Paladin - Chapters 1 to 16 (Edited)

  Report on the Sedona incident and accords

  The Star League is a large polity of hundreds of star systems. Our system was settled because of the combination of rare metal asteroids, a gas giant with the right mix of gasses for starship reactors to use for fuel, and a small habitable moon in orbit. All in all, it is a very desirable system. Typically, such a useful system would have done well in the league, but there were two main issues.

  First the ancient gate network was first discovered when the first human cryo pod-based exploration ship reached Alpha Centauri. The gate network was already ancient when man first achieved flight. The gates allowed quick travel between any systems on the network. Humans found an unclaimed habitable system off one of Alpha Centauri’s gates, and humans joined the galactic neighborhood. Most systems have between three and six gates.

  Paledes, our system has a grand total of one, which connects to the dead system of Sedona, which has two the other leading to Consorsha, an agricultural colony. In other words, we live on a dead-end street in the middle of nowhere with little trade. With the border to the belligerent Theocracy of Amid only ten gates away in one direction and unconsolidated space, also known as the wild stars five gates away in another direction, Paledes was an Important military fuel post for League ships on border patrol.

  Second, the League is divided into Administrative zones with local governors appointed mostly from the League’s core worlds serving as essentially local nobles over three to five systems responsible for regional management of taxes and law enforcement; a hundred years ago, the local administrator in the major system of Herona was in charge of seven system including Paledes and Consorsha the administrator increased taxes on the two outlying systems ignoring their governments protests and the promises the League had given the founders of Paledes. Appeals to higher authorities in the League went unanswered so the Paledes Government began building a fleet converting the frame of a large merchant ship they had bought. They stripped it down to the frame building a light cruiser named Longbow, and declared their independence.

  The administrator sent a group of mercenaries and his law enforcement cutters to suppress the rebellion. The Longbow led a group of armed merchant ships loaded with fighters into action against the Mercenary fleet. The Longbow's unique design featured a single battleship main cannon mounted centerline that could destroy almost anything at or below its weight class, and the Longbow's powerful engines could outrun anything bigger than it.

  It was designed to be used as a raider to continue a guerilla campaign against the League if they refused to accept Paledes independence. After defeating the fleet, the administrator sent Longbow and Paledes armed merchant militia to assault Herona, defeating the small naval task force there and delivering the declaration of independence from orbit above the administrative building; the League recalled the regional administrator. Seven years later friends of that former administrator lobbied enough support from the League Council that they agreed to send a naval detachment to re-annex Paledes for their own good.

  The Paledes intelligence service ( which was just two guys sitting in the public section for every Council hearing) quickly sent word via a fast courier boat to Paledes to warn them. Three weeks later, a detachment from the nearest naval base arrived with a battleship, two escort carriers, five cruisers, and 20 smaller escort ships, usually enough to crush any single colonies defense force. When they arrived in Sedona, however, they encountered the Paledes fleet and the militia the Paledes had been mass-producing fighters during those seven years and using Longbow and her nine sisters, one of which, Paladin my great-grandfather served on, as well as every merchant ship with a cargo hold big enough to transit a fighter thru the gate.

  A water hauler owned by the Morison corporation was hastily converted into a supply ship and unarmed carrier, allowing the pilots to land, eat, and do other necessary services in rotation. Still, those volunteers spent twenty hours a day in their cockpits waiting for the attack. So when the League fleet arrived, they faced ten up-armed light cruisers, forty-five armed merchants, and 400 fighters. The commodore assigned to the mission refused the recommendation to withdraw and gather more resources and attacked.

  The escort carriers launched their fighters and met the Paledes, 80 military fighters and 120 militia fighters. The League pilots shot down two Militia pilots for every one of theirs they lost. Still, the Leagues fighters were destroyed by the Paledes regulars and the sheer number of militia fighters. While that happened, the battleship and the light cruisers were locked in a long-range duel. The Paledes lost three light cruisers, including Paladin, who had her engines shot off and whose crew abandoned ship before Paladin was sucked into the gas giant Sedona III’s atmosphere. The battleship was also destroyed, and with no more fighters to stop the 200 torpedo-armed militia fighters, the surviving officer in charge ordered a retreat. The League forces withdrew while the Paledes began rescue efforts.

  In total, 50 League personnel were recovered, including thirty-five from the battleship's wreckage and fifteen ejected pilots. Total losses on both sides were near even at 1,000 when news reached the League Central Stars. The public was outraged that the members of the Council who had promoted the expedition had sold it as a backwater that was struggling to feed its people being rescued by the league, but somehow, they lost one of the League’s fifty battleships. Then, the media began to dig into the story more and found out about the disgraced administrator and his connection to the events. Instead of firing the administrator and making an example out of him, the League simply quietly retired him and pretended it never happened. It was a massive scandal as the League had always portrayed itself as the defender of small colonies from other more dangerous star powers.

  Massive referendums and votes of no confidence swept through the League due to the scandal. The government was turned on its head as over seventy-five percent of government positions were voted out for minority parties who had championed small colonies and administrative reforms. Perhaps sensing weakness less than a month after the Sedona incident and only a day after the new League government met for the first time, the Theocracy invaded. A messenger boat arrived in Paledes a week later. A Theocracy Conversion fleet had been sighted on its way towards Consorsha, and it was only a day away. As the nearest occupied system to Paledes and their gateway to the rest of the galaxy Paledes and Consorsha had always had a close relationship even though they had never left the League. The Paledes government met and agreed to send the five still functional longbows to aid the small system defense force Consorsha had and put out a public address requesting but not ordering militia volunteers to assist. Thirty armed merchants sailed with the fleet. Unknown to Paledes or Consorsha, a League naval patrol was resupplying in Herona, escorting a diplomatic vessel on its way to Paledes to begin normalizing relations.

  When a Courier boat brought the news of the Theocracy’s pending attack, the diplomat, a former League officer, decided to continue the mission anyway and was just as surprised to find a joint Paledes and SysDef (system defense) fleet orbiting Consorsha as locals were to see a League fleet actually arriving in time to assist. A quick and dirty treaty that was to last until the end of hostilities was hammered out between the Leugue diplomat and the commander of the Paledes forces. Sedon was to be a jointly controlled system since it had nothing of note. Paledes would retain its independence but allow the league to refuel for free. Paledes warships were permitted to operate in League space to assist in joint operations and would enable them to resupply from League bases.

  This rough treaty allowed both forces the legal cover they needed to meet the Theocracy attack together. The war would last for five years, seeing the loss of two more longbows. By the end of the war, the Paledes forces had earned a reputation for being the best Starfighter pilots, and the Militia captains had earned a reputation for convoy escorts not losing a single ship in an escort convey to Theocracy-sponsored privateers or independent pirates. At the same time, Palede's regular armed force learned traditional warfare from the League’s fleet.

  The situation had worked out well for both and by the end the rough treaty got a few minor changes the most significant being a joint military star port being established in Consorsha the treaty was ratified by the Council and the Senate of Paledes and became known as the Sedona Accords in order to honor those who died in that Incident. To this day Paledes remains the only single system polity to have a military arm that is distinctly not a SysDef force.

  Benjamin Miles

  A report on the Sedona Incident and Accords

  Final paper class 82 Paledes central school

  “ and send!” I sat back in my chair, stretching. I had just finished my final project for funded schooling, or what used to be called high school. I did my report on the Sedona Incident and the following Accords, which took place 7 years after our colony declared and fought a war of independence from the Star League. I watched the publicly available sensor report again, closely tracking my great-grandpa's ship, the Paladin. I remember listening to his stories from the Theocracy War when I was younger, but the one he told most often was about his first fight, the Sedona Incident.

  Both sides wanted to forget about it once the Theocracy launched its invasion and raid, but great-grandpa would always say he lost a good friend that day, and while he held no Ill will for the League, that doesn’t mean that we should forget about those who died that day on both sides. Last month, on the 75th anniversary, the League quietly released their sensor records from the battle, which had a much better definition than the previously available Paledes logs. I watched it again because although I had seen both 100 times, something bothered me.

  “Hmmm, it's close to the end,” I mumbled, fast-forwarding to the right when the battleship broke in half. I hit play again and watched the next thirty minutes in real time but still couldn’t see it. “ hmm, let's do this.” I pulled up a second tab and divided my screen down the middle, then played both recordings side by side from that point again, “there!”. I shouted, jumping from my seat and pausing the logs. I was tracking the Paladin; she had lost her engines when she spread out from the rest of the fleet to get an angle on one of the carriers. The battleship shot off her engines.

  Grandpa would tell me about this part he had just landed to rearm when the whole ship shook violently. He fell off the ladder and hit his head on the floor. Luckily, he saw someone crack their skull during training from falling off even the bottom of the ladder, so he got in the habit of leaving his helmet on until both feet were on the ground. The blow stunned him, and he was taken to medical an hour later. When the crew determined the ship was going to hit the atmosphere and break up before anyone could get a tug to recover it, an orderly evacuation was made to two of the armed merchantmen. As I watched all this happen, I overlaid his story with the events on the log. I watched the two merchantmen pull away, and the Paladin enter the ring around the planet where its signal was lost.

  “except wait a minute.” there was a brief ping from one of the League’s cruisers' sensors showing a shape about the right size sliding around the bottom of the planet. “ no, that can’t be right,” I pulled up the suspected heading and speed of the contact from the sensor report. I had just finished my flight training last week to get my hauler and small ship license. It was complimentary in exchange for signing up for the militia. My aunt and uncle would have paid for it if I asked. Still, the Militia hadn’t been activated since the Theocracy War, so two weeks a year and one weekend every other month of essentially starfighter laser tag for the next 13 years in exchange for the training I needed for a career as an independent miner was a no brainer.

  I pulled up the training software and a medium-class freighter similar to the frame the Paladin was built on. Then, I accessed Longbow’s web page. Longbow and the other two ships of her class that survived the war were decommissioned thanks to the new agreements with the League. The Paledes yards only built frigates, destroyers, and starfighters, which we mostly sold to the League. And the League had us three carriers for our fleet’s use over the years. But unlike her two sisters, who were scrapped, Longbow became a floating museum covering the early years and the war of independence.

  All of Longbow's stats, such as weight, thrust, etc., were available on the website, so I plugged those into the software and adjusted the scenario for complete engine destruction into the program. Then, I took the Sedona III gravity and added the planet to the scenario. Finally, I set the initial speed and starting position and the autopilot to attempt to avoid a crash. “ well, this should be interesting,” I hit play and watched. I also queued up the sensor log one more time. About three seconds after the ship disappeared from the actual log, the simulation vessel suddenly hauled over and applied maximum burn on all portside thrusters, acting like a poor set of engines.

  Nevertheless, the ship began to swing around the bottom of the planet. A glance told me the numbers were close to the ghost contact the League vessel picked up. I sped up the simulation, and a short time later, the computer dinged “ simulation complete, “ and a red x appeared, signifying failure. “ I figured as much.” looking at the cause of failure, instead of a ship destroyed, it said total power failure. I raised an eyebrow and confusion and reran it in fast forward; sure enough, the ship survived the maneuver but over-stressed the reactor, causing a safety shutdown. “ no way.” if my rough shot experiment was right, the Paladin might have survived the maneuver.

  But why was the transponder lost before the shutdown if it didn’t crash? The transponder had cut out shortly after entering the ring, so I decided to check that first. Looking at the public database for the Sedona III survey report, the only thing found out of the ordinary was a slightly higher concentration of three elements I couldn’t pronounce, but a quick search on the planet net revealed that those elements plus other unnamed materials were mixed into paints for stealth ships, was it possible it was just enough to block the signal from a failing transponder? I couldn’t answer that, but I knew who could. I grabbed my communication device or comm.D and called my cousin Alex.

  “Hey, Ben, what’s up? Have you finished that report yet?” I smiled even though he couldn’t see me. Alex was three years older than me and my cousin on my mom’s side. After the accident, when a miner who was operating a company hauler drunk crashed into their shuttle and killed them, I had been living with Alex and his family, and for the last 7 years, they have treated me as one of their own. Even if I don’t plan on going into the family business of long-haul shipping. “ yep, I just sent it in; are you at the office? I have some numbers I’d like to run by Ali.''

  A.L.I or Artificial Learning Intelligence was a high-end AI the company had bought to help them plan shipping routes, loads, and other important stuff, and she was good at helping with my homework. “yep, I’m here and sure you are trying to figure out which hauler to buy?” The rock haulers company had settled out of court. Legally, they weren’t responsible for their employee flying drunk. Still, the event would have significantly damaged their reputation, so I agreed not to go to the press, and they gave me a decent amount of money. Between that and the summer jobs I had been picking up the last few years, I had just enough to buy my own hauler, allowing me to be my boss.

  The government subsidized the refinery in the system. It only charged independent haulers five percent of their load to process the ore they brought in and another five to find a buyer. Still, I planned to sell to the family business so I would get to keep 95% of my load's worth. “No, it's probably nothing, but..” I trailed off, not sure what to say. Luckily, Alex finished my sentence, “But it could be something. Yeah, swing on by.” I thanked him and hung up. I quickly sent the files and data I had been working with to A.L.I's net address, then got up and grabbed my coat and holster. Paledes militia culture was still strong. Most everyone went armed, and some folks even owned personal Starfighters that were better than the massive stockpile of spare units the government kept just in case the militia used them.

  I checked my dart pistol and ensured the red magazine was in it. I carried three magazines, two red and one green. The red magazines fired darts. A selector on the pistol would set them to one large dart or separate into a shotgun-style blast. The green rounds were armor-piercing, not illegal, but more challenging to get a hold of. They would get you funny looks and probably a visit from the constabulary if you bought them in bulk. Grabbing my keys, I walked out to my town car. Town cars were cheap and only made for use in town. They had a small onboard battery but were powered mainly by remote chargers on the road. It had two seats, one in front of the other, and a small trunk so that you could fit two town cars in the space of an old combustion vehicle.

  I climbed in and shut the door. “ where is Mr. Miles?” the computer asked, “ Morison Corporation headquarters, please.” Most people found my politeness to dumb computers funny, but I spent much time with A.L.I. While the company that designed her swears the A.L.I.’s aren’t sentient, I’m sure I’ve seen her get annoyed and give intentionally correct but misleading answers to rude company employees who never seemed to last long in the company. Since I didn’t know which smart toaster would become the A.I. overlord in the future, I was just going to err on politeness.

  “Manual or auto?” “auto,” the car began navigating from my apartment complex to the office. Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the main parking lot and walked into the main lobby, which had a large-scale model of the Camel hanging from the ceiling. The Camel was the water haul the original Morison family head volunteered to have converted at his own expense to be a fleet tender. I walked over to the front desk where Rick, the retired marine and long-time company employee, sat. He was part greeter, part security. “ Hey Rick, I’m here to meet up with Alex.” Rick smiled back and hit the button that unlocked the interior door under his desk. “Sounds good, Ben; I’ll let him know you're on your way up.”

  I waved and walked into the hallway, over to the elevator, and went up to the fifth floor, where Alex had his office. His dad still ran the company day to day after our grandpa stepped down to vice president last year, and Alex was assistant vice president while he went to specialization school or College. For business, our grandpa was likely to retire fully in a year or two, and then Alex would take on the Vice President role.

  Alex met me at the door. “ Ben, good to see you; how's your week been?” I smiled and gave him a quick hug. “ good, as I mentioned, I got my paper in today, and the net updated with my small craft license yesterday, so I can’t complain'' Alex took a seat behind his desk, and I sat in the chair “ so you wanted to talk to Ali right? A.li Ben is here.” a small hologram project of a woman in her 20s in conservative business attire appeared on the desk. “ Ben, it's good to see you. How may I help you today?” “Hi Ali, can you bring up those files I sent you?”

  Ali nodded but then, to my surprise, recommended, “ I believe we should set the office to privacy mode first.” Alex looked at me funny. “ Ben, I’m engaged now, buddy; Alysha would have my balls if she caught me looking at anything that required privacy mode.” I rolled my eyes at him. “I know that, and she’s too good for you anyway. I’m not going to be the one to give her an excuse to wise up.” we both chuckled. “ o.k., now that we got that settled, Ali, privacy mode then, please,” Alex requested. The glass windows to the hall were frosted over, and his window blinds were locked into place. Ali dimmed the lights so only the blue light of her projection filled the room.

  I gave Alex some background. “ so you know I was doing my report on the Sedona Incident?” Alex nodded along. “ well, I was looking at the new data released by the League last month and saw something odd,” Ali helpfully highlighted the sensor return. “So I ran a quick and dirty test.” Ali showed a quick demonstration of my program’s simulation. “So I figured I would ask Ali to run the real numbers and see where I went wrong because there's no way the government would misplace a light cruiser, right?” I half asked. Ali said, “Based on all available data, there is a 34% chance of the Paladin’s Survival.”

  Alex whistled, “ 34% not bad. I wonder how far out the system it would be and why no one saw it on sensors in the years after. Sure, the transponder was off, but the League and we often run war games in that system. You’d think something that size would have been investigated at least once as a ship playing possum.” playing possum was a term dating back to earth, something about an animal that pretended to die not to be attacked; I always thought that would make something more likely to eat it but what did I know. The term was used to refer to ships that would shut down most systems in hopes of not being detected so they could get close to another ship and launch a surprise attack. It rarely worked without other things to distract the enemy, but enough captains had pulled it off over the years that it was still used occasionally.

  “ According to my calculations, I believe I have an answer to that,” Ali interjected. “One of the variables Ben forgot to set was the date of the engagement. It would have likely wound up here if I had rerun the scenario with the right date and assumed the ship had survived.” The 3d map floating in the officer followed a blue line representing the Paladin. It swung under the planet's south pole and then around the back. Just when it looked like it was going to sail into space, it got caught in the orbit of a small moon or massive asteroid, and it eventually settled over the next five years into a position between the moon and the planet.

  “ as you can see, if the Paladin survived, she would be in the shadow of this geostationary moon, always on the planet's side and unlikely to be found by accident, which is why I thought we should keep this meeting private because there is a one and three chance there is a derelict light cruiser behind that planet which per League and Paledes law having been abandoned for over twenty years is now the legal property of the first person to find it and claim it” I looked over at Alex “ dibs on the Cruiser” we both laughed “ hey, no argument from me the only way to afford to maintain something like that is to use the flight bay to haul cargo, and there is a reason I’m working the company office instead of running one of the freighters space is nice for trips, but I want to live under a sky.”

  I nodded. I didn't feel the same need. The lease on my apartment ended next month, and I had planned to buy a hauler with a living space to save on rent. “ Alysha’s busy studying for her law exam this weekend, so I’m free if you want to go take a look. I’m sure we could barrow Grandpa’s runabout; its gate is capable.” I nodded. It would be a fun little trip even if there were nothing there. After a quick walk to Grandpa’s office, he agreed to let us borrow the runabout. I made arrangements to meet Alex at the local spaceport in the morning.

  I climbed out of my town car at the port the next morning and pulled my weekend bag out of the trunk then sent instructions to return to my apartment. I could use my comm.D when we returned to tell it to come get me. I walked over to the hanger and opened the side door. I found Alex inside but he wasn’t alone. “Alysha, Emily what are you two doing here, I thought you were studying for the exams”. This question I directed at the Filan redhead checking the wings for damage.

  Filan were humanoid cat people from one of the first semi developed world humans encounter once they got onto the gate network the felines were hampered from developing due to their sun constantly throwing off solar flares so only the most hardened buildings had electronics but they had a gift for languages and through all the efforts of their race managed to get a small hardened space station into orbit before the first encounter, early explorers had a rule apparently based on a old flat screen show that they wouldn’t make contact with any species without space flight. The Felines were able to see the gate from ground side observatories and awaited the explorers arrival.

  They quickly picked up Standard from the explorers and after diplomats met with humans on Centauri and realized their sun was abnormal there was a mass migration with human assistance to another more stable system. Add a few hundred years and some light genetic modifications and Felines were uncommon but not rare; most colonies outside the xenophobic Theocracy had a few. “ An availability at the testing facility opened up yesterday and I took it and found out I passed last night when I comm’d Alex to see what he was up to. He mentioned you two had a trip planned. I was hoping it would be alright if I tagged along. Alex said I had to ask you.”

  I hesitated but only for a moment, Alex and Alysha had been dating for five years and the wedding was in two months. She got a degree in business law to help with the company “ no worries Alysha your family you're always welcome. Her tail happily flicked behind her as Alex walked around from the back of the craft “someone’s happy” he said rubbing Alysha’s head between her ears “ hey stop that we’re in public!” she yelled, swatting at his hands. Emily rolled her eyes and yelled at her brother and soon to be sister-in-law “ get a room!” causing Alysha to stop and blush and me to chuckle.

  “ Are you coming to Emily?” I asked my other cousin. “yep Grandpa doesn’t want any funny business in his shuttle so I’m chaperoning” she said loud enough to be heard by the couple “he did not!” Alex defended indignantly, Emily chuckled “ maybe he did maybe he didn’t do you really want to ask him?” Emily liked giving her brother a hard time but I knew she was really happy despite being younger she was actually Alysha’s friend before Alysha met Alex and she was happy her best friend was marrying her brother “anyway, Pre flights done let's load up”

  Everyone climbed onboard and Alex pointed me to the left hand seat. “ You're qualified now and this was your idea, take us out.” I smiled and sat down on my first non training flight as a licensed pilot. Alex used his comm.D to open the hangar roof while I turned on the radio and listened to the weather brief which was clean and clear. “ Paledes Orbital control this is shuttle Golf niner five eight seven Charlie Papa requesting clearance for vertical takeoff from Jamestown hanger row thru orbital to gate we have India”,” Golf niner five eight seven Charlie Papa confirmed weather is India you are clear vertical to orbit join orbital path three then follow the buoys out contact Gate control on this channel when one hour from gate how copy” it was the standard departure pattern so I keyed up the com “ Golf niner five eight seven Charlie Papa copy all, out”

  I slowly lifted the shuttle clear of the hanger then when I reached about 200 feet rotated the engines down and added power while we climbed out of the atmosphere. “ and we are in space deflector coming up” I hit the button and the green field shimmered and solidified around the shuttle. Deflectors were of course the lighter version of shields that civilian ships used only really good at stopping fast moving small rock and keeping dust and debris from scraping the paint but their most important role ,through physics I didn’t understand, was providing gravity. Alex checked his copilot read outs “deflector at full, auto pilot course laid in for gate” being the P.I.C or pilot in command everyone’s lives were my responsibility so even though I trusted Alex’s calculations I double checked his course plot before locking it in.

  “ Alright, that’s done four hours to the jump gate” I said, turning in my seat to talk to the rest of the group as they got up to stretch Alex looked over at me “ remember to set the proximity alert?” I nodded back “yep, doing that now and moving the com’s to overhead” the League law that Paledes also followed stated that small craft either had to have someone at the helm or were allowed to be on autopilot so long as a collision avoidance system was set and someone monitored the com’s grandpas shuttle had a proximity alarm built into his auto pilot and he taught us to have both the avoidance software and alarm set if we were going to be away from the controls so a real human could make the call on how to avoid the possible collision.

  We sat down at the table and Alysha brought out the breakfast she had packed for us and we dug in. We were just finishing up and were about to discuss the reason for the trip when suddenly the overhead trilled an alarm three times. Alex cocked his head “ that’s not the proximity alarm” I was already out of my seat and running 30 feet to the pilots station Alex was only a second behind me when he realized what I did. someone had triggered their emergency beacon. “Paledes control to shuttle Victor five three eight four Tango Zulu, we have received an emergency beacon activation are you in distress?''

  The orbital control officers' bored voice sounded of a memorized and clearly often spoken sentence; most beacon activations were accidental and so long as the pilot answered and wasn’t in distress everything would go back to normal shortly. “hell… hello, is someone there please help my grandpa fell over and isn’t getting up? '' the voice of a little girl came over the com. When a beacon was activated the com automatically transmitted everything it heard so the pilot could focus on flying the ship and not trying to work the com properly.

  The operator's voice came back sounding much more invested. “ Hey there, sweaty, what's your name?” Alex pointed at the screen and I cursed under my breath. The shuttle in distress was just short of entering the atmosphere, maybe four minutes out and we were the only ship anywhere nearby. I missed the girl's reply but caught the station's response “hello Megan I’m Paul is anyone else on the shuttle?” The little girl spoke again, sounding very scared, “no just me and Grandpa.” I cursed again and called back to the lounge in a tone I rarely used'' secure all loose items and strap in” I heard Emily and Alysha grabbing the plate and shoving them into the cabinets. “O.k Megan, can you tell me if a big red light is glowing on the controls.”

  The big red light was the autopilot indicator on most shuttles and by now orbital control would have pulled up the shuttle make and model to check that it had that layout if auto pilot was on it would be a simple set of instruction to allow the station remote access to pull the shuttle into a safe orbit if not then there would be trouble. “no the light is turned off” Megan’s trembling voice came over the com again she had clearly realized something was wrong. Without a pilot or the autopilot engaged the ship was likely to tear itself apart on reentry Alex thru a timer up on the cockpit main screen three minutes thirty seconds. I looked at Alex and he looked at me, neither of us were sure what to do.

  I had a thought grandpa had bought his shuttle second hand from a large freighter Alex and I went with him when he picked it up it was lock to the deck with magnetic landing gear because freighters had to drop their deflectors to on and off load cargo and the original owner didn’t want to strap it down all the time so upgraded the landing gear I had a plan but needed to ask Emily if it would work. “Emily if two similar sized deflector fields were it bounce into each other what would happen?” my little cousin and our resident engineer called back. “ assuming both have been maintained properly they should both shut down to avoid blowing out the emitters… why?” she called back sounding suspicious. I looked at Alex with a grin starting to form on my lips he shook his head in resignation “you were always the better pilot I’ll handle coms”.

  He keyed the com while I firewalled the throttle adding more gravities than the deflectors could offset. “Orbital Control this is shuttle Golf niner five eight seven Charlie Papa on emergency band be advised we are going to attempt a rescue.” A disappointed and resigned voice came over the radio “ we appreciate the offer Golf niner five eight seven Charlie Papa but we checked earlier and our records don’t show your shuttle having any recovery equipment or a deflector distorting docking collar and we can’t get Megan to turn off the deflector or activate the autopilot” I got us behind the shuttle luckily it hadn’t started to tumble I matched speeds then bumped our speed up a little so we were gaining out the shuttle I lined us up directly above the shuttle checked the clock one minute tell entry it was now or never. I shouted “brace, brace, brace”

  then activated the maneuvering thrusters on the roof at full emergency power our two deflectors collided with a jarring impact bouncing us off forty-five seconds I gritted my teeth and did it again this time there was a resounding pop sizzle and we kept going I quickly cut thrust and let our momentum carry us and activated the magnetic landing struts there was a definite crunch but I just had to hope it wasn’t something vital on the other shuttle. I started a slow lumbering roll to get our shuttles pointed away from the surface checked the clock thirty seconds I firewalled the throttle again this time without the deflector active the G-forces were almost unbearable my vision narrowed as I took short rapid breaths and locked up my muscles as my vision narrowed the edges going red all I could see was the speed gauge.

  I waited until the negative indicator went to zero then finally positive and I was finally able to back off the throttle “status” I asked the crew the only response I got were groans “Charlie Papa to orbital control we got them” Orbital control responded immediately “copy Charlie Papa League frigate Defiant is two minutes out to render medical aid what’s your status” I looked around everyone looked messed up I had forgotten about the felt G-forces without the deflector up. “ we are a little banged up orbital control we may have had a few blackouts “ someone in the background of orbital control could just barely be heard saying “ no shit, they were pulling 9 G’s at one point”

  Before being shushed by someone “ copy black out information forwarded to medical staff on Defiant transferring you to their com channel now, godspeed Charlie Papa '' the next two hours were a whirlwind the Defiant docked with the shuttle we were magnetized against. to rescue the girl and her grandpa while a suited medic came to our airlock with a lieutenant. I let them in while the medic checked us over and the officer got copies of our data on the accident their engineer deployed a few maintenance drones to check us over and with everyone’s approval and a quick nanite injection to help Alysha repair some mild eye damage and a promise to take it easy for a few days and we were sent on our way.

  “ magnets released, and we are clear” Emily had taken up the third slot in the cockpit and made a improvised engineering station out of the screens “ deflectors back up stable the emergency shut down seems to have worked perfectly” I acknowledged her report and pulled away from the frigate and other shuttle once far enough away I put the shuttle back up to cruising speed and settled into the hopefully boring 10 hour flight to Sedona III.

  “We are here, wherever here is” I was taking a nap on a bench in the lounge while Alex and Alysha watched a movie on the couch and Emily worked on a project at the table that looked like some kind of drone. She was the one who woke me up. “oh right we got interrupted earlier when we were going to explain, we are looking for a ship.” Emily’s eyes shot up to mine “ a ship what kind?” She asked excitedly. She was the smart one of the family, an engineering prodigy . She already had her class B starship engineering license and had been looking for a berth since she passed her funded school final paper last week. She was rated for a Class A license but it required time aboard a ship to earn.

  “easy she’s not even likely to be there” I said, patting the air to get her to dampen her enthusiasm, it didn't help. “ What ship?” Emily asked again, not at all deterred. I let out a sigh. “We might I say might have found the Paladin” Emily’s jaw dropped and so did the screwdriver in her right hand” Alex and Alysha must have paused their movie because Alysha asked “ what’s the Paladin?” Emily turned to her and started talking in her engineer voice.

  “ Paladin was a Longbow class light cruiser built in common star era 3418 she was commissioned from no yard as the Longbows were built using temporary scaffolding since recycled she was destroyed in the Sedona Incident two years later.” Alex interjected “ Well maybe not Ben found something while looking through the new sensor report the League released and we figured it was worth a weekend to check out.” Emily’s eyes lit up as she remembered something “ that’s right Ben your great grandpa was on the Paladin right?” I nodded “ yep, he flew fighters and was assigned there.”

  Alysha scrunched her face up in confusion and cocked her head to the side “ I thought your guys’ great grandpa captained the Camel?” we all nodded and I explained further “ he did I’m related to these two on my mom’s side and her grandpa captained the Camel its my dad’s grandpa who flew fighters and got me into small craft”, “oh o.k. that makes since'' we continued to chat while I got the shuttle moving around the back side of the planet to the area behind the moon.

  Alex was watching the sensors” this soup out here makes it almost impossible to find anything with the shuttle's sensors. We are lucky we have such a robust military or we would lose freighters every week to pirates hiding in here.” We flew around for another fifteen minutes tell Alex called out “I got something two contacts about the right size sending you the headings now” I checked the headings and flew us to the nearest one and Alex laughed. “One oddly ship shaped iron asteroid” we all chuckled and Emily said “ I’m good but even I can’t get that flying.”

  I flew us over to the second target “ it’s a ship!” Alex said excitedly we all got excited as I flew closer “wait there's something wrong. Its’ split in half '' I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Emily was just as disappointed if the look on her face meant anything “wait a minute that is to small to be Paladin, yeah that’s the Saraphon a personal transport that had a reactor failure fifty years ago in system the authorities dragged it out of the travel lane and tossed it at the planet its still in a decaying orbit for 20 more years it’s a known and tracked piece of debris” she said the last bit looking at Alex who was serving as navigator and who’s job it was to monitor for stuff like that.

  He had the grace to look sheepish he hit a few button on his console “oh look there it is” I face palmed “well it's not here but if I ever do get a ship you're definitely not the navigator” Emily and Alysha laughed and after flipping me the bird Alex joined in “ hang on I got one more faint return from a little more planet ward you want to check it out?” I looked around and the others shrugged " sure why not we flew the ten hours out here we minus well” Alex passed me the heading and away we went it was 20 minutes outside our search area so it took a bit to get to it Emily shouted excitedly. “89% match to the data loaded for Longbow if the reports were right she lost her engines so that would probably make up the difference.”

  We flew closer and sure enough hanging dead in space was a ship that supposedly crashed into the planet below us 76 years ago. “ The ship will be dead of course but the airlock is located here.” Emily said, pointing to a 3D image of the original longbow she pulled up on her pad. “ We should be able to dock with it and power it from our side and see if it opens” Emily threw up a navigation path and I followed the happy green line. “Everyone hold on to something switching off the deflector” I waited two seconds then flipped the switch the gravity cut out and we began to float then a few small thruster bumps and Emily called out.

  “ docking complete, ummm guys we should have put our suits on before we turned off gravity” we all looked at each other and sighed. Half an hour and one bruised elbow later we were all suited up. The shuttle's airlock could only handle two at a time so Emily and I went through first with our flashlights on. Emily had a small power pack she brought that could power on individual systems. We waited until Alex and Alysha came through then I turned to Emily “ so what next?”

  She looked at me funny. “ This was your idea, what were you going to do?” I shrugged “honestly, if we had found it I planned to fly back to Paledes and let someone know it was here, maybe your dad could get a team together? I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.” Emily bobbed her head from side to side. “ well let's go to engineering if the reactor is scrammed then this is just scrap or a less functional museum then Longbow” we floated down the hall to the center line hallway we were on floor three according to the free public schematics of Longbow to get to engineering we could either cross the flight deck hear on deck three or follow the gangway across from deck one or the hallway under the hanger on deck five we decided to the hanger the doors had all been left open in the evacuation making getting around pretty easy we were crossing the flight bay when I say something that made me miss seeing a box I bumped into.

  “ouch” I muttered using the box to try to push off towards what I saw but of course all that did was send me slowly drifting away. I sighed “ help please” Alysha, who was waiting at the last anchor point grabbed some rope from the floor and tied off one end then threw the other out in front of the way I was drifting. I grabbed it and began hauling myself back to the floor. Emily had opened an emergency locker near the hanger door from the forward section of the ship. “ mag poles, everyone take two. I swapped the batteries but test them to be sure” mag poles or magnetic poles were like walking sticks with magnets on either side and a switch in the middle. so someone on a ship in zero G could use them to drag themselves around large open areas. I checked mine. They worked so I moved across the hanger sitting on the ready apron was a Panther fighter.

  I moved to the side and cleaned off the dust from the fighter's name Bouncing Betty, a painting of a blonde with generous proportions and a suggestive cowgirl outfit riding a bull was painted on the nose. Alysha, Emily, and Alex came over. “ I know you haven’t had a girlfriend in a few years, cous’ but now’s not the time to get distracted by a nice rack” Emily said poking me in the side just a little harder than playfully. I didn’t say anything and grabbed my comm.D opening the pictures I flicked to one and handed it to her. “oh” Emily looked at a photo of a slightly older and skinnier version of me leaning against the side of the same fighter.

  “Great grandpa always told the story about landing to rearm before the ship was hit and being evacuated but it never occurred to me it would still be here. This alone makes the trip worth it” Emily patted me on the shoulder “ even if we can’t do anything for the rest of the ship I will definitely get Betty flying again for you” I hugged her fiercely. “thanks E '' E was Emily’s old nickname from when we were kids she normally hated it but she let it slide this time. “alright let's go look at that reactor!”

  Emily led the way and we continued our trip to the reactor room. “Alright everyone give me five minutes.” Emily said while plugging in her Tablet and power pack to the main computer ” I checked my suit. We had been on board for about half an hour and my suit still had two hours of air left. “suit checks air call ” the other three confirmed having a similar amount. Suddenly Emily’s excited yell filled our com’s “ I don’t believe it! Guys the reactor tripped into standby. It didn't scram it only needs a positive flow to reinitialize.”

  we all stared at her Alysha took the lead with her friend “ ummm Emily dear can we get that again in Standard?” Emily rolled her eyes at us “run enough power cabling from the flight deck to connect here to the power port in the airlock on the shuttle and I can get the reactor restarts which means lights, now and breathable air and heating in about 12 hours.” That we all understood and we left Emily to her work as we scrounged the hanger for all the power cables we would need. We had to unplug about half the things in there but eventually we had enough to hook up to the spot Emily pointed out.

  A few minutes later and the Reactor began to glow blue slowly getting brighter and brighter then the lights in the overhead came on and we all cheered. “ Ok I have everything set up. The elevators should be working but I don’t want to bring the shuttle inside where it could get stuck if something goes wrong.” Emily declared patting dust from her gloves.

  the longbows main cannon was fixed forward facing and the four secondary’s could pivot to have at least two covering most angles but the ship was really designed to face its enemies head on so the hanger amidships had two elevators that opened hatches on top of the ship to launch and recover shuttle or fighter sized craft the shields around the elevators specifically designed to create a small hole when ships were landing or launching it did leave a gap an enemy could attack but this was a light cruiser with a fighter compliment not a purpose built carrier and was unlikely to be launching and recovering craft while under fire or so the designers thought evidence had proven otherwise still not a single longbow was lost due to enemy fire getting through the elevator shield gap.

  I checked the air gauge again one hour left “o.k. folks let's call it a day we can go back to the shuttle and cast off so we can re-engage the deflector and start again in the morning”. The team agreed and we returned to the shuttle undocked, pulling a few hundred yards away and setting the auto pilot to station keeping. The girls pulled the fold out bed from the couch and Alex slept on the bench. I Leaned the pilot's seat back, and made sure the headset value was set to max and closed my eyes.

  The next morning I woke to the smell of not quite bacon. I looked over to see Alysha popping meal packs out of the shuttle cooker. Meal packs were an in between type food the had a shelf life of about 10 years but still tasted better then ration bars or military ration packs and just slightly better then a frozen meal pack depending on the type not as good as real food but better then I had planned for I just had a few ration bars in my bag. “ enough for all of us?” I asked hopefully, Alysha chuckled “ men, let me guess you did what Alex did and just brought ration bars?” I nodded sheepishly “ your lucky I thought ahead yes there is enough for you two as well”

  I let out a soft cheer grabbing a bottled coffee drink from my bag again, not as good as the real stuff but better then nothing. “ but this is all the fresh food we brought plus Alex and I have to go back to work tomorrow” we all sat around the table eating and discussing until Alysha said “ its two bad the Paladin isn’t in better shape” I could tell she meant more than just an oh darn its broke kind of way so I asked “ what do you mean?” Alysha quickly explained “ well I was looking at the laws last night before bed and currently the Paladin would be classified as salvage and we as the finders are entitled to twenty percent of its worth if. we bring it back then we get sixty. the government always gets twenty and the original owners also the government in this case get twenty.” Alex snorted, “ the tax man is always going to get his cut.”

  Alysha nodded “that’s why it sucks if it was able to travel under its own power it would be derelict instead of salvage and by League and Paledes law any ship that’s been derelict over fifty years is property of the discoverer” we all took a moment to digest that then Emily spoke up “ darn if I had a month some help and two Class B engines to install I could do it too, but those are a few million each!”

  I thought about it for a moment then pulled out my comm.D and checked my account 3,702,000 credits mostly the money left from the settlement after paying for my parents few debts and final expenses I thought about it for a few seconds then decided what the hell the fancy rock hauler I wanted was 3.5 million I was going to buy it and still have a nice cushion while I learned the trade but as I looked at the display showing the wounded Paladin I couldn’t see deciding to send her to the scrap yard. “ I’ll do it” I stated firmly not realizing I had said it out loud “do what?” Alysha asked.

  “ Emily, could you tell Alex where to buy a pair of decent class B engines for 3.7?” Emily’s got wide eyed look “ yeah there was a freighter being scrapped in Consorsha last month had its side peeled from a run in with a rock hauler I did the service report when working there to pay for my Class B engineering certificate there isn’t a lot of call for Class B engines out this far other than at the joint Station and the military doesn’t use refurbs that aren’t their own but are you sure? There’s maybe two weeks of fuel in the reactor if the ships operating at full power and without the plasma generator working the shields wont work I could maybe pull enough power from the reactor to get them up to deflector strength but that’s going to make the fuel run out sooner not to mention the cost in parts for maintenance down the road and the need of a crew” she made a lot of good points but still.

  “I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to pay the bills but I’m not letting the Paladin go to the scrapper.” We talked about it for a bit and decided on a plan. First we got our suits back on then docked with the ship. Yesterday on the way out of the hangar we saw great grandpa's starfighter, another with combat damage and the ship's shuttle which must have been left behind in the quick evacuation. Emily did a full tear down inspection of the shuttle and got it working within specs that took about four hours even with all of us helping because of the lack of gravity. She also test-cycled the elevator to make sure it was working.

  Then when the suits registered the environment as safe and we took our helmets off. Emily went to work in engineering and the rest of us took the time to tidy up and make sure the four missiles floating around were safely strapped back into the ordinance cradle. They had the same design as modern ones but I would definitely be turning those over to station authorities for disposal. All the other ordinance onboard were railgun rounds which were just funny shaped bars of metal or pellets not a threat even if they sat for a thousand years.

  Once we were sure we had a means of escape Emily and I went with Alex and Alysha to the airlock and said our goodbyes I transferred the funds to Alex they would go and take grandpas shuttle and rent a hauler to transport the engines to the our work site and leave us grandpas shuttle on the way back to return the hauler to the Paledes orbital station and we could use grandpas shuttle to go back and forth every few day until Grandpa needed his shuttle back or we got the engines fully hooked up. The shuttle undocked and they took off and after double checking everything was secured Emily powered up the shields using the reactor quite thudding noises could be heard throughout the ship for the next thirty seconds as our feet touched down.

  “ Woops guess there was a lot of stuff floating in other parts of the ship. I guess people are less concerned about securing loose gear when the ship is about to crash into a planet” Emily helpfully pointed out after the fact “ yep, so how much fuel do we have?” I asked. Emily shrugged “ eh, even with the shields drawing power without the ship actually maneuvering or idling the engines I would say month to month and a half to be honest I’m not sure we can get the engines hooked up by then.” She was right this type of full service maintenance really needed a shipyard but it was too late now. “I don’t know, maybe I can sell something like the shuttle to afford to hire a work crew” Emily thought for a moment “ that might work, boss.”

  I looked at her funny “boss since when?” she looked at me like I was an idiot “since you put 3 million credits into this old girl” she said, gesturing around at the Paladin. “ I’m going to go work on the Betty which is about all I can do without access to the ships net to know what needs fixing” large vessels like this had nets of their own, a web of computer systems and sensors that would flag damage and where notices were posted. While she worked on Betty I decided to head for the bridge.

  I went up to the second deck and found the bridge safely buried in the middle of the vessel I walked in feeling the history that lingered here men and women fought on this bridge in a conflict that was important if short and overshadowed by the ones that came before and after. I took a seat in the captain's chair and imagined what it must have been like. I felt less bad about doing it because I knew the Paladins crew had survived the ship's death so it didn’t feel like disturbing a tomb.

  “engines all ahead full, guns target that frigate fire the main as she bares, Ops launch all fighters!” I shouted to the empty bridge “oh right I forgot” I mustered my best command voice “sound general quarters!” suddenly a voice came over the bridge speakers.” , “unable to comply “ the mechanical voice said causing me to jump out of my seat I shouted “ who’s there?” and the voice continued.

  “ Abandon ship order was given and the ship went into standby full reverification of command structure required please state name and rank” I realized this must be the ship's computer not an almost A.I. like Ali but a much dumber machine but also responsible for running the net so I decided to try to work with what I had.

  “ Benjamin Miles no rank wait correction Militia Ensign”, “processing Error, no Militia ensign Miles on file” what that didn’t make sense my commission went through three weeks ago. Then it dawned on me “ when was your roster last updated?” The machine paused again “ yesterday Thursday the 11th of October 3420” the Sedona incident occurred on the 12th of October 3420 nearly 76 years ago no wonder I wasn’t in the ship's records but I should be able to fix this “ Paladin verify data with Authorized source in system.”

  The buoy network cress crossed League space and courier boats would make regular trips updating and maintaining them and I was betting that Sedona’s hadn’t needed replacing and I was right two minutes passed. “ local buoy accessed error data is significantly different updating records this may take a while”

  ten minutes passed then twenty finally “ records updated end of hostiles verified decommissioning date of longbow class vessels verified, genetic code of one ensign Miles received please verify identity” a panel on the captains chair slid open I placed my palm on the scanner my hand tingled as a small laser burn off a small section of the top layer of my skin and analyzed it. I shook my hand and winced. I always hated when I had to do that. “ genetic profile matched. Please state your purpose for being here Ensign Miles''

  I didn’t really have a good answer so I went with the truth “ to claim the Paladin as derelict salvage” “processing, checking buoy for updates to relevant laws conflict unable to resolve referring to higher authority error unable to contact higher authority conflict logged for future review” I cursed but decided to try one more time “ define conflict”, “conflict resulted from conflict of rules derelict rights are indeed awarded to Ensign Miles however the law does not specifically include military vessels where as the Military Statutes prohibit the transfer of military equipment specifically arms to civilians unless specifically authorized.”

  That did seem like a problem but I vaguely recalled something from my militia training and history class it was in regards to the armed transports of the early wars and the surplus fighter that a lot of veterans bought when they retired it was a creative use of the Militia regulations and I hoped it would help me now I just had to find it I flipped to the section of the regulations saved in my comm.D that my instructor had told me about there it is. “paladin please review Militia regulation 34.8.7-5”, “processing 34.8.7-5 Militia personal may at their discretion purchase or acquire available surplus supplies and equipment as available to best aid the Paledes people in times of need.”

  “ Thank you Paladin now, please review the decommissioning documents for the Longbow class ships. Does it contain a line about being surplus to the needs of the navy as a reason for decommissioning?” “processing such statement is found.” I held my finger up in the air and shook it like a lawyer from some holo-drama “so in a accordance with derelict laws I claim this vessel as my own and in accordance with regulation 34.8.7-5 I claim all arms and armament both onboard and mounted to Paladin it having been deemed surplus to the navy.”

  The computer paused for a long time an I thought it didn’t work and then “ justification accepted conflict resolved official transfer of command approved pending review of logic chain and official awarding by recognized Paledes courts, welcome aboard Captain Miles” then a loud whistle was played throughout the ship “ now here this, now here this, effect immediately on this 8th July common era 3496 Captain Benjamin Miles has assumed command of the light cruiser Paladin in full accord with the laws of Paledes and the League may he discharge this duty with honor. That is all.”

  Needless to say I had to explain the whole thing to Emily. Good news, we got her registered as the ship's chief engineer and added to the net. We then spent the next four hours running around checking all the internal sensor to make sure the ship was functioning properly and make sure the sensors would tell us if it wasn’t remarkably the long period of time free floating in space hadn’t done the ship many disservices only a few small issues were found and the spare parts we found all worked. We were just finishing the last spot when the overhead chimed.

  “ captain two vessels on approach” I looked at Emily “Alex and Alysha must be back” I ran up to the bridge but the sensors were picking up the hauler and one much larger ship about a third of the size of the Paladin “ and that’s why you have a crew” I muttered to myself the computer could dutifully alert me to a new vessel on sensor but couldn’t know it wasn’t the one I was waiting for. Emily had already sat at the sensor station “ut oh” I grew concerned “ what kind of ut oh?” she looked back at me “ that’s the wide load one of the company transports''

  I was surprised, and wondered why Alex would bring one of the company ships. They were expensive to run and taking one off its normal trade route would cost time and money. The light on the com’s panel began to flash and I walked over “ go for the Paladin” I heard a voice I easily recognized “ well I’ll be damned you actually got her up and running when Alex brought my shuttle back and I saw it was missing two of my three grandkids I almost didn’t believe what he told me!” a smile lit my face “ grandpa what are you doing here?”

  the old man laughed “well I wanted to see your new place also brought a few people to help us sort out this little project of yours the company decided to send Rick and a few retired marine buddies of his for some refresher training, you know marines do damage control on navy vessels when not kicking in doors? And look here a ship that could use maintenance.” I got a little choked up just pulling the ship off rotation was already going to cost the business a few thousand let alone paying Rick and his boys over time. “ Grandpa, I don’t know what to say I… well” I heard the com switch from the bridge to being relayed through a comm.d as grandpa went to another room.

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  “ son, this is what families are for, we help each other when we can and I know part of the reason why you didn’t join the company is because your last name is Miles and not Morison but in thirty years when Emily’s allowed to date and get married “ ,”hey” Emily complained from the sensor station but grandpa kept going “her last name will be different too doesn’t make her or you any less family and I know your aunt and uncle feel the same.” I wiped my eyes quickly “ thanks grandpa, Paladin raise the port elevator” the mechanical voice replied from the overhead “ yes captain”

  it was grandpa’s turn to be surprised “ you got it to register you as captain? This will be a lot easier we are on our way over with a shuttle it will off load about a weeks worth of supplies for all of us I’m too damn old to be eating meal packs at my age when there is a perfectly good kitchen onboard” I laughed “ your just worried grandma would find out and get her wooden spoon” we all laughed at that “to true see you in a bit, wide load out.” The freighter dropped off the supplies and returned to its regular route.

  It turned out Grandpa had rented the hauler for the whole week which really helped out. Rick and his team along with Emily managed to get the old engines detached. We then used Paladin’s thrusters to move it away from the old engines so the new ones could be moved into place. The whole process took about a week. Grandpa also pointed out my license didn’t cover such a large ship, an obvious oversight on my part. Turns out my little stunt with the shuttle had made the news. I learned the old man had survived and made a full recovery. It turned out he was well liked retired marine officer.

  None of Rick's guys had served under him but it still got me some credit with the old guys. Finally we got under way the hauler leading the way. grandpa was sitting in the pilot seat and looked over at me “ it's your ship son I’m just the pilot” I nodded to him grateful he was allowing me to give the orders even if he was the licensed operator the repair crew was manning the other stations while Emily was in engineering with three others. “ navigation set course for the gate if you would'' the man sitting at the console called back “aye Captain course plotted”

  I turned to grandpa “ helm take us out at your convenience please” grandpa let out a woot “ home tonight for my wife’s cooking aye captain” we all got a good chuckle out of that. The transit back to the gate was shorter than the trip out with the shuttle but still longer than it would have been if we weren’t following the hauler. “transiting the gate now” grandpa said. We popped back into Paledes and began our transit into the system.

  “Captain incoming com from orbital on general channel.” I acknowledged and asked him to put them through “ unidentified vessel this is Paledes control please state your name and purpose for visit and also your vessel type we don’t have it on file.” I looked around at all the confused faces. I was just as confused but I did my best “ummm orbital control this is the Paladin we are here to register this Derelict as salvage in accordance with Paledes law. We are requesting a legal officer to confirm the claim as for model umm you should have a match in orbit at coordinates” I rattled off the coordinates of where the Longbow sat parked.

  ” Traffic control was clearly as confused as we were '' confirmed Paladin assessor will meet you at the following coordinates as well as an inspection crew we will find... somewhere.” the inspector theoretically had to be familiar with that type or similar vessel so that would be interesting. “confirmed Paledes control be advised we are requesting a military ordinance crew to verify the stability of 12 mark two missiles.” ,”Paledes control copies all.” Grandpa flew us twenty minutes to the holding position.

  About an hour later a shuttle approached us, our stand-in operations officer activated the elevator and began to guide a shuttle in while grandpa and I went to hangar to meet our guests. Yellow strobe lights started flashing as the shuttle lowered thru the elevators airlock. to keep the hanger pressured during flight operations the elevator had two doors one flush with the ships exterior and one in the roof of the hanger the airlock was pumped up or down as a ship was launched or recovered.

  The pad lowered and slid over to bay three who’s automatic gate was closed until the pad settled into place. The gate slid open as the pilot finished shut down procedures and a side door opened. Grandpa and I quickly pushed one of the fighter ladders over to the shuttle's airlock. A man in a full pressure suit stepped out and looking down saw us in our working utilities.

  ”Well don’t I feel a little silly?” The man said while taking his helmet off. He climbed down the ladder and shook our hands. “ my name is James Moore with the bureau of ships” he looked at grandpa “ I assume you are the one registering the claim Mr. Morison?'' Our family wasn’t instantly recognizable to the average Paledes resident but Grandpa had done a lot of business with the government and we handled a lot of government contracts so James knowing my grandpa wasn’t a surprise.

  “Two more people had come down the ladder behind him, another man and woman. “Actually Mr. Moore, the claimant is actually my grandson here. I’m just here because I have the license to fly it” Grandpa said, pointing at me. Mr. Moore looked surprised but recovered quickly. “my apologies Mr. …”, “Miles, Benjamin Miles but call me Ben '' Mr. Moore then introduced his other two associates.

  “ Mr. Miles, if you could take us through how you acquired this vessel the ummm '' he quickly checked his tablet “Paladin wait, The Paladin?” he asked, emphasizing the last two words to which I agreed. Mr. Moore looked around with much more interest, noting the two fighters and shuttle. “Do you plan to claim those as well?” I agreed quickly “ yes the mark one that has been maintained was my great grandfathers and a ship this size needs a shuttle as for the other mark one I don’t know I don’t have the need or money to fix it up. Maybe use it for parts? It isn’t functional so I could only register it as scrap.”

  Mr. Moore nodded along “ that makes sense to me. I may have an idea that would work out but I need to call some people first, but let's get the legalities out of the way. If you'll show me to the bridge I will verify the transponder. Due to the unique ship type, small number of hulls, and all but one before today being confirmed destroyed or scrapped, the Longbow was pulled from the universal ship register and placed on the archive list over thirty years ago. My shuttle has a one time use code to reset the transponder to read as an independently built Armed Transport its actually easier to register the Paladin that way then to send out a galaxy wide notice unarchive a ship class.”

  Mr. Moore checked over the computer's meta code and checked the numbers physically written on the transponder hidden behind a panel on the bridge and checked a few more things. “Mr. Miles the Paladin was a military vessel and the system does have the ability to turn off the transponder since you are a member of the Militia we will not be replacing the transponder to remove that feature, however I must remind you that unless it is authorized military operation turning the transponder off is a serious crime. please sign here to acknowledge you were informed and to receive the official ownership papers.” I quickly reviewed and signed the tablet.

  “ Congratulations captain Miles” my comm.D pinged with the ownership documents. “Anything else I can do for you captain?” Mr. Moore asked me. “Yes actually we were going through the ship's crew compartments and officer rooms and came across quite a few personal effects that got left behind in the evacuation. We made careful notes of the names of each locker or room the effects were found in but we have no way of finding their descendants.” Mr. Moore got a thoughtful look. “ I don’t have access to those records but I do know who to call. We sometimes have to find out who has a claim on a vessel if the owner dies in transit and the crew doesn’t know the family.”

  He pulled out his comm.D “ Craig its George from ships, hey is it ok if I give your contact info to a ship captain? He found the Paladin, yes that one, he wants to get the personal effects back to the people who deserve to have them, yeah now that the official parts are done I’ll try to find out.” Mr. Moore hung up his comm.D “so Ben now that the official part is done call me George” my comm.D pinged “ that is Craig in personal’s comm.D code he should be able to help contact the next of kin and see if they would like their families stuff. Now how on earth did you find her and get her flying again?”

  We went into the Captains office and over a half hour and a cup of coffee I told George the story starting with my final school report and ending when we arrived through the gate. George loved it and couldn’t wait to tell Craig over beers that night I showed him and his associates to their shuttle and watched while it was raised through the roof and disappeared.

  The next two weeks went by quickly the only interesting events were when I paid 1000 credits for another weeks worth of fuel the flight in and docking served as my final check flight and grandpa checked me off and submitted my simulator scores for review a day later I was certified to fly and captain a medium size vessel. I also took the time to run through the available training for the tactical station I doubted I would need to use it but I wouldn’t buy a pistol and not know how to operate it so I was going to apply that to the guns on the Paladin though we only had ten rounds for the Mark 9’s the Destroyer size guns the Paladin used as secondary armaments.

  The main gun was out until we could get the plasma generator replaced but our PDC’s or point defense cannons were working and almost fully loaded so that was good. The military also sent over a team and were nice enough to swap our Mk II missiles out for some surplus mk III’s they had in storage. The mark three’s fit on the same pylon mounts as the mark II’s unlike the new mk VI. They only had six but they threw in a Mk II-T, a torpedo type ordinance that could be attached to an under belly attachment point on the betty.

  Modern League doctrine called for a multi-role design, slower, more heavily shielded, able to carry a mix of ordinance; the Panthers were space superiority fighters designed to meet and destroy enemies before they could launch a strike on allied ships. Today I was having a meeting with Emily in the conference room on deck two.

  “So in summary we have five days of fuel, four of one hundred and fifty crew and no way to afford anything else?” I asked to summarize our current situation. Two of Rick's guys had decided to stay on with us; they had no families and living on board didn’t require rent; one was a licensed helmsman and the other was a class C engineer. “and we have three days of food left for the four of us” Emily helpfully added. “right and I got about a thousand credits to my name to pay everyone and keep us flying and fed.” Emily nodded “ yep might be time to get us a job, boss.”

  I sighed “ I wish it was that easy but E,but I don’t know the first thing about that!” Emily rolled her eyes “ then just call grandpa!” I blinked then cursed, of course it was that easy, I pulled out my comm.D “ hey grandpa it's me got a minute?” grandpa's voice came across the com “hi grandson what can I do for you?” I put the com on speaker “the ships running low on fuel and I’m almost out of money, I need to find a job but I don’t know how” grandpa sounded like he had just found a missing puzzle piece. “ oh, that makes a lot more sense. I was wondering why you hadn’t picked up a contract.”

  my comm.D pinged “ that’s a link to the station bored should work in any system your in it has a lot of features but you will be locked out of most available contracts until you have a reputation, Paledes the League and League protectorates share a system if you take contracts outside of the League you will have to build up a reputation there as well.” I pulled up the contract board and entered the ship's information. Our lack of a dedicated cargo bay knocked out a lot of options leaving us with four two would have taken us a few weeks to complete and were out because of our lack of fuel and funds to pay my two employees.

  “here!” Emily exclaimed, pointing excitedly at one of the few contracts and pulling it up on my office wall. I read the contract details. It was a run from Paledes to Consorsha; the client was the Paledes military; it was an ongoing contract for about two months to Joint Station Morgan in Consorsha. It was the distribution point for the new Cora class training fighters to be shipped out to bases throughout the League but they needed to be moved from the manufacture at Paledes shipyard to J.S. Morgan.

  The contract only offered 400 credits a run but the part that got Emily excited it came with two days worth of fuel the round trip would take us about 36 hour.s so we gained a half a day of fuel after each trip the runs themselves would cost about 150 credits between food and crew pay for Emily and the other two as well as setting money aside for wear and tear repairs. The trainers needed to travel with a flight crew and pilots so a ship with a dedicated hanger and crew berthing would make it much easier for us to load and transport than for other freighters.

  I quickly locked in our acceptance. Grandpa must have also been watching the board because he said “good choice short trip so doable with your limited crew and well matched for your ships unique characteristics.” I thanked him for his help and hung up. Leaving the office Emily headed back to engineering and I went for the bridge. “Good morning, sir” Max, my other authorized pilot, said from the pilot's seat as I walked in. I had told him he could use the captain's seat but he had just said it wouldn’t be proper.

  “ Good morning Max we have our first contract” Max got out of his seat and walked over to where I threw the details up on the screen of my station. “ Oh nice boss, that's a good starting run but might I recommend hiring one more watch stander so we can do 8’s instead of 12’s” I thought about it, eight hour shifts would be better and now that we had a contract I could afford it but there was still a problem. “ I agree Max but I don’t know anyone looking for work do you?” Max shook his head “ no boss, we should check the boards”

  I looked over and raised my eyebrow “ right forgot your new at this” my comm.D pinged “ that’s the link to the employment board” I threw it up on the screen and Max walked me thru how to navigate the bored I set the filter for someone who was qualified to stand watch on a medium size vessel that left me with about hundred candidates. I then set it to look for personal willing to work long deployments that left 90 “hmmm what about” I mumbled to myself and on a whim set the filter for Militia personnel figuring it might be interesting to have a light cruiser full of Militia show up at the training exercises and see how the military liaison reacted.

  There were three potential officers left and one caught my interest “ an Asinali here?” Asinali were an independent race with about twenty five planets on the other side of League space; they had features most similar to a fox kin from old fantasy novels. big fluffy ears and a fluffy tail they were well known outside the League as mercenaries. There were two camps, Asinali traditionalists with a strong sense of honor and outcasts who were willing to do anything for a payday. which had led to problems with the League due to the nature of politics. False promises from small-time league politicians led to small skirmishes that broke out every decade or so when their promises fell flat.

  The last major engagement was about thirty years ago when a politician promised lower tariffs on trade for the support of Asinali living in the border region in his bid for the senate he won but “delays” stopped his effort to combat tariffs. The Asinali were not unreasonable so said they would not declare a Kesanari or honor debt if he publicly declared his opposition to the tariffs. It wasn't until the politician refused that the Asinali declared Kesanari and launched an invasion across the border.

  The conflict lasted three months with fierce fighting on both sides but fortunately before the war could escalate the politician in question caved to public pressure and resigned and the League senate issued an apology. “Ashley Tieruki, father was an Asinali Commando captured in the battle of Antara 4 honor intact.” Asinali could be captured and retain their honor in certain circumstances such as facing over welling odds, being injured, or receiving orders to stand down or ,as happened a few times in the League, if a contract was found to be dishonorable.

  Many times criminal elements had tried to hire Asinali mercenaries to assassinate a nosey cop or judge only to have the Asinali dismantle the organization upon investigating the contract and surrendering to local law enforcement when they arrived investigating the disturbance.

  “ ah here it is mother was a Paledes nurse serving on a League hospital ship that….” Searching the public net for government records, it arrived as a part of a League relief column when the conflict ended. Boy gets blown up, meets a pretty nurse, settles down and raises a family on her home moon.” Max nodded “ looks like that to me too, boss.” I looked over her resume.

  “qualified watch stander, Corporal in the militia exemplary marks in CQC looks like her dad taught her a few tricks, has her own gear including suit and armor only asking for standard watch stander pay Max what am I missing why does it show her as shore side the last four months since she qualified?” Max sighed “ if I had to guess prejudice, most folks don’t understand Asinali culture that well, the only thing they are more loyal to then their nation is family most see an Asinali signing on anywhere other than Asinali space and think they must be a spy or a mercenary between jobs not understanding their honor system, if a traditional Asinali takes the militias oath that means their honor dictates that oath supersede any lingering loyalty to one of the Clans only really military and long haul traders know the difference between traditional Asinali like Ms. Tieruki’s father and the wandering guns for hire. Also take a look at her chosen Gerahi.”

  Gerahi were the Asinali traditional weapon of honor this could be any weapon that an individual Asinali felt a connection to in a semi religious manner. They kept them within arms reach at almost all times Asinali like all traditionalists kept her Gerahi listed as a part of her kit. “ a GRR-87C never heard of it” I ran a search and the web popped up an answer I read out loud. “ Gerandoi repeating rail 87 close variant based on the GRR-87 main battle rifle, an automatic patterned rail rifle known for its stopping power and accuracy at the expense of a slow fire rate compared to similar models. The close variant has a shorter barrel and collapsible stock as well as a rapid fire mode that reduced the power behind each shot but significantly increased rate of fire… oh.”

  Gerahi were normally personal weapons, knives, pistols, and rarely but sometimes submachine guns or swords. but a full battle rifle a crew member carried around all the time might make a regular merchant nervous not to mention the headaches carrying it in the inner League worlds would cause. They generally considered firearms as something uncivilized barbarians carried; some stations had even tried to outlaw them although it never seemed to work.

  “ Looks like a good fit for us, I have no issues with a well armed crew” I said to Max who nodded his agreement and I sent the offer letter to her comm.D. I messaged the contact in military logistics and found out why we were uniquely suited. It turned out that the fighters were supposed to be complete at the same time as the Paledes new fighter transporter but construction delays had pushed delivery back by two months but the Carrier P.M.V. (Paledes Military Vessel) Vigilant was due to dock at Joint station Morgan in three weeks to pick up the first load of Cora’s so the Military needed a transport to move enough fighters to fill the Vigilant. why they didn’t just divert the Vigilant to Paledes for the pick up I didn’t know and wasn’t about to ask in case someone thought that made too much sense and I lost the contract.

  We agreed to transport an element ( four fighters) at a time along with a shuttle for the ground crews and the pilots kit bags as well as a squad of marines to maintain a watch on fighters since we weren’t a military vessel nor was my militia status being activated. Once the basic time tables were worked out the logistic officer sent me a link to the element leader for the transfer team. These pilots would stay with us for the duration like the marines while the ground crews would follow the aircraft each time they offloaded the pilots would ride back on a shuttle to the Paladin and we would return to Paledes to repeat the process.

  I showed Max the messages and he had a small frown “ Captain may I make a suggestion?” I looked over to him “ of course Max you have much more experience then I do.” ,”Well sir, I recommend you ask the element leader before he brings the first run of fighters over if he might want to have the pilots and crew chip in for some foodstuffs and use one of the kitchens. The contract says the military will provide food for their personnel but I would bet a week of pay that it will be battle rations and I bet the passengers would be happier with real food.”

  I thought about it for a moment food for another 20 people for two days would be only about 10 credits “ negative Max, a good suggestion but I am willing to eat the cost if you would lay in an order for two weeks worth of food with the station chandlery I’ll take our shuttle over and pick it up the least we can do is feed these folks” Max nodded approvingly “ no worries boss I’ll get that sent in.” my comm.D pinged Ms. Tieruki had accepted the contract as a watch stander; she would make the same as Max and Emily 150 credits a week. A lot smaller than a planet or station side job but food and housing were included.

  I informed her I could meet her on the station in two hours for a pick up explaining that we had a contract if she couldn’t be ready by then we could pick her up when we were back in system in a day and a half she responded that she could be ready. After giving Max some time off to run to the bathroom and make something to eat I headed down to the hanger and boarded the shuttle. I did a quick pre-flight and called Max up on the coms he activated the elevator from the operations station on the bridge and the pad lifted the shuttle to the launch position.

  I released the magnetic landing pads and slowly floated away from the vessel using just a tiny burst from the maneuvering jets once clear I flew the half hour to the station and after getting a hangar assignment I docked and contacted the chandlery and told them what hanger I was in. Ten minutes later the groceries were delivered. I began loading them on board and was about halfway thru when the hanger door open. A woman with red hair in a tight bun walked in the orange ears with black tips and the bushy tail behind her gave away who my visitor was.

  “Ms. Tieruki nice to meet you” I said walking down the ramp to meet her. Her voice was pleasant and warm not at all as serious as I was expecting “ please call me Ashley I maybe half Asinali but I was born and raised Paledes and while I’ve accepted quite a bit of my fathers traditions” she gently tapped the butt of the rifle slung across her chest as reference “ the formal styles of address and attitudes were not one.” She smiled and held out a hand for a handshake which I accepted.

  “Well that makes me a touch relieved to be honest the crew is a little small right now and I’m not sure we would be able to keep a formal setting all the time, is that all of your kit?” I asked, pointing to the rolling auto sled following her. It had a matte black large case that looked like the cases the marines kept their armor in. The Paladin had three sets left over when we found her two were damaged and one fit Max, Emily had gotten another one working that fit her by taking parts from the last one.

  Ashley also had two of the olive green military duffels that seemed to have been used since man invented fire. “yep that’s everything” she replied cheerily. “Great, let's get it loaded on board and when I get these groceries on we will be good to go.” Ashley loaded her gear then helped me with the rest of the groceries. We strapped into the cockpit and after I got clearance from station control we took off and I flew us back to the Paladin. We landed on the elevator pad and it descended into the flight bay.

  Ashley spotted Betty and the other fighter and she turned to look at me “ what kind of vessel is this again? I looked it up in the League registry and it just had it listed as a generic Armed transport and said it was hull two of two but when I clicked the link for active hulls to figure out the ship type it just showed this one.” I thought for a moment then put it together.

  Longbow wasn’t an active hull but did still technically exist so the office of ships labeled it two of two, funny. I smiled and asked “ have you ever looked up the longbow in the registry?” Ashley looked at me confused and said slowly “ yeah last year when I graduated I did the same report as everyone on it why?”, “ Can you do me a favor and pull it up again? I bet there has been a change.”

  Ashley gave me a funny look but did it anyway after a few moments “ wait a minute that’s new hull one of two” she paused for a moment and her tail stood up straight behind her” no way but how?” she stared at me in disbelief as I gave her a quick rundown of how we found the paladin and restored her. By then the pad had settled into its spot and I dropped the ramp and unbuckled Marcus Trenton, Emily's engineering assistant and also the elected ship's cook, met us in the shuttle cargo and we all carried the food to the mess hall and kitchen.

  Once we had finished unloading I showed Ashley to the officers berthing so she could put away her stuff but she had a different idea. “ Do you mind if I use the marine officers quarters instead? I will probably spend a lot of my free time in the armory.” I shrugged “ sure I don’t see an issue this way” we went down to deck one and she stored her gear in the marine officers berth. Then I gave her a tour of the ship just as we finished when my comm.D pinged.

  “ Captain, the first Cora is about to land. I figured you would want to meet the element leader” I thanked Max and left Ashley to get settled in while I went to the hangar to meet our guest’s. Both elevators were active and two brand new fighters lowered into the hanger and into two of the parking spots and two more pads raised up the shafts for the next two fighters I ran over and pushed one of the ladders over to one of the fighters and then the other. The Cora were two seater spacecraft with a pilot and sensor officer as the four spacers exited their craft I walked up to the one with the highest rank.

  “ hello Commander I’m Ben Miles Captain of the Paladin “ the officer reached his hand out and I shook it “ Jim Monroe nice to meet you Captain” the elevators began to lower with the next pair of fighters “ I showed LtC Monroe the flight bays, briefing room and pilot berthing and explained we would have food available for his people during meal times “ thank you captain we were not looking forward to eating BatRats every other day” Monroe then noticed Betty “ no way is that an original Panther mark 1?” I walked him over and popped the canopy so he could take a look inside.

  “ yeah it was my great grandfathers, my Chief engineer got it running for me although I have only gotten to take it out once so far everything else has been in a simulator.” Monroe climbed the short ladder and leaned in to take a look but was careful not to touch anything “ you have a full spec simulator?” I chuckled “ yeah turns out the militia ground school simulators are the same base code as the ship simulator it required a week straight of running updates on the ships program but it's finally up to date, ironically I had to re-add the Panther because one of the updates patched it out.”

  Monroe called down “ yeah they don’t make them like this anymore, the Panthers should be classified as Interceptors high speed thanks to the plasma shielding high maneuverability the only problem is it can only mount four missiles before you have to return to the hangar to rearm.” I made a light noise of disagreement. “ I think you're forgetting the twin railguns commander, Betty doesn’t have to retreat after launching her ordinance like a modern fighter.” Monroe nodded “right they haven’t built guns in for the last 20 years they are considered old fashion on a battlefield full of missiles.”

  I could tell by his tone of voice he didn’t really agree but he wasn’t about to bad mouth the government while in uniform. We talked for a bit while the other two Cora’s and the shuttle of staff landed. Then Monroe took command of the military personnel and got everyone organized and I returned to the bridge. Ashley was in the pilot seat when I arrived so I sat in the captain's chair. “Take us out on our first run when you're ready Ashley.” She turned and gave me a grin “aye, aye captain” I rolled my eyes as the Paladin engines increased to a noticeable but not loud volume as we began our first voyage.

  The first week went by without any issues and the pilots and marines were settled into their temporary quarters. I was down in the hanger in Betty and had just fired up the simulator. The simulation used the flight helmet and Panther’s controls to allow me to pretend I was flying while still parked in the hanger. but unlike the usual mission selection screen I instead received a mission briefing right away I was with a converted freighter turned carrier we had a odd mix of old corvettes converted freighters and missile boats, jump capable shuttles with a bunch of missile launchers bolted onto them, my force seemed like a well built pirate fleet that was probably supported by a state actor selling stolen ships and paying organized bribes or taxes to planet authorities in exchange for things like repairs, ammunition, foodstuffs and other logistical supports a fleet would need.

  Against us was a squadron of League ships escorting a convoy one light carrier two destroyers and 4 frigates the pirates were out classed and it took me a minute to realize that the carrier and two destroyers had arrived in the middle of the pirates attack and the pirates were withdrawing my objective was to delay the League fighters long enough for the carrier to reach the gate but disengage with enough time to land or be left behind. The briefing cleared and unit select popped up.

  My Panther was automatically locked in but I got to pick two wingmen the parameters were set to craft at least 15 years old. I immediately changed that to twenty because I hate the modern tactics that resembled something from the flintlock age where fighters flew at their target launched their missiles then flew back to rearm while another flight repeated the process it worked well if you were the only one with fighters or had more reloads then the other guy but I was unsure how well it would work for near pear forces.

  So I looked at the available ships and decided to have some fun and test a theory. I set one of my wingmen as another panther and next I set the unit selector back to the max allowed. I picked a Porcupine. It was a Tau Ceti design from 15 years ago. It's a shuttle sized electronic warfare vessel normally made to advance with destroyers and jam enemy sensors and launch missiles at fighters. I had the simulation strip all the missiles out and the simulation didn’t restrict ordnance age so I found anti missile/anti torpedo modern ordinance and filled all the launchers with those.

  I marked my unit as ready and the heads up display or H.U.D faded in and the panther was on a janky looking flight deck. Hanger doors on the left and right were open, I requested departure clearance and got cursed at and told to just get out there so I launched and my two wingmen fell in. Both sides were busy charging, launching, and trying to retreat when out of missiles. one group of fighters waited behind the skirmish, probably armed with torpedoes and were my main target.I issued some basic orders to the AI wingman first the Panther was instructed to not retreat to reload when missiles were expended and also only use them with a solid lock while the Porcupine was set to fire whenever a missile came anywhere near our three ship formation. And with that we dove into the fray.

  Our fighters were being worn out by the league forces who had better missiles and jamming so as we pulled up I locked up a League fighter a good second after he launched a missile at me. I returned the favor with interest, launching two of my four at him and began maneuvering wildly to throw off the missile. In the vacuum of space most small payload missiles need a direct hit to cause any real damage. I need not have bothered as the porcupine launched two counter missiles. smaller than regular missiles and full of ball bearings designed to knock out incoming missiles, the counter missiles made quick work of the two missiles.

  My missiles followed the target but one was jammed spinning off into space chasing a ghost. My second missile though slammed into the wing buckling the already weakened shield of the fighter and causing it to spin off out the fight destroyed or disabled either way no longer a threat to my carrier. another fighter vectored in and my wingman launched all of his missiles eviscerating the target and wasting two missiles. my fault for not ordering it to keep its missile usage down as well as solid locks.

  More missiles came in and the Porcupine kept them off us. My other two missiles were used to knock out an electronic warfare or E.W. fighter that strayed too close to my line of attack. Breaking through the fight I detached the Porcupine my instructor had always said to train like you fight and the Porcupine was down to a third of its counter missiles and would need most of those to make it back through the fight to re-dock with our carrier. but no longer stuck at the Porcupines speed I had us drop the hammer, the plasma shields of the Panther were heavier then modern fighters using a plasma generator for shields allowed the fighter a better gravity field allowing for a higher acceleration before the compensators were overcome and the G-forces could be felt.

  The only problem was regeneration time, plasma shields had a much slower regeneration rate then modern counterparts. I kept the throttle firewalled as we dove into the unprotected torpedo loaded fighters and switched on the guns. It took a good burst to get through their shields as they scattered. My wingman and I managed to shoot down four more each before a nearby fighter loaded formation noticed us and started to maneuver our way.

  finishing off one more in a brief fiery explosion I then picked a direction away from the fight and added speed until the fighters and torpedo bombers were far behind, about a minute later I brought us around the fighters had been drawn back into the fight and the torpedo bombers had reformed likely assuming we had returned to the carrier to rearm. I lined up another attack run and made another attack run but the bombers scattered immediately this time. We only got three before more fighters showed up causing us to break off again.

  This time the fighters that responded stuck around waiting for us, still a good third of the torpedo bombers were destroyed and I decided to retreat and rearm skirting the fight I returned to the freighter I probably had time for one more sortie before I needed to make sure to land to escape the system. After rearming I reconnected with Porcupine and decided to help out with the main fight again using the porcupine to swat incoming missiles while I dove into the fight losing track of the number of enemies I destroyed.

  Finally my wingmen Panther was shot down and looking at the distances and that the torpedo bomber attack had yet to materialize I had the Porcupine do what it could and signaled the other fighters I was withdrawing a few broke off and joined us as we returned to the carrier some that wouldn’t or couldn’t retreat were going to be left behind. The League fighters made a token push to chase us but a salvo of missiles from our corvettes kept them back. I landed followed by the Porcupine and a few others.

  Just over a minute later the hanger doors closed and the helmet faded to black with big letters declaring scenario end. An after action report popped up and I took a look. We had successfully defended the carrier and the League had defended the convoy which was no surprise. What was a surprise was the score list I was first then instead of a list of random computer names next on the list was LtC Monroe followed by two names then a random computer then one more name then the rest of the computers. “oh that explains the scenario in progress, whoops”.

  I opened the canopy and climbed down, taking off my helmet across from me. The four other fighters opened up as the other pilots climbed out. I could hear two ribbing a third about being out scored by a bot LtC Monroe walked over to me. “Sorry, about that sir I didn’t realize you guys were running a scenario.” I called as he approached “ no worries Captain but I am interested in how your score was so high? We are about to do an after action review. If you're free would you mind sitting in so we can go over the whole scenario?”

  I agreed and followed the pilots into the Paladin’s briefing room. First LtC Monroe covered their arrival in system and the fighters defense of the convoy and counter attack against the opfor or opposition force. which I had been a part of. “ Next we will go over the Captains section of the fight to look at how an enemy might adapt to our tactics.” LtC Monroe had the screen focus in and follow my flight through the battle. The room was silent while we watched

  “That was enlightening.” LtC Monroe finally said. “What made you think of doing that?” I thought about how to answer for a moment. “two things really, first Paledes and League tactics are based on the last major war with the Theocracy a century ago. at the time the League had longer range missiles so the fire and fade worked to a point before a dogfight would develop then after the war the League has always outnumbered and out ranged the enemies in the small conflicts they have fought but as we have seen from the Porcupine some of the bigger star nations have counters to mass missile attack strategies. A well built team of dedicated Interceptors with a jammer or anti missile bird could tear through our current formations. In fact that's a major part of the Militias training, the Starhawks that are in storage were the last gun model, the instructors trained us to try to break through the missile waves and engage the enemy fighters at knife range.”

  “If this tactic is so good why does the militia lose every head to head training exercise during training week?” one of the pilots asked with a scoff. Training week was the big once a year training exercise between the Paledes military, the League military and a large chunk of the militia. it accounted for most of the yearly commitment for the participating militia members. “ I don’t know Sir as I have yet to participate but if I had to guess I am betting the militia normally isn’t supported by heavy EW assistance and normally doesn’t outnumber the military craft by more than they can handle.” I responded mildly. LtC Monroe gave the pilot a sharp glare but didn’t say anything. “So Captain as an outsider how would you fix it?” I figured he asked the question just to move the conversation along but I had kicked the idea around with Emily while I was in training in case I ever bought a modern fighter to use instead of the Starhawk so had an answer.

  “ gun pods sir.” LtC. Monroe looked at me funny “gun pods Captain? I am unfamiliar with the term.” I nodded in agreement. It took me a week of research to find out about them too. “ This situation happened once before on old earth sir. Around the year 1970 a major military power at the time removed the guns from their warplanes because missiles were considered the weapon of the future. But they were less dependable at the time than hoped. The solution was to design a pod that could fit on a missile pilon that had a gun and its ammunition.” Monroe gave me a thoughtful look. “ Thank you Captain, your perspective was interesting, with your permission I will pass your thoughts on to my superiors along with the simulation results it might help them consider potential future threats.” I could tell by the tone of his voice he didn’t think it would get far even if he did consider it a good idea. “Of course sir,” I stood up. “Ladies Gentlemen have a good rest of your day. My bridge shift starts soon” with a quick wave I headed to the bridge.

  We had Just reentered Paledes system when my comm.D popped up with a message from George. I was on the bridge in my chair but Ashley had the helm so after one more check of all of my screens I brought the message up. “ Mr. Miles this is Mr. Moore I’m sending this message because the administrator for the Longbow Historical Trust asked me to contact you about possibly acquiring the second fighter from you. The Panther they have on display at the museum is a replica shell, they held a major fundraiser last night and I have been asked to pass along an offer of 150,000 credits for the fighter as is. The damage from the battle is actually a positive in their opinion.”

  I sat stunned, 150,000 was enough to hire on a full crew and would give me a good head start in being able to afford a new plasma generator for the Paladin. It would also give me enough money to afford the invested cost of taking on one of the long distance runs. I sent out a ship-wide message without priority so it wouldn’t wake anyone up. We had been making good time and only had two runs left and were up a day and a half on the schedule so I decided to take a twelve hour break to facilitate the transfer of the damaged fighter. I sent Emily a quick message to make sure it was ready for transport and she agreed to build a frame to re-enforce one of the wings for the transfer to a tug. We were going to let it drift free of the launch elevator when requested and a contracted tug would take care of the actual exchange. I arranged for a parking orbit and set a meeting for the next morning with the crew to go over our future plans.

  The trade off went smoothly the next morning and after grabbing a coffee in the mess I went to what used to be the officers ward room which we were using for crew meetings. Over the next ten minutes everyone came in and I started the meeting. “ Good morning everyone, got some good news as most of you saw this morning. We got rid of the broken Panther. What some of you might not know is we sold it to the Longbow Historical Trust for a good chunk of change. The question is how do we use it effectively.”

  Max spoke up first “we are going to need a crew sir, this ship really needs a crew of at least 24 before taking it further than Consorsha. A full crew would be around 50 but that would be a lot of new people to take on at once.” Ashley spoke up next. “It might be a lot of people but 50 is a full crew for this vessel as a merchant ship that doesn't count having pilots, flight crews, marines or other military specific jobs, our actual full crew status would be closer to 120, I’m not saying we need that many crew just that if we ever got in trouble while out their 24 is not going to be enough.” The crew continued to discuss it for about five minutes while I listened and thought and finally came to a decision.

  “O.K. folks” I said as Marcus finished making a point about needing more dedicated staff to support positions like galley staff. “Here's what we are going to do, we have a week left on the contract. I haven’t seen one that could fit us out of Palades yet, Emily and I have discussed taking a food run from Consorsha after this she is pretty sure we can store four contains per platform we will have six platforms available to store food not counting betty’s and the shuttles platforms. The profit margins on a transport contract are small but guaranteed prices per container leaves us a profit of 100 credits per crate after expenses.” I took a breath before continuing. “ We will hire as many people as possible over the next week up to the 50 to reduce the potential friction we will try to recruit primarily militia and veterans. They will have at least had to work together to get through training so the majority should be fine and we can let any troublemakers go when we get back.”

  We talked about a few more housekeeping issues, restocking supplies and some maintenance work done. The group was breaking up and leaving when Ashley and Emily walked over to me. “ Hey Ben, do you have a minute to come down to the armory?” , “sure whats up?” I asked while following them through the ship. “It's a surprise” said in that voice that annoyed me growing up. We made small talk the rest of the way to the armory. They led me to the back where the two ship marine armor sets were kept. Next to the two cases already there was another case but this one wasn’t an armor case. “Open it up!” Emily said, pointing excitedly at the smaller case.

  I walked over and opened the crate inside was a flight suit I recognized. It was the same type as the one I used as a ship board utility uniform with a few differences. It had black armor plating similar to the marine armor but thinner. Ashley started speaking while I looked it over. “ We were checking over the fabricator and found the specs for a set of marine light armor that has been discontinued.” Emily continued the story “ we found the individual plates could be printed off. We were able to modify the flight suit with it.” I stepped around the corner and tried it on.

  It was slightly heavier than the original suit but it wasn’t too bad. The flight suit hookups were still easily accessible and the helmet fit fine. I liked it quite a bit then had an idea, “E, Ashley I really like this, do you think we could produce a lot of these over the next week? I want to have a regular utilities version of these made for the regular crew as uniforms.” Emily had a thoughtful look and answered slowly. “Yeah I can do that.” Ashley added, “ I can help the guy who made my armor does custom work and would probably give us a discount for a large order where we provide the armor.” I allowed them both to access the ships funds for double what they thought the cost of buying the feedstock and contracting the work.

  ***

  The trainer deliveries concluded without issue and we bid goodbye to LtC. Monroe and his pilots when we returned to Palades for the last time. By this point the crew was up to twenty of the best candidates of those we selected who could report aboard during our last few runs. With this core crew we began getting used to having more of a crew. A week after the last run, we were up to a staff of 37. The uniforms were passed out and we headed for Consorsha, we were halfway there when Ashley, Max, and Emily asked me to have a meeting so we all met in the ward room.

  “We need some kind of organizational structure Ben,” Emily started, “we have 37 staff but technically only me, you Max and Ashley are paid any different and have any kind of defined order now that we have different departments we need something to define positions” “ranks, we need ranks” Ashley added bluntly. I thought for a moment then had an idea,I pulled up everyone's resumes again. And went through them quickly, “ we could use most everyone's Militia rank, for the three retired crew, let's bump them to chief in organization. And lastly let's make Marcus the official Bosun” Max looked at me a bit funny “ sorry boss but what's a bosun actually do? I know they were the highest positioned for the enlisted in the Navy but not much else.” Ashley answered for me, “ Think of them as a First Sergeant or Sergeant Major in other branches they take on things like training the other sailors, handling routine matters and are also directly responsible for making sure the shuttle and I guess the fighter in this case are taken care of.” Max nodded along “makes sense I know Marcus made gunnery sergeant before he retired so he won’t have a problem handling this.”

  The rest of the meeting went quickly and we agreed on having simplified tabs on the uniforms. Red represented command personnel, orange for shift leaders and finally blue for regular crew. They were just painted onto emergency equipment sets for now since the uniforms were already delivered. I left the meating and headed to the mess and let Marcus know about his new position. He was happy for the pay raise but was less than thrilled about the new responsibility but was willing to do it. I thanked him, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to my new office.

  The office was just off the bridge on the bridge side of the blast door it was big enough to have a meeting with about six people, it had a desk and chair a small bathroom a closet just big enough for three of the armored suits and my submachine gun I had taken from the armory the first week of having the new ship. It was an older model which was hard to find nowadays with its heavier rounds and smaller magazine capacity, but I preferred its stopping power and was a good balance between being small enough to fit in the Bettys cockpit but large enough to be useful if I actually needed it.

  I sat at my desk and checked my messages. One was highlighted with an indicator of priority so I opened it.

  From: Paledes Defense Force (PDF)

  To: Ensign Benjamin Miles (militia)

  Subject: required training

  This message is to inform you that your mandatory training will take place on the following dates, failure to attend or provide a reason for absence can result in legal action…”

  The message continued telling me what I would need to bring and how and where to report. I sent my acknowledgement back to the automated messaging system and kept reading. The next five messages were leave requests from various crew members for the same date range in three months all citing the same training. That was the downside of hiring mostly militia, I was legally required to approve it which I would have done anyway. That gave me a thought and ordered a set of twenty training rifles that worked with a training rig that could simulate the effects of things like smoke and explosions. I added voluntary training exercises in noncritical ship areas and mandatory full ship trainings once a month when not underway, with a note that those with upcoming training had first priority on the company equipment but anyone was welcome if they bought their own gear, then on my private account I bought a set for personal use that had the modern submachine gun instead of the rifle, not a perfect match to mine but I could program the magazines to have a smaller round count to match mine and it would be close enough. Now with the fun stuff out of the way I began digging through routine reports and signing off on the amount of water we took on from a tanker an hour ago.

  “Breach” I was sitting on a stack of crates watching the team with the upcoming training enter the flight deck. I had the simulation software turned off as I was the safety observer this round. Ten off duty crew flinched as two simulated grenades flew into the room, in the real world they just looked like plastic cylinders that did nothing but I knew in the helmets they wore was a bright flash and simulated ringing noise it wasn’t hundred percent accurate but better then throwing real explosives around when not necessary.

  The five crew filled in and began “shooting” the simulator rifles that had built in mechanisms to simulate recoil and the helmets would show flashes but from the outside it just looked like both teams were just shaking them at each other like kids toys. The assault team used the flash suppression to move into decent firing positions taking out one of the defenders. The team returned fire and one of the attackers staggered but got back to cover. The assault team's armor was simulating the battle armor they would be issued if they were being deployed by the government.

  Two more defenders went down before a group of four led by Ashley flanked the assaulters taking out two before they were taken out the other three defenders were late joining the attack so the final three attackers turned back before they made it to cover. The defenders got in one more good hit before the attackers finished them off. Because the attackers didn’t know how many defenders there were, the exercise didn’t end until the attackers cleaned the hangar and made it to the door to engineering.

  “End exercise!” I called over the training comms channel used by the helmets and climbed down from my perch. The two teams took their helmets off, “Ashley why don’t you go ahead and debrief the teams with what you saw and I will jump in if there is anything I think needs to be added?”. Ashley had been taking the lead in ground and small arms training thanks to her background.

  “Sure, first the assault team you stalled out your more armored and had all the toys there is no reason you couldn’t have broken that initial stalemate with a few grenades and even followed them in the grenades fragments over 3 yards can’t penetrate the armor you're wearing. Also should have secured your flank for obvious reasons. Defenders, teamwork, teamwork, teamwork, you had double the numbers and knew it ahead of time two shooters per attacker would have made it impossible for them to advance, also when I say attack on my first shot I mean the first not the fifth at you three” she pointed at the last group “very well could have taken them out and saved some of my team if went right away instead of waiting to see if it worked.” The three in question looked chagrined and nodded. “ Anything else, captain?” , “ just that I want to say that the last three attackers did a good job sweeping the hangar to make sure it was clear.” I said and then took over again “ ok reset Ashley your on safety watch, assault team back to the hallway, defenders help me change up the defenses.

  * * *

  “End exercise, end exercise, end exercise” Ashley called on the training circuit, taking my helmet off I looked around as everyone else did the same thing. “Alright people let's head over and …” I was cut off by the overhead speaker, “ Captain to the bridge, Captain to the bridge.” This was the first time Paladin had made an announcement since the one with just Emily and I onboard. I handed my helmet off to the nearest crew member and began to jog to the bridge. I remember reading somewhere an officer wasn’t supposed to run as it might panic the crew, but I had a good crew and seconds could matter so I tried to balance it and made sure to not look panicked but still moved with a purpose.

  I arrived on the bridge and noticed immediately that something had happened when Marcus called from his station “Captain on Deck” I responded by route “ as you were” this was the first time I was glad no one ever used my chair. I sat down and pulled up my screen “ talk to me people”. The man at sensors spoke up “ Captain passive sensors have picked up four contacts that look like corvette size ships coming out from behind the moon.” I looked at the sensor report where he mentioned and could immediately see what he ment.

  “This could be nothing but I don’t like the look of this and it's suspicious as hell this is happening at the exact midpoint on a regular shipping route.” I thought for a moment then made a decision. “ clear for action!” there was a beat then Paladin sounded an alarm “action stations, action stations down and forward on the starboard side up and aft on the port side! Action stations, Action stations!” Three minutes later Max came running onto the bridge in a full pressure suit followed by a second bridge crew. I ran to my day office and took off the training equipment and grabbed my armored pressure suit and threw my helmet on a quick system check to make sure it functionally sound.

  Returning to the bridge I took my seat back “ operations, status?” I asked . “All sections report ready” Ashley called out. I acknowledged the report then turned back to sensors recognizing James Rolley, the day shift sensors operator. “James, can we hit them with a low end pulse, something that makes it look like a civilian grade and not military but would still paint them? Let's see what they do.” James hit a few buttons “yes sir, ready on your mark.” ,”do it!”

  A few moments went by then finally “contacts have firmed up one actual corvette three modified small haulers retrofitted with what looks like external launchers.” Marcus spoke up “ that clinches it, Pirates.” I raised an eyebrow “ since when has this side of League space had a pirate problem?” Marcus shrugged “ there were a few reported instances when I was out here ten years ago, but nothing like this with multiple ships and a military vessel even if it is a hundred years old”.

  “hey”, I retorted with false anger. “Our old girl is almost that old”, “yes but she was rebuilt from the ground up to serve as one of only five full size vessels in a newly independent nation that's entire existence could have come down this one ship and has been painstakingly repaired and maintained by a crew Paledes citizens, that” he said pointing at the corvette on the display “was one of literally thousands mass produced for the war, hauled off a scrap heap somewhere repaired to a functional level and is crewed by a bunch of people who aren’t willing to get a real job and would rather steal for a living.”

  Max and I both knew they were still dangerous regardless of their regular employment opportunities. But as I looked around the bridge and saw the crew sitting up a little straighter I knew the conversation had the desired effect. The crew member at communications spoke up “ captain, someone from the incoming vessels is demanding to speak to “the idiot in charge”” I decided to take my helmet off and adjust the camera so only my face was showing and the bulkhead behind me “put them through”.

  The image of an unkempt man sitting in a captain’s seat with an oversized pistol in his lap greeted me. I spoke first “ this is the Paladin what can we do for you?” I intentionally avoided mentioning our nation, no merchant vessel from Palades had ever been seized by pirates. There had been three attempts two had been chased off by the crews who like most Palades citizens were more heavily armed then the crews of League ships the pirates were used to preying on and the last had destroyed when the Paledes vessel took them under fire with the small ship bored cannon they had fitted on to the ship after a near miss the month before in the same area. Because of those events Paledes vessels had a bit of a reputation deserved or otherwise for fighting back and we didn’t have enough ammunition for a drawn out battle with these guys.

  “ I, Captain Korban, hereby inform you that you have entered Brotherhood space without permission as a consequence of this infraction I will be seizing your ship, cargo, and personnel until your debts are paid cut your acceleration and prepare to be boarded, if you do not comply we will destroy your ship and take what we can as payment!” the channel closed. “Well that was mighty unneighborly” I remarked sarcastically then continued more formally “ just for the official record, comms, were we informed of the League ceding territory when we passed through Marconus three jumps ago?” the communications officer checked his saved logs before answering. “No Captain we were not.” I nodded already knowing the answer but also knowing these logs would likely be reviewed by the authorities at Anvilus when we arrived. “ Then in accordance with all modern treaties and conventions I understand these to be vessels to be Illegally attempting to seize our ship and thus pirates. Mr. Rolley, change the markers to hostile and label them bandits one through four."

  The large sensor plot changed from the yellow of unidentified to the red of hostiles. “ Helm, follow the nice man's orders and cut our acceleration.” The helm officer paused for a moment then called out in a confused but respectful tone “aye sir cutting acceleration.” I turned to Ashley “ Corporal Ozawhich is our best shooter in training who might fit Emily’s armor, I’m going to have her meet you and the bosun in the armory get them in marine armor.” Ashley and the bosun left as I called out. “ Paladin ship wide” the distinct click of the speakers everywhere but the bridge coming on could be heard.

  “All hands this is the Captain, as you all may be aware we are under attack by four ships we believe to be pirates. We have enough ammunition to scare them off but they will likely just do this to another less well prepared ship. We don’t have enough ammunition to take them all on in an extended engagement, so I intend to lure them in this will mean allowing one of them to dock, this is a merchant vessel not a warship but I know a lot of you took the same oath I did, so I am calling for volunteers, any noncritical crew willing to assist in repelling boarders please report to the armory on deck four, thank you for your time.” I turned off the speaker and turned to the tactical station. “Weapons I want you to line up the long nines with where they are most likely to be when they get here. Can you hit them without the active sensors?” weapons responded “maybe, but it would be fifty, fifty”. We didn’t have the ammo for that. I Commed Ashley and asked her plan. “ We hid flash bangs in the air lock and rigged them to remotely detonate, when they hack open our outer lock we will detonate it then emergency open our side and rush them, we have closed the halfway emergency doors in case of a breach in the fighting.” ,” thank you Ashley, Weapons when I give the command go full active and fire on the three vessels not attached to us.” the weapons officer nodded “yes captain”. With that I sat back and waited.

  The range between the five crafts closed. I checked the cameras in the airlock area. Ashley had set her team up on either side of the airlock. I could see that they had sealed the bulkheads on either side of that section of the hallway incase of a leak. I left the camera up and watched while keeping an eye on the sensors. “ Helm when they dock us pretend to use the impact to line us up with Bandit 3, keep it slow enough that Ashley has a chance to start her attack before the crew of bandit 4 realizes what's going on.” The Helm officer looked at the plot and the on coming intercept. “ yes sir” I looked over “ Wep’s fire as we bare give bandit 3 a full salvo then target at your discretion but remember we only have 6 rounds for the secondaries”, “ Aye Captain “.

  I felt the thump and watched as the airlocks synced up. The Airlock camera showed the pirates opened up their inside lock and five guys filled the hallway opened their outer lock and started pounding on our outerlock. It was slopping security and I could see Ashley note the same thing, the marine that had been holding the breaching charge set it down. Ashley signaled a five second warning “ helm five seconds”, “aye sir” the ship started to maneuver faster.

  Ashley triggered the outside Airlock emergency open then triggered the improvised flash device in our airlock the bright flash and bang was muted by the camera but the pirates were definitely affected. Our inner airlock snapped open and Ashley led the charge. My focus was drawn back to the bridge as the ship shuddered “shots out” called the tactical station. I checked the plot. It was an old style 2d version that showed the ships based on the sensors and our estimated outgoing weapons fire the corvettes were in what was considered knife range for the long nines and less then a second after they fired the first corvette simply stopped existing. “ helm split the difference between bandits 1 and 2 , weapons I have the port guns you take starboard” normally a tactical department would have multiple gunners for divided work like this but we didn’t have that.

  I pulled up the targeting equipment for the port long nines and swiveled them towards the target. The ship shook slightly “ the remaining two bandits are firing sir” the sensor’s operator commented. I lined up on bandit one and waited for the fire control, the Paladins weapons had three modes, dead reckoning called that partly from the fact it's unassisted and partly because unless you use it in very specific circumstances you're likely to be dead. Standard mode where the fire control would lock up the center of the enemy ship and track it as best as possible, and finally targeting mode. In targeting mode the turrets would track the ship but the operator would line up the specific launch point to try to target specific areas.

  I decided not to get fancy with it this time and when the system locked up the corvette I tapped the fire button and the two shots crossed the void. The first round slammed into the shield being stopped but nearly overloading it the second smashed through it and destroyed the center. I felt the ship's small shutter showing that bandit two had also been targeted. I looked over to see weapons fire another follow up shot. “ Sorry Sir, they were still firing so I had to give them one more” I shrugged then remembered to be more professional. “ no worries Wep’s better to use the ammo then not and wish we had” I said that but looking at the red flashing warning showing that the 4th gun was empty still made me nervous.

  “Ashley, what's your status?” I asked over a private channel. “ We have secured the vessel, there were eight of them, no casualties on our side. What would you like us to do?”, I thought for a moment “ we will keep it attached for the trip back. Have Corporal Ozawich get what she can out of the computers during the trip.” Ashley acknowledged my orders then dropped the connection.

  The rest of the trip was uneventful and we prepared for the final transition to Anvilus “ three, two, one transition” when we popped through the gate I turned to communications “ comms contact local control let them know we have arrived and about our encounter with the so called brotherhood.” Communications acknowledged and spent the next fifteen minutes going back and forth with the port staff. “Sir, they have acknowledged the information we are instructed to move to a station keeping orbit behind the station, an investigator will be dispatched shortly if everything checks out they will begin unloading.”

  The next hour was routine flying. We parked in orbit just behind the space station. A shuttle whose transponder reported it as belonging to the local marshals service began flying our way. The shuttle docked externally to one of our Airlocks and I waited for them to cycle through the airlock. The door opened to reveal two uniformed individuals, one female the other male. I introduced myself “Welcome aboard the Paladin Marshals I am Captain Miles” I offered a handshake and the female officer stepped forward. “ Good afternoon I am marshal Lana Greene and this is Deputy William Garrett” we shook hands all around. “ Alright captain this should be relatively quick then we can get you the bounty certificate and you guys can collect your reward.”

  “Bounty certificate?” I asked confused. Marshal Greene looked back at me now also confused “ yes, your bounty hunters after the league bounty on those corvettes right?” I shook my head “ no Ma’am we were conducting a delivery when they mistaked us for a normal transport and we decided to clean up the space lanes a little bit.” Greene blinked at me. “ Well Captain you just got very lucky then each Corvette of that group confirmed destroyed is worth a quarter million credits, to be honest we were surprised it took bounty hunters this long with how much they were worth.” I was shocked that was a lot of money for a few minutes work, granted a lot of that came from having a warship half again as large as their combined tonnage but still then I had a thought.

  “ do they have to be destroyed?” I asked. “I’m not following captain?” Greene said in confusion. “We captured one of the corvettes” I explained “do we need to go blow it up to get the bounty on it, I would need to check current market values to see if selling it or blowing it up would be worth more.” Deputy Garrett spoke up excitedly. “ you captured one?”, “ yes we have it docked on the other side if you would like to see it.” Marshall Greene nodded “ Captain can you have someone show Bill over there please?” I agreed and called for Corporal Ozawich who showed Deputy Garrett the way. “No Captain the bounty language is for removing the threat of a given vessel or crew. Until now I just thought that was colorful language but I am pretty sure capturing a ship counts as removing it as a threat." We arrived at the bridge and the Marshall took a few minutes to go through the sensor logs.

  “Alright Captain, everything here looks to be in order.” The Marshal said my comm.D pinged. “ That will be the certificate, in order to redeem the credits you will need to visit a League Station the nearest one is in Carnithal but” the marshall trailed off. “But what Ma’am?” I asked after a minute passed and she still hadn’t said anything. “The base commander will have to sign off on anything , he can’t deny you payment for the certificate but it may be… beneficial to review what your legally entitled to as the League Commander can be… challenging.” I thanked her for the information and walked her back to the airlock.

  We met the corporal and deputy there.my comm.D pinged again. “I have officially condemned the Corvette as lawfully seized during the act of piracy and as the potential victim who was solely responsible for its seizure we hereby award it to you. And done” the whole thing but the last two words were said in an official tone that made me think it was a requirement of issuing the prize notification.

  I thanked both officers and they left. I went to the office and took the Marshals advice to both review the League laws and the Palades League treaties. I found that the League would be required to pay for our used ordinance and damaged equipment. During the war the Militia ships were used to deal with Theocracy privateers and the increased piracy from the League military being moved to the front..standing orders to cover their operations were still technically on the books.

  The unloading finished and we decided to cast off without taking on a cargo.we decided to head for Carnithal to rearm and sell the Corvette as that planet was known as a mercenary hang out and we were likely to find a buyer there and maybe just maybe if we were lucky a final missing piece to the Paladin.