverability and speed was far superior to that of the Fist. They might well survive an encounter with a single Blade, heavily armed and armored as she was, but a pair of Blades was more than enough firepower to deter any single Faction ship, and three of the Union’s best fighter craft was simply too much of a challenge.

  “We must abandon the hunt.” Boyd turned and looked up at Poledri.

  The captain was stiff with anger, his knuckles white on the back of Boyd’s chair right next to his face. Poledri’s neck was red, as it often was when he was angry. He had been with the crew long enough to get the measure of the captain. He was often angry. But then Boyd saw the deep scar on his face twitching.

  He recognized the signs. Poledri was not just angry. He was furious.

  “Move us away, pilot,” Poledri said, pushing himself away from Boyd’s chair. “Bring the Fist about, slow, and take us back into the sphere.”

  Poledri marched back across the flight deck and dropped heavily into his command chair.

  Boyd plotted a course to the nearest large asteroid of the outer sphere. He initiated a light thrust that pushed the Odium Fist off its heading and nudged it gently away.

  Poledri grumbled to himself, but Boyd was focused on the holo-stage. He saw Noland, out of the corner of his eye, glance across the flight deck at him with a half-smile on his face, enjoying the sight of the arrogant pilot in trouble with the captain. Boyd ignored Noland and watched the fighters falling into formation with the Union transport.

  The heavy turned again, completing its crazy pivot, and headed back into the inner system, a heading that would take it eventually to the Union’s central planet of Terra.

  But the Blades held their course. The three fighters adopted a search formation, each fighter taking the point of a triangle covering a huge swathe of space.

  “They are searching for us. They know we are here! Damn you, Boyd, you were supposed to stay hidden.” Poledri stood up again. “Bring the hail cannons online and prepare explosive shrapnel charge.”

  “Weapons online already, Captain,” Carl Raye called out from the weapons console to the side of the flight deck.

  Boyd felt his heart miss a beat. He turned and shot Raye a fierce look before standing up and turning to Poledri.

  “Get those weapons offline!” He turned to Raye. “When did you power them up?” Boyd turned again to Poledri. “They have spotted us. They detected the weapons power system. I know how to keep a ship hidden, but not if the kravin’ guns are powered up. They are here searching and that is just the sort of signal they’ll be looking for: a Faction weapons signature. Damn it all, Raye, get it offline now!”

  Poledri marched across the flight deck and squared off against Boyd. He jabbed a finger hard into Boyd’s chest.

  “I command this ship. I don’t care how good a pilot you are,” Poledri jab
bed Boyd hard again. “If you give an order on my flight deck again, I will airlock your arrogant ass. Understand?”

  Boyd looked Poledri square in the face.

  “Those Blades are closing in on our last position. It won’t take them long to find us, if we keep the guns powered up. If you want command over a smoldering wreck, then please carry on. And if you really do want to airlock me for trying to save the ship, then you’d better be quick. Those Blades will be on us fast, and we’ll all be floating in space pretty soon.”

  Poledri looked at the holo-stage. Boyd stood firm, although he wanted to glance over his shoulder and see the position of the fighters in relation to the Fist. He guessed they must be close, because Poledri turned on his heel and walked back to his chair, waving his arms wildly as he went.

  “Take the hail cannons offline right now. Get us out of here, Boyd.”

  Boyd dropped into his seat in front of the flight console. He needed to act with caution. Every moment he stayed here, he was in danger of being detected. Detection would possibly mean he would find himself blown out of a hull breach, cut to shreds on the jagged edges of hull composite that the Blades’ spitz guns left behind, floating in space and freezing to death while bleeding out and choking in the vacuum.

  Boyd carefully nudged the Fist further off course with another light thrust. Bringing the main drive up to power now would be suicide. He looked at the holo-stage and saw the fighter craft sweep in a methodical search pattern, covering the area of space that the Odium Fist had so recently been traveling through.

  “Hail cannons offline,” Raye said with spite edging his tone. He looked across the flight deck at Boyd, hate in his tiny, pale eyes.

  Boyd knew how and when to pick his battles. He didn’t mind that Poledri hated him, as long as he trusted him. Raye, however, was a violent thug—a first-generation Faction criminal that had taken an instant dislike to Boyd. Even though Poledri had the power of a Faction captain and could execute Boyd at any moment, Raye was the crewman most likely to drive an electron blade into the back of Boyd’s skull, purely on the basis of hate.