Chapter 90 - TCTS 2 Chapter 50 - Book 2 Finale

The House of the Reaper welcomes Operatives Adler Torres and Ceagle. We also welcome the following Novices to our ranks: Rokyes_Lt, Flannery, Nick, and Firefly4545. Their contributions and dedication to our cause will be honored through the Net and through the Stars.

As your Fleet Admiral, I, Crimson_Reapr, welcome you, honor your commitment, and thank you for your service. May you reap the souls of the unbelievers and those who stand before us. 

With this chapter, we have reached the end of Book 2!

Ladies and gentlemen, grab your Popcorn, or your Takis, or whatever it is you like to snack on, because this chapter is a short 13,400 words. Enjoy!

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The heavy blast doors of Docking Bay 2 hissed shut, sealing away the void and the departing Swift Justice. The massive, amber-lit cavern of the drydock was suddenly, profoundly empty. For the first time in months, the colossal primary cradle sat vacant, its heavy clamps gripping nothing but stale, recycled air.

I stood on the gantry railing, staring out at the massive space. The silence that followed Elena's departure was deafening. It was kind of heavy, a ringing silence that presses against your eardrums like a sudden change in altitude.

"Well," Kenjiro said, stepping up beside me and resting his forearms on the metal railing. He let out a long, slow exhale, his breath pluming slightly in the chill of the atmospheric scrubbers. "So that's that... And to think we actually completely rebuilt an entire ship in less time than it would take one of the major manufacturers to simply build one."

"That we did," I agreed, rolling my shoulders to pop a kink in my neck. "But the clock hasn't stopped, Kenji. Now we have to start getting everything ready because in exactly four weeks, the civilian rustbucket fleet will be arriving at the rendezvous coordinates. We don't have to worry about picking up every hitchhiker thanks to them volunteering to pick others up, but we can't leave this station until we settle our tab with the landlord."

Kenjiro frowned, turning to look at me. "Settle our tab? Mark, your Helix account has enough zeroes to buy the entire administrative wing. What tab?"

"The lease," I said, gesturing out toward the rear of the bay where my nanoprinters sat dormant. "I didn't rent this space from the station's corporate administrators. I leased it from a local named Silas Kord. The guy was probably up to his neck in debt and desperate for liquid cash, so he rented me this place dirt cheap just to keep his head above water. But it didn't come completely empty. He leased me what he called a 'functional workspace.' That basically meant two industrial-grade fabricators that were probably built before I was even an itch in my father's balls."

Kenjiro's eyes widened as the realization hit him. "Let me guess, you scrapped them to make room for your setup."

"Nah, I didn't just scrap them... I fed them piece by piece into my first printer and melted them down to build the rest of my fabrication line," I corrected with a dry chuckle. "Now, Silas might have been desperate back then, but he's still a greedy bastard. Given all the ruckus around my name 6 months ago and the fact that there's only about 3 weeks left on the lease, he's probably going to march down here with station security to ensure the bay is returned in the exact condition it was leased. If a single bolt is missing from those two original, shitty printers, then there's a big chance that he will claim a breach of contract, have the authorities lock down the bay doors, and impound my assets just to extort a massive settlement out of me before we can jump."

"So..." Kenjiro pushed his glasses up his nose, looking thoroughly disturbed. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," I sighed, pushing off the railing, "that for the next few days, we are going to use the most advanced nanoprinters in the known galaxy to reverse-engineer and spit out the parts of what the universe considers to be 'good' printers, which are, in fact, two of the worst financial decisions one can make for some of the shittiest, most inefficient fabricators money can buy."

The look of sheer, offended disgust on Kenji's face was priceless. "You want to purposely assemble garbage?"

"Well, they're garbage to us, after all, there's nothing like the printers we have in the rest of the universe... or at least in humanity's storage. But in reality, efficiency-wise, they're okayish in comparison to other printers. We are going to assemble the exact garbage that was here when I moved in," I grinned, tossing him a rag. "Marcos has the original schematics on file. Let's get to work."

The following days were bizarre, and I found myself thinking of the words Anahrin had said to me 2 years ago. Humanity probably had the means to make better things, to create more opportunities for advancement, but corporate greed and the desire to make more, rather than to make better, would result in intentional mediocrity, which was exactly what we were doing.

I asked Marcos to pump Daft Punk back through the acoustic arrays, the heavy bass and synth rhythms keeping us moving as we essentially worked in reverse. It was like asking a master watchmaker to forge a counterfeit plastic sundial.

I quickly gave myself a refresher on programming, but I wasn't all too versed in the Strathari language. So I had to ask Marcos to remotely get very specific with the nanoprinters, reprogramming some things so that instead of weaving atomic-level S-Alloy matrices, they would extrude brittle, low-grade plasteel and basic, unrefined titanium, the same materials the original printers were made of. The printers churned out the terrible, clunky components, and the utility drones simply acted as our pack mules, hauling the heavy, freshly printed garbage across the deck. 

Kenjiro spent hours in the loader mech, groaning in sheer physical pain every time we had to intentionally leave a structural tolerance loose to match Silas Kord's original specifications.

"Mark, I swear to God, if I torque this mounting bracket to the requested spec, the entire extruder arm is going to vibrate itself loose in a month," Kenjiro yelled down from the canopy one afternoon, holding a massive, clunky piece of the printer in place while a dozen drones hovered nearby, stabilizing the trailing cables.

"Guess what, Kenji? That's not our problem anymore!" I yelled back, standing on the deck in my t-shirt and jeans, securing the base plate with a standard-issue plasma torch. "The contract states that everything is to be the same way it was before we left. If that means creating and leaving Silas with a liability, we are contractually obligated to give him one! Lock it down!"

Piece by piece, the old drydock was resurrected. We bolted and welded the two bulky, inefficient fabricators together, using the drones to ferry the massive plating over to us. We painted them in the faded, depressing hazard-yellow of the station's standard. We wired them into the main junction, ensuring they sparked and hummed with the exact level of terrible inefficiency as the originals.

When the final panel was bolted into place, I killed my torch and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I looked over at Kenjiro, who was climbing out of his mech, looking utterly defeated by the absolute lack of quality we had just produced.

"Alright, that's the landlord set up," I said, clapping my hands together to shake off the dust. "Kenji, why don't you take the rest of the day? Go to your quarters, start packing up your personal gear, and get it moved over to the Shepherd."

Kenjiro wiped his forehead, leaning against the mech.

"Right. Sometimes I forget we have a fully functional heavy frigate just sitting in the secondary slip." He paused, looking past me at the room that held the towering behemoths that were my nanoprinters. "But wait... even with a heavy frigate, how are you going to move the printers? They weigh thousands of tons, and I doubt they'll fit through the Shepherd's cargo bay doors in one piece."

"The wisdom is strong with you, Kenji," I said smoothly, waving a hand dismissively. "You have nothing to worry about. I've got the swarm of drones. Marcos and I have a teardown sequence ready to go. You go focus on your own luggage. I'll see you tomorrow."

Kenjiro looked highly skeptical but was far too tired to argue the physics of moving an entire shipyard into a frigate manually. "If you say so. Just don't drop an induction furnace on yourself."

He offered a tired wave and headed for the heavy personnel doors. I waited, watching the indicator light above the door turn red, confirming it was sealed. I tapped the comms unit on the wall, cutting the external camera feeds that led into the station's public corridors.

I was completely alone in the bay.

I walked to the room where I had the nanoprinters that had built my fortune. Kenjiro was right, dismantling them manually, even with a hundred drones acting as heavy lifters, would have taken a good number of backbreaking, tedious days. Though loading them into the Shepherd's cargo bay wouldn't have been a spatial impossibility.

But that wasn't something I had to worry about.

I walked up to the base of the first 25m diameter nanoprinter and placed my bare hand flat against the cold, heavy chassis. I took a deep breath, focusing my intent, and summoned my Subspace Inventory. I simply willed the massive machine to be stored, and in a split second, a towering, thousands-of-ton mechanical marvel of S-Alloy and induction furnaces that stood on the deck simply ceased to exist, swallowed entirely into the void of my inventory.

I walked over to the Second printer, the 8x8m one, placed my hand against its frame, and willed it away. I did the same to my other 4 smaller 3x3m printers before moving outside, and on to the bipedal loader mech Kenjiro had just parked. I walked over, slapped my hand against its heavy hydraulic leg, and willed it to store, vanishing instantly.

I moved methodically, making physical contact with everything we needed to take. I touched the charging alcoves lining the walls, and was about to store the entire swarm of a hundred utility drones right out of their cradles when I remembered something. The expansion of the office and the room I had made for the printers was not original. I let out a tired sigh and summoned my 8x8 m printer.

"Marcos, return the office to what it used to look like, and destroy the printer room and feed it to the printer for storage," I ordered. "And also strip out the turrets."

"Would you like me to return the grime and all to the office?" Marcos asked, his voice projecting from the shipyard's speakers."

I chuckled as I shook my head. "If only that were possible."

I went and took a two-hour nap, and by the time I woke up, the shipyard looked different. Having less to do and more drones to do it with had allowed Marcos to undo days of work in just 2 hours.

I continued storing my things after waking up, laying my hands on the nanoprinter, the drones, the specialized tools, and the heavy spools of optic fiber I had leftover. I completely gutted the place of anything valuable I had added to it, leaving behind only the cold, empty cavern and the two hazard-yellow garbage fabricators Kenji and I had just built.

The drydock was instantly unrecognizable. Without the printers and the drones, it just looked like an abandoned, depressing hole in the side of Mechanicus Station.

With the physical labor of the move handled, the real weight of our departure settled squarely on my mind.

During these two weeks, the silence from the orphanage had been weighing heavily on my mind.

Lyra had spent most of her time fluctuating between intense, nervous energy and profound sadness. I still hadn't received an answer from Father Michael or Sister Elara. Lyra still didn't know if she was going to have to say goodbye to her friends, and the uncertainty was eating her alive. I could see it in the way she dragged her feet, the way she clung to her plush toy, and the quiet, hollow look in her eyes when she hugged me goodnight.

I was sitting at my faux-wood desk in the front office, the only thing I would leave Silas since it would be considered an "upgraded amenity," and wouldn't give him any ground to claim anything against me. It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was staring blankly at a digital readout of Aurelius II's atmospheric composition, when the secure comms line on my console chimed.

I tapped the screen. "Mark Shephard speaking."

"Mark," Father Michael's voice came through the speaker. He sounded exhausted, the vocal equivalent of a man who had spent fourteen straight days wrestling with God and the devil simultaneously. "Could you come down to the orphanage? Sister Elara and I... we'd like to talk with you."

My heart hammered a heavy, immediate rhythm against my ribs. "I'm on my way, Father."

I didn't bother changing my clothes. I grabbed my access fob, walked out of the office, and made the trek in record time. When I reached the doors of the orphanage, I noticed the doors were open, and inside stood Sergeant Miller. 

The main hall was unusually quiet. The children weren't running or screaming. Instead, they were clustered in small groups, their faces solemn, watching me as I walked through the threshold.

Lyra was sitting on a frayed, worn-out rug near the back, holding Timmy's hand. When she saw me, she stood up, but she didn't run to me. She just stood there, her wide, expressive eyes locked onto mine, completely paralyzed by the anticipation of what we would discuss.

"In here, Mark," Sister Elara's voice called out.

I turned. She was standing in the doorway of the small, cramped administrative office. She wore her standard attire, but the dark circles under her eyes showed weeks of sleepless nights.

I stepped into the office. Father Michael was sitting behind his desk, a stack of heavily stamped physical files resting in front of him.

I took the creaking chair opposite him, leaning forward, resting my hands on my knees. I looked between the two of them.

"Well?" I asked, my voice low, bracing myself for the worst. "We'll be leaving in two weeks. Do I need to set up that blind trust to keep your pantries stocked, or are you packing your bags?"

Father Michael looked down at the files on his desk. He reached out, tracing the edge of the top folder with a trembling finger. He let out a long, shaky breath, and when he finally looked up at me, his eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

"I have spent my entire life on this station, Mark," the priest said, his voice thick with emotion. "I have buried my mentors here. I have baptized children who grew up only to die in the mines. I have watched gangs and corporations bleed this place dry, and every night, I have prayed for a miracle to save these children from the meat grinder."

He pushed the stack of files across the desk toward me.

"These are the transfer-of-ward documents," Father Michael continued, a tear finally breaking loose and tracking down his weathered cheek. "I had to bribe three separate station magistrates and forge a half-dozen corporate endorsements to get them stamped without triggering a bureaucratic lockdown. It took every single credit we had left in our emergency reserves."

I stared at the files, the sheer reality of what they represented hitting me like a physical blow.

"We'll be joining you, Mark," Sister Elara said softly from the doorway, her voice breaking slightly. "All of us. Every child, including myself, Michael, and the three junior sisters. We have decided that it is about time we leave this place behind and find greener pastures.... quite literally."

The breath left my lungs in a sudden, sharp rush. I leaned back in the chair, running a hand over my face, a massive, overwhelming wave of relief crashing down over me. I hadn't realized just how heavily the guilt of potentially leaving them behind had been weighing on my soul until the moment it vanished.

"Thank God," I breathed, looking back at them. "I... I don't know what to say. You won't regret this. I swear to you, I will build them a world where they never have to look over their shoulders again."

"We know you will, Mark," Father Michael smiled, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "Lyra has complete faith in you. And her faith has, in turn, given us ours."

I stood up, the adrenaline surging back into my system. The logistical reality of moving over fifty undocumented orphans across space was massive, but it was a problem I was deeply eager to solve.

"Alright," I said, my mind already spinning through the preparations. "I have an eight-hundred-person civilian caravan meeting us outside the border. We aren't flying with them, though. We'll be leading the convoy in my personal heavy frigate, the Shepherd. There should be more than enough space for the children and yourselves. Kenji, Marcos, and I can handle the mechanics of getting us all there in one piece. But that's just the journey."

I turned to look at Sister Elara. She was watching me with a sharp, uncompromising gaze that had always made her such a formidable protector of the orphanage.

"Once we actually touch down on Aurelius II, we're landing on a completely blank slate," I continued, my tone shifting to absolute business. "I have eight hundred desperate colonists, fifty kids, and a massive stockpile of raw materials. We're going to need to establish housing assignments, ration distribution, infrastructure priorities, and an entirely new, functional supply chain from the ground up. And I need someone to run it."

Sister Elara frowned slightly, crossing her arms. "I manage a charity pantry, Mark. Setting up a planetary economy is a bit outside my current jurisdiction."

"Don't play coy with me, Sister," I said softly, a knowing smile touching my lips. "Or did you forget that a few months ago, when you were trying to convince me to pack up and leave this station before the corporate meat grinder took everything I had, you told me your story. You told me about the personal tragedy of being the Vice President of Acquisitions for Titan Logistics."

Father Michael shot a surprised glance at Elara. She had clearly kept the darkest parts of her corporate past close to the chest, sharing them with me only as a desperate warning from one survivor to another.

Sister Elara's posture stiffened instantly. The humble, weary nun vanished, and for a fleeting second, the terrifying, sharp-edged corporate executive she used to be flashed in her eyes. The woman who, by thirty-two, had managed interplanetary supply chains, orchestrated hostile takeovers, and moved billions of tons of ore across borders.

"I told you that story in confidence, Mark, to warn you," Elara said, her voice tight, a wistful, almost pained look crossing her features. "I told you what that life did to me. I left that woman behind because the things she had to do to maintain those supply chains... they cost her her family and her soul. That's why I came here. To try and redeem it back."

"And your warning worked. It's one of the reasons we're leaving," I said gently, stepping closer to her. "I don't need you to sell your soul again, Elara. I don't need the ruthless VP who crushed others for profit. I just need the brilliant mind that knows how to build a logistical network from scratch. Aurelius II won't survive if we don't have an airtight system for feeding and housing those people once the domes go up. I need that Vice President back, just for a little while. To protect her flock."

Elara looked at me, her dark eyes searching my face. The heavy burden of her past warred with the absolute necessity of the future I was offering the children. Then, slowly, the corners of her mouth twitched upward into a small, terrifyingly competent smile.

"Fine," Sister Elara said, her voice dropping into a crisp, authoritative register that commanded absolute obedience. "If you want me to build your planetary supply lines, Mark, you had better give me full administrative access to your colonial manifests before we jump. I need to know exactly how much seed grain we have, what our water reclamation limits are, and the exact caloric output of our hydroponics bays. I will not have my children starving on some rock because an engineer forgot to carry a one."

"You'll have the access codes by tonight," I promised, matching her smile. "Have the children, the sisters, and every single piece of luggage you want to bring ready and waiting at the primary concourse outside Docking Bay 2 in exactly two weeks. Monday morning, 0800 hours. We'll board the Shepherd directly. If you aren't there, we will leave without you."

"We will be there," Father Michael affirmed, standing up and offering his hand.

I shook it firmly. Then, I turned and walked out of the office.

Lyra was still standing in the middle of the main hall. She looked at me, her eyes wide, practically vibrating.

I didn't say a word. I just looked at her and gave her a slow smile.

The scream of absolute, unadulterated joy that ripped from Lyra's lungs could have shattered standard plasteel. She sprinted across the room, throwing herself at me. I caught her, lifting her high into the air as she laughed, tears streaming down her face.

"We're going!" Lyra yelled, looking over my shoulder at Timmy and the rest of the orphans, who were suddenly cheering and jumping up and down. "We're all going to the new home!"

Two hours later, I was back in my empty office at the shipyard.

The euphoria of the orphanage had faded, replaced by the cold, hard reality of what I had just committed to. I wasn't just moving a shipyard anymore. I was moving a small city. Eight hundred desperate civilians, fifty orphans, and a subspace inventory full of the most advanced technology in the galaxy.

We were going to be traveling with a slow, cumbersome caravan of flying rustbuckets. The Shepherd had teeth, but she couldn't defend an entire scattered convoy on her own. And the route to the Aurelian system cut straight through the unconquered systems. It was a lawless expanse of space crawling with thugs, pirates, and corporate privateers who would love nothing more than to intercept a massive, vulnerable fleet.

I needed guns, and I knew exactly who to call.

"Marcos," I said, tapping my fingers rhythmically against the faux-wood surface. "Ping the secure mercenary channels. Get me a direct line to Commander Klaus Vorn of the Void Vanguard."

"Routing the connection through seven proxy relays to ensure anonymity, Mark," Marcos replied. "Establishing handshake... now."

The screen flickered, the static clearing to reveal the heavily scarred, imposing visage of Commander Klaus Vorn. He was sitting in the cockpit of his ship, the Vanguard One. His cybernetic left eye whirred as it focused on the camera.

When he recognized me, a massive, booming laugh erupted from his chest, shaking the audio feed.

"Shephard! You magnificent, crazy son of a bitch!" Vorn roared, slamming a massive fist against his command console. "I was just telling my helmsman I needed to buy you a drink the next time we rotated through Mechanicus! How the hell have you been?"

"I'm surviving, Klaus," I smiled, leaning back in my chair. "I see the Vanguard One is treating you well."

"Treating me well? Shephard, she's a goddamn monster!" Vorn bellowed, his cybernetic eye flashing with manic excitement. "We ran into a syndicate frigate in the outer asteroid belts last month. They thought they had me dead to rights, after all, what's a gunship gonna do against a full-sized frigate? But with whatever you did to her? Shit, we danced around their targeting sensors like a hornet. By the time they tried to bring their main batteries to bear, I had already opened up with the Needlers. Ripped right through their broadside armor! Then I swept in close and let the autocannons under the cockpit chew their bridge to scrap metal. I've scored more kills in the last two months than I did all of last year! I can't thank you enough for the retrofit. She punches so far above her weight class it's not even funny."

"I aim to please, Vorn," I chuckled, genuinely happy to hear my engineering holding up in a live-fire scenario. "A satisfied customer is a repeat customer."

"Damn right," Vorn agreed, wiping a hand over his scarred jaw. "So, what can the Void Vanguard do for the best shipwright in history? You need some corporate scouts chased off your doorstep? Because I owe you a favor, and my gunners are itching for target practice."

"Nothing that simple, Klaus," I said, my tone shifting from casual banter to absolute business. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the desk. "Shephard Orbital Works is skipping town. We are leaving Mechanicus Station permanently, and I'm taking a very large, very slow, and entirely unarmed civilian convoy with me. I need a long-range escort. But I'm going to need something with significantly bigger teeth than a squadron of gunships. Does the Vanguard offer anything heavier?"

Vorn's boisterous demeanor vanished instantly, replaced by a sharp, calculating look. He leaned into the camera.

"Bigger teeth? If you're looking for real weight, my gunship wing isn't going to cut it. A convoy that size needs a serious umbrella." Vorn tapped a few keys on his console. "I'm sending you a heavily encrypted routing frequency. You need to talk to Juan Rodrigues. He runs the Vanguard's heavy fleet. Tell him I sent you, and tell him the guns on the Vanguard One are running hot."

"Thanks, Klaus," I said. "Stay safe out there."

"You too, Mark," Vorn said, and the screen went black. I looked down at the new frequency he had transferred over.

"Marcos, get in contact with the new guy," I ordered.

"Brace yourself, Mark," Marcos warned. "This guy's firewall is military-grade."

The screen flickered again, resolving to show a starkly different environment. Instead of a cramped gunship bridge, I was looking at a spacious, immaculately clean strategic command center. Sitting behind a polished plasteel desk was Juan Rodrigues. He looked like a highly efficient corporate executive who just happened to deal in space warfare. His clothing was definitely of high quality, his dark hair cut in a military style, and his eyes were cold and analytical.

"I just got a message from Klaus saying I'd be contacted. So I guess you must be Mr. Shephard," Rodrigues said smoothly, his voice carrying no trace of Vorn's bombastic energy. "Klaus speaks very highly of your engineering. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"

"I'll get straight to the point, Mr. Rodrigues," I said, maintaining absolute eye contact through the feed. "Shephard Orbital Works is skipping town. We are leaving the core worlds permanently. I'm taking a large, slow civilian convoy with me. I need to hire the Vanguard's heavy fleet for a deep-space escort."

Rodrigues steepled his fingers, his expression giving absolutely nothing away. "Skipping town. Quite a logistical undertaking, isn't it? How far out are we talking?"

"Deep black," I answered flatly. "We are relocating to the Aurelian system. Specifically, the moon of Aurelius II."

Rodrigues's eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. He let out a low, breathy whistle. "Aurelius... That is completely off the grid, Mr. Shephard. That route takes you straight through the unconquered systems. You drag a slow civilian convoy through that sector without a heavy screen, and you'll be in the crosshairs of everyone looking to make a quick buck. You'll be picked clean to the bone before you even reach the halfway point."

"I know," I said. "That's why I'm calling you. I have my own heavy frigate leading the pack, but I doubt that's gonna cover it all. Are you available?"

Rodrigues turned slightly, pulling up a holographic tactical readout that reflected in his dark eyes. "My fleet is currently under contract, escorting the deep-space mining barges for the Lyrian Guild. But that job wraps up shortly. I can have my flagship, a heavy destroyer, along with an escort wing consisting of three frigates and two heavy corvettes back in your system, fully rearmed and refueled, in a week and a half."

"Perfect," I nodded. "That lines up exactly with our departure window. We'll be heading out on Monday morning, two weeks from today."

Rodrigues looked back at me, his gaze sharpening into a razor's edge. "I'll take the contract, Shephard. Securing a working relationship with the man who builds miracles is a smart long-term play for the Vanguard. But a deep-space escort mission of this magnitude, pulling my heaviest hitters off the lucrative core-world lanes for weeks? It is going to cost you."

I leaned back in my chair, folding my arms across my chest. "Name your price."

Rodrigues allowed himself a small, predatory grin. "For my flagship, three frigates, two heavy corvettes, and weeks off the primary trade routes? Forty million credits. Half upfront, half upon safe arrival at Aurelius II."

Four million was a drop in the bucket compared to the billion and a half currently sitting in my Helix account, but I hadn't built my empire by paying the first number slid across a table.

"Thirty-five," I countered without missing a beat.

Rodrigues steepled his fingers, his cold eyes appraising me through the feed. "Thirty-eight. My crews are taking a massive risk stepping into unconquered space. Hazard pay isn't cheap."

"Thirty-seven point five," I offered, holding his gaze. "And if any of your ships take structural damage during the escort, Shephard Orbital Works will repair them for free once we establish ourselves."

Rodrigues paused, the sheer value of that counteroffer clearly weighing heavily on his mind. A free repair from the man who had just overhauled the Vanguard One was worth its weight in gold.

A genuine smile finally broke through his icy corporate veneer.

"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Shephard," he said, nodding slowly. "Thirty-seven point five million it is, plus the repair clause. We have a deal."

"Glad we could come to an arrangement," I said.

"Send me the rendezvous coordinates," Rodrigues said. "The Void Vanguard will see you safely home."

And just like that, the two remaining weeks went by. I had spent over 400 million credits buying things that would be required to kickstart a colony.

When you strip away the romanticism of settling a new frontier, establishing a functional colony on what is pretty much a barren moon is nothing more than a massive, unforgiving math equation. Aurelius II wasn't exactly a death world, but it's not like it was a paradise either.

The atmospheric telemetry that had been advertised indicated that the moon possessed only 35% of the oxygen content that normal humans required to function. That meant that if you walked outside the abandoned surface biodomes without a breather, you wouldn't drop dead instantly, but you would suffer severe hypoxia within minutes, slowly suffocating as your brain is starved of oxygen.

To fix that, I didn't just need air filters, but I also needed industrial-grade atmospheric processors. I dropped fifty million credits on twelve massive, disassembled heavy-duty cracking towers. They were each 100 meters tall and were designed to pull in the thin, native atmosphere of the moon, chemically separate the useless inert gases, and aggressively enrich the oxygen output to pump directly into the biodomes.

Then came the food problem. You can't just sustain eight hundred and seventy people on a prayer. I had to spend another eighty million credits to various agricultural guilds on the far side of the station, purchasing state-of-the-art, disassembled hydroponic and aeroponic bays. The deliveries included thousands of high-intensity, full-spectrum UV lamps, massive spools of irrigation piping, water reclamation vaporators capable of pulling moisture out of recycled sweat and waste, and literally tons of synthetic, nutrient-dense soil fabricators. I bought seed vaults containing genetically modified, high-yield variants of wheat, soy, potatoes, and root vegetables.

But crops take time to grow, and my people were going to be hungry the second we settled.

So, I bought the station out of its emergency reserves. I spent over a hundred million credits on survival rations. I ordered millions of vacuum-sealed MREs, thousands of pallets of stasis-sealed meats, dehydrated proteins, and purified water. I bought out pharmacies, securing vast quantities of broad-spectrum antibiotics, surgical supplies, and basic pain meds. I bought heavy cold-weather clothing, EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) suits, and basic hygiene supplies.

For two straight weeks, the docking bays of the shipyard were a chaotic nightmare of logistics. Massive cargo haulers backed up into the bays hour after hour, driven by exhausted, underpaid delivery contractors who looked incredibly confused when they saw me standing there alone to receive deliveries that weighed hundreds of tons.

"Where do you want it, buddy?" a gruff, heavily tattooed driver asked me one Tuesday, leaning out of the window of his flatbed, which was currently carrying twenty shipping containers full of dehydrated protein paste. "I ain't got the loader mechs to move this haul. Once it's on the ground, it's not my problem."

"Just set it down right there on the deck," I replied casually, pointing to an empty spot on the plasteel flooring. "I'll take care of it."

The driver rolled his eyes, dropping the massive pallets onto the deck with a heavy thud before speeding off to his next job.

The second he was out of sight, I walked up to the towering stack of shipping containers. I placed my bare hand against the cold metal of the lowest crate, focused my intent, and willed the System to swallow it. Store. The entire stack vanished into my Inventory.

I repeated this process dozens of times a day. I was an interstellar black hole for cargo. The sheer volume of material I was hoarding would have required a fleet of a dozen heavy transport haulers just to move. But thanks to the System, I was carrying an entire planetary supply chain in a pocket dimension tied directly to my consciousness. 

What I was doing would have drawn at least a side-eye had I ordered them all from a single manufacturer.

By the end of the second week, my Helix account was significantly lighter, but the logistical foundation of Aurelius II was completely secure.

However, I couldn't keep everything hidden in subspace forever. Sister Elara was going to be running the supply lines, and she couldn't inventory what she couldn't see. Before Monday rolled around, I needed to physically stage the immediate necessities.

I left the bay I was in behind and walked over to Bay One, where I had the Shepherd docked. There was an "umbilical corridor" running from one of the catwalks nearest to the office that was simply there to board the ship from another place that wasn't the cargo bay.

Though I hadn't used her much as of late, and I doubted I would be using her too much later on in the Aurelius, the Shepherd was my pride and joy, as it was the first vessel I ever built, and I did so alongside my friend and mentor, Anahrin. Measuring exactly 335m in length, 125m in width, and 90m in height, she was built with an aggressive, predatory angular sweep. From the heavily armored bottom of the hull, the metal swept upward in a sharp 35m inclined to the edges of the massive wings, and from the wings, it angled another 55m upward to the heavily armored top decks.

The cargo bay alone spanned a massive height of forty-five meters, with the reactor being housed right above it. It was supposed to be a cavernous, pristine space lined with magnetic lockdown clamps, but I had forgotten I had changed up the cargo bay when I started running my business out of the Shepherd.

Thankfully, it was a pretty simple thing. I summoned 30 of the drones out of my inventory and had Marcos control them to return the cargo bay to what it once looked like.

After about an hour, I stood in the center of the empty bay. I took a deep breath, stored the drones once again, and took a look at my open inventory interface.

It was time to unpack.

I started with the food. I walked down the length of the bay, pulling shipping containers out of subspace and letting them materialize directly onto the magnetic clamps.

*Thud*

*Thud*

*Thud*

Row after row, stack after stack, I manifested thousands of crates of stasis-sealed rations, water bladders, and medical supplies. I kept the hydroponics, the atmospheric processors, and the raw construction materials in my inventory since we wouldn't need those until we hit the dirt on Aurelius II. But I filled nearly half of the Shepherd's massive hold with enough food and water to ensure that when Sister Elara walked on board, she would have a tangible, physical mountain of resources to manage.

By Sunday night, the Shepherd was fully stocked, fueled, and humming with barely contained power. We were ready to leave.

3rd Person POV

The artificial, UV-filtered morning light of Mechanicus Station flickered to life at exactly 0800 hours on Monday.

The primary concourse outside Docking Bay 2 was an organized sea of chaos as fifty children of varying ages, dressed in their best, slightly worn clothes, stood in neat, disciplined lines. They clutched small duffel bags, battered suitcases, and stuffed animals. Pacing up and down the lines was Sister Elara, holding a digital datapad as her eyes swept over the crowd with the ruthless, calculating efficiency of a corporate executive inspecting a highly valuable shipping manifest.

"Timmy, keep your bag strapped to your shoulder, do not let it drag on the deck," Elara barked, her tone sharp but undeniably affectionate. "Sarah, hold your sister's hand. Nobody boards until I have cross-referenced your ID tags with the manifest. Michael, keep the rear guard tight."

Father Michael stood at the back of the group, offering reassuring smiles to the more anxious children, though his own hands trembled slightly as he looked out at the massive, heavily armed, and armored Shepherd, whose ten massive 40-meter-long railguns glistened under the lights of the station.

Mark stood by the airlock entrance, dressed in his heavy leather jacket, watching the nun work with a look of profound amusement. Beside him stood Lyra, practically vibrating with excitement as she waved at her friends in the line.

"She's terrifying," Kenjiro whispered, adjusting his glasses as he stood on Mark's other side. Though he wasn't a starship engineer by practice, Kenjrio had gotten accustomed to working with ships and had studied up on them during his time with Mark. It was rather easy for him to transfer his knowledge over and had spent the last two days getting familiar with the Shepherd's reactor room, currently carrying a heavy toolbox over his shoulder. "I used to have a boss at SIGS who looked at me the exact same way she's looking at those kids' shoelaces."

"Heh, yeah, she's exactly what we need," Mark chuckled softly. He stepped forward, raising his voice to carry over the ambient hum of the station. "Alright, everyone! Welcome to the Strathos' Shepherd. The gravitational dampeners on the lower decks have been perfectly calibrated, so you shouldn't feel a thing when we make the jump. Sister Elara, whenever you're ready, the ship is yours to board."

Elara gave Mark a brisk nod and turned to the kids, clapping her hands. "Alright, kiddos, it's time to commence boarding. Single file line. Move with purpose, we are on a tight schedule."

The children marched through the umbilical, their eyes widening in absolute awe as they stepped into the pristine, sleek interior of the heavy frigate. The Shepherd didn't look like a military vessel from the inside. It was intentionally designed as such by Mark, though Anahrin had taken his own liberties and added a handful of things here and there. From the inside, the Shepherd looked like a high-end luxury vessel that just happened to be wrapped in thick armor. The lights were bright, the air was perfectly scrubbed and smelled faintly of pine, and the wide corridors offered more space than their very rooms had ever allowed them.

Once the children were securely guided to their designated spaces on the crew's quarters by the junior sisters, Mark, Kenjiro, and Lyra made their way up to the bridge.

Mark walked to the center of the room and settled into the captain's chair. It was a heavy, perfectly contoured seat that felt right. Lyra instantly scrambled up onto the co-pilot's chair beside him, strapping herself in with a massive grin as she relived what had been her first visual memories after Mark found her and returned to her the gift of sight and hearing. Kenjiro took his place at the primary engineering station, his fingers flying across the haptics as he pulled up the reactor telemetry.

"Marcos," Mark said, his voice echoing in the quiet of the bridge. "Are we ready to go?"

"Just a sec, Mark," Marcos's voice replied, materializing seamlessly into the first holographic form he had used. It was a funny thing to see a burly man in a military uniform as he stretched dramatically and pretended to crack bones. "Hoooh, it's been a while since I last used this form. Alright. The reactor is running at a stable ninety-eight percent efficiency."

"Good," Mark nodded as he smiled at Marcos. "I guess that means your antics will return as well? Please don't scare the children."

Marcos had a fake look of shock and offense on his immaterial face.

Mark ignored Marcos and turned to face Kenjiro. "Kenji, how do the dampeners look?"

"Green across the board," Kenjiro confirmed, his eyes fixed on his screens. "The kids downstairs could build a house of cards right now, and it wouldn't fall over when we hit the thrusters."

Mark nodded, the captain's console rising up from the ground and a bunch of holographic screens materializing in front of him. He tapped the communication array on one of the screens and tuned the frequency to the station's local traffic control.

"Mechanicus Actual, this is independent Heavy Frigate Strathos' Shepherd, registry number 93708, requesting departure clearance from Docking Bay 2," Mark said with a smooth voice, casually slipping back into the rhythm of piloting a ship. "Transmitting departure manifest and final lease-clearing codes now."

There was a brief pause, filled with the soft static of the comms line. Mark knew the bureaucrats in the administration wing were likely scrutinizing Silas Kord's sign-off.

"Independent frigate Strathos' Shepherd, this is Mechanicus Actual," a bored, nasal voice finally replied. "Manifest received and verified. Your lease is marked as resolved. You are cleared for departure on Vector 4-Niner. Safe travels. We hope to have you return soon."

"Much appreciated, Actual. Shepherd out." Mark killed the channel. A fierce, liberating smile broke across his face. He looked out the viewport. "Marcos. Take the helm. Detach umbilicals, retract the mooring clamps, open the blast doors, and get us out of this place."

"With pleasure, Captain," Marcos replied, a hint of genuine excitement in his synthesized tone.

The deck beneath their feet vibrated with a deep, resonant thrum. Outside the digital viewport, the massive clamps holding the frigate in place disengaged and pulled back into the station walls. The Shepherd's weight settled down on its landing struts as the depressurization sequence began. Then the blast door behind them slowly opened, allowing the Shepherd to drift smoothly away from the dock, the maneuvering thrusters firing in perfectly synchronized, silent bursts of blue plasma.

As they cleared the station's massive superstructure, the Shepherd started to turn horizontally, completing an 85-degree turn. They were greeted by the super busy traffic lanes of the Novellus system, as tens of thousands of ships move within the massive stations surrounding Nova Celeste. The distant, brilliant light of the system's star reflected off the Shepherd's matte-black, angular hull.

"Plotting course," Marcos announced, a holographic stellar map blooming into existence above the central holotable. A bright blue line traced a path from their current position, carving through the system toward the outskirts of it. "Setting coordinates for the designated rendezvous point at the edge of the Novellus system, heading galactic northwest. ETA at sub-light cruising speed is roughly three hours."

"Punch it," Mark ordered.

The Shepherd's engines ignited, pulsing with a vibrant blue and then purple as they pushed the fully loaded heavy frigate forward with incredible force.

Three hours later, the proximity alarms on the bridge chimed a soft, rhythmic warning.

"We are approaching the rendezvous coordinates, Mark," Kenjiro called out from his station. "Sensors are picking up a cluster of transponder signatures. It's... wow. It's a mess out there."

Mark stood up from the captain's chair, walking over to the digital viewports as the external cameras zoomed in on it.

Hanging in the dark void of space at the very edge of the Novellus system was a sight that bordered on the absurd. Clustered together in a loose, heavily disorganized formation were twenty-seven civilian ships. Calling them "rustbuckets" was almost a compliment. They were flying bricks. A bunch of massive, blocky, asymmetrical freighters, agricultural haulers, and decommissioned mining barges that looked like they were being held together by duct tape and sheer willpower. Their hulls were scarred with micrometeorite impacts, their engine cowlings mismatched, and some of their running lights flickered weakly.

But surrounding this fragile, desperate civilian fleet was an absolute wall of military-grade weaponry.

The Void Vanguard had arrived a day before they had.

At the perimeter of the rustbuckets were five escort ships, three blocky, heavily armed frigates, and two bulky heavy corvettes. And anchored perfectly in the center of the formation was Juan Rodrigues's flagship. It was a Kodiak Heavy Industries heavy destroyer, since they were the only ones making heavy destroyers. Though this one had been modified. It still held the blockyness, but instead of measuring in at 600 meters, it was the size of a regular destroyer, only 525 meters in length. However, its flanks bristled with railgun batteries, torpedo tubes, and thick, overlapping plates of corporate-grade armor.

"We have an incoming communication request," Marcos announced. "It's the Vanguard flagship."

"Put him on screen," Mark said, leaning against the edge of the tactical console.

The bridge display flickered, and the sharp, immaculate face of Juan Rodrigues appeared. He was sitting in the command center of his destroyer.

"Mr. Shephard," Rodrigues greeted smoothly. Then, his eyes flicked off-screen, clearly looking at the visual feed of the Shepherd approaching his formation. His stoic mask slipped for just a fraction of a second, revealing genuine, unfiltered surprise.

"I have to admit," Rodrigues said, his tone carrying a rare note of absolute respect. "When Vorn told me you built your own ship, I expected a highly functional, utilitarian brick. But the telemetry my sensors are feeding me... that is quite the ship, Shephard. The angular geometry, the armor density, and the thermal masking. She's a work of art."

Mark grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn't help but brag just a little. "She is indeed quite the beauty, Mr. Rodrigues. And she punches harder than she looks."

"I don't doubt it," Rodrigues replied, regaining his composure. "My fleet is fully fueled and deployed in a spherical defensive screen. The civilian vessels are holding position, though they are practically vibrating with anxiety. They're waiting for your word."

"Then let's not keep them waiting any longer," Mark said. "Marcos, open a wide-band, multi-channel comms link. Patch me through to all thirty-three ships in the formation. Audio only."

"You got it," Marcos said. "You are broadcasting to the entire fleet."

Mark cleared his throat, standing tall, projecting the absolute confidence of a man who was about to lead nearly a thousand souls into the unknown.

"Attention, fleet. This is Mark Shephard, broadcasting from the heavy frigate Strathos' Shepherd," he began, his voice steady and calm, echoing across the bridges and cramped cockpits of twenty-seven desperate rustbuckets and six lethal warships. "To the men and women of the Void Vanguard, thank you for the umbrella. To the civilians, the farmers, the engineers, and the families who answered my call... welcome to the first day of the rest of your lives."

A collective murmur of static and quiet, relieved voices washed back over the open channel.

"I know many of you are flying blind here," Mark continued. "You signed a contract with a ghost, packed up your lives, and jumped into a place far away from the life you had grown accustomed to. I want to assure you, the leap is worth it. As you all know, we are heading for the Aurelian system. Specifically, the moon of Aurelius II. It is completely isolated, totally unclaimed by the corporations, and features a massive, intact orbital manufacturing hub and surface biodomes. We'll figure things out as we go, but one thing is for sure. We aren't going to be indentured labor, but a sovereign entity. In this moon, we are going to build a home away from it all."

He let the words sink in, knowing the sheer weight of the promise he was making.

"The journey is not going to be a short one," Mark explained, laying out the stark reality of interstellar logistics. Though humanity had managed to spread across light-years of space, it had all been thanks to the gates that the Strathari had left behind. Apart from that, humanity didn't possess hyperdrives that could simply point at a star and go. Faster-than-light travel relied on a network of natural spatial anomalies known as jump points. "To reach Aurelius II, we have to navigate the unconquered systems. I believe every single one of us here is familiar with spatial travel, but just in case none of you have ever travelled as part of a fleet, we will be executing a series of jumps through predetermined spatial nodes. We jump, we drop into real-space, we travel at sub-light speeds across the local system to the next node, and we repeat the process. Now, there is a saying that goes 'a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.' Well, that holds true to space travel as well. Normally, this would be a two-week trek for my ship alone, but because of the size and speed of some of our ships, I project this trek will take us exactly six weeks."

He paused. "Six weeks is a long time and can be quite stressful for those not used to such a long stretch of travel. Before we spool up the jump drives, does anyone have any immediate questions?"

The comms channel cracked with static for a moment before a gruff, heavily accented voice broke through.

"Mr. Shephard, sir. My name is Elias Vane, commanding the bulk hauler 'Demeter's Folly'." It was the agricultural specialist Marcos had highlighted. "With all due respect, sir, six weeks is a lot of burned calories. I've got my extended family and a hundred other recruits packed into my cargo holds. We pooled our credits to buy rations, but if we get delayed, or if a jump point is unstable... well, we don't have the reserves to stretch this out. Do we actually have enough supplies to make it?"

Mark smiled, looking down at his console.

"Mr. Vane, I appreciate the concern," Mark said, his voice projecting absolute, unshakeable certainty. "I want you, and every other captain in this fleet, to listen to me very carefully. You don't have to worry about rationing your personal supplies. In the cargo bay of my frigate, I currently have enough flash-frozen food, nutrient paste, and purified water stored to feed nine hundred people, three square meals a day, for the next five years."

The utter silence that fell over the comms channel was profound. It was the silence of eight hundred desperate people simultaneously realizing they were truly, finally safe from the threat of starvation.

"Five... five years?" Vane whispered over the comms, his voice cracking with sheer disbelief. "Lord above... You really meant it when you said we were taken care of."

"I meant every word, Elias," Mark affirmed. "Sister Elara of St. Jude's Orphanage, which is being transported aboard my ship, will be broadcasting a logistical schedule shortly. If any ship in this fleet runs low on necessities during our sub-light transits between jump points, I'm sure the Vanguard wouldn't mind ferrying supplies from my hold to yours. Nobody will go hungry on my watch."

Mark looked up through the viewport at the massive, blocky shape of Elias Vane's freighter, and the heavy Vanguard destroyer flanking it.

"If there are no further questions," Mark said, taking his seat back in the captain's chair, "I suggest you all secure for a jump. The Shepherd will be taking point. I am broadcasting our jump telemetry on the encrypted channel now. All civilian ships, I need you to slave your navigation systems to our drive's wake to ensure we all land at the exact same coordinates."

Mark looked down at the tactical display on his armrest, watching the icons of the various ships. "Mr. Rodrigues, I want your heavy destroyer bringing up the rear. Have your frigates and corvettes form a protective sphere around the civilian flock."

"Copy that, Shephard," Rodrigues's professional voice clipped through the channel. "Vanguard fleet, you heard the man. Let's get the Rod's Belle to the rearguard. Escort wing, extend defensive screen around the civilian convoy. We are syncing with the Shepherd's jump drive now."

The massive Vanguard destroyer drifted gracefully to the back of the formation, while the sleek frigates and heavy corvettes fanned out, boxing the vulnerable rustbuckets into a tight, impenetrable armored bubble.

"We are synced and reading green across the board," Kenjiro confirmed from the engineering station, watching the massive influx of data as thirty-two other vessels tethered their ancient or corporate drives to the Shepherd's core.

"Marcos," Mark said, his heart beating a fast, steady rhythm against his ribs as the stars outside the viewport began to blur, the gravitational anomaly of the first jump point engaging the frigate's massive reactor. "You've got the helm."

"Engaging jump drive," Marcos replied.

Space tore open before them, a swirling, violent vortex of blue and violet light generated by the Shepherd's immense power. With Mark leading the charge, the heavy frigate plunged into the breach, dragging the fleet of rusted civilian freighters in its wake, while the heavy guns of the Void Vanguard closed the door behind them.

---

For the first three weeks, the immense undertaking of moving a thirty-four-ship fleet across the uncharted expanse of the galaxy felt less like a desperate flight and more like a carefully choreographed, if incredibly tedious, orbital waltz.

The rhythm of their survival was dictated entirely by the unforgiving laws of interstellar physics. The fleet would spool their drives, syncing their navigation computers to the massive, pulsating wake of the Shepherd. Space would tear open, a violent rupture of violet and sapphire light, and thirty-four vessels would plunge into the jump current. Minutes later, they would violently eject back into the cold reality of normal space, arriving at a predetermined spatial node. From there, the agonizingly slow sub-light transit began. The blocky, rusted civilian freighters burned their engines at maximum safe capacity just to crawl across the local system toward the next jump point.

It was a grueling, monotonous cycle. Jump, crawl, jump, crawl, jump, crawl.

Aboard the Shepherd, life had settled into a comfortable, almost domestic routine. The sheer size of the frigate meant the fifty children had more room to run, play, and breathe than they had ever experienced on Mechanicus Station.

Sister Elara had taken to her role with a terrifying, absolute efficiency. From a commandeered terminal on the secondary crew deck, she monitored the telemetry of all twenty-seven civilian rustbuckets. Her voice was and quickly became a staple over the fleet-wide comms. She coordinated ration distribution, managed water reclamation limits, and organized remote diagnostic checks on the failing scrubbers of the older agricultural haulers. Whenever a civilian ship flagged a critical supply shortage, Juan would dispatch one of his heavy corvettes to ferry resources from the Shepherd's massive cargo bay directly to the struggling vessel.

For twenty-one days, the only annoyances they faced were the degrading engine coils, micro-meteorites rattling against their hulls, and the deep, crushing boredom of the void.

Up on the bridge of the Shepherd, Mark Shephard spent most of his time in the captain's chair, monitoring the Vanguard's defensive sphere and running simulated architectural blueprints for the colony on Aurelius II. Marcos had once again introduced himself to the children and started teaching them alongside Lyra. They quickly took to calling him Mr. Robot once they realized that he had been controlling the robot at Lyra's birthday party.

Whenever she was running around with the other kids, Lyra was a constant presence beside him. The co-pilot's chair was pretty much hers as she spent her hours strapped into the plush leather, humming quietly to herself as she drew pictures of stars and planets on a table, or watched cartoons with her favorite stuffed plushie tucked securely under her arm.

Kenjiro decided to spend a lot of his time in the engineering bay, still amazed by the efficiency of the reactor Mark had created. He proposed that Mark put a patent on it, to which Mark asked him, "Who in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere would steal my work?" Kenjiro shrugged and saw the point in Mark's words, deciding to return to treating the massive fusion reactor like a temperamental child that required his constant, undivided attention.

It was peaceful and quiet until the end of the third week.

The fleet had just completed a particularly rough jump, dropping into the fringes of a dead, binary star system. The Vanguard immediately fanned out, their sensor arrays sweeping the local asteroid fields, while the civilian ships powered down their jump drives to let their coils cool.

Mark was sipping a pouch of synthetic coffee, rubbing the bridge of his nose, when Marcos's holographic avatar flickered into existence over the central holotable. The AI was not wearing his usual casual smirk. His digital brow was deeply furrowed.

"Mark," Marcos said, his voice stripped of its usual synthesized levity, dropping into a low, clinical register. "I need you to look at the rear-facing tachyon sweeps. I've been running a deep-spectrum analysis on our jump wake for the last three jumps. We have a problem."

Mark lowered his coffee, the relaxed atmosphere of the bridge vanishing instantly. He stood up, walking over to the holotable. "Show me."

The projector flared to life, displaying a massive, three-dimensional representation of their fleet's flight path across the last seven days of travel. A thick, bright blue line represented the thirty-four ships carving their way through the spatial nodes.

But there was something else.

A faint, pulsing red dot. It was tiny, almost imperceptible against the background radiation of the cosmos. But it was there.

"What am I looking at, Marcos?" Mark asked, his eyes narrowing as he leaned over the table.

"For the last week, approximately our last three jumps, a localized spatial anomaly has been registering on the Shepherd's deep-range sensors," Marcos explained, highlighting the red dot. The digital marker traced their exact path, lagging consistently behind them. "It's a ship. Someone is jumping into the exact same spatial nodes we are, following our precise slipstream trajectory. They are lagging behind us by about an hour or two."

A cold, heavy knot formed in Mark's stomach. "Are you absolutely certain? Could it be a merchant vessel riding the same shipping lanes?"

"We are well past the established shipping lanes, Mark," Marcos countered grimly. "We are in the unconquered systems. There is no standard traffic out here. Furthermore, whoever is back there is running military-grade thermal baffles and active sensor-dampening fields. They are trying very, very hard to look like a background cluster of cosmic dust."

Mark stared at the pulsing red dot. The implications crashed over him like a physical wave. They were being hunted.

"Why hasn't the Vanguard flagged this?" Mark demanded, looking up at the tactical display showing Rodrigues's heavy destroyer patrolling the rear of their formation. "Rodrigues should have a dedicated sensory suite on that capital ship."

"Because Rodrigues is using standard, human-manufactured corporate tech," Marcos replied, a hint of digital pride bleeding through the warning. "Kodiak Heavy Industries makes a fine destroyer, but their sensors rely on standard electromagnetic and thermal returns. The Shepherd's arrays are built on Strathari architecture, which, though downgraded, is still leagues ahead of humanity's. The Vanguard is blind to them because their scanners simply aren't advanced enough to see the ripples."

"Damn it," Mark hissed under his breath. He tapped the comms array on the holotable. "Marcos, get me an encrypted call with Rodrigues. Don't broadcast this to the civilian fleet. I don't want to start a panic."

The screen flickered, and the immaculate, composed face of the Vanguard's heavy fleet commander appeared. Rodrigues was standing on the bridge of the Rod's Belle, sipping from a silver thermos.

"Mr. Shephard," Rodrigues said smoothly. "My engineers report the civilian drives are cooling at an acceptable rate. We should be ready to begin sub-light transit in twenty minutes. Is there an issue?"

"Juan, pull your frigates in closer to the civilian core and have your gunners load armor-piercing munitions," Mark ordered, his voice completely devoid of warmth. "We are being trailed."

Rodrigues paused, his thermos hovering inches from his mouth. His cold, analytical eyes narrowed. He looked off-screen, clearly checking his own sensory readouts. "That's impossible, Mark. I have a hundred-million-credit sensor suite sweeping a massive radius. My screens are completely clear. We are alone in this sector."

"Your screens are clear because whoever is behind us is running advanced stealth baffles," Mark corrected sharply, carefully guarding the true nature of his vessel's origins. "My ship is equipped with significantly stronger sensors and scanners than anything rolling off a corporate assembly line. For the last week, a ship has been jumping into our exact coordinates an hour or two after we vacate them. They are tracking our wake."

The skepticism vanished from Rodrigues's face, instantly replaced by the ruthless, calculating demeanor of a veteran mercenary commander. He didn't press Mark for the classified specs of his equipment; he simply knew better than to doubt the shipwright's capabilities.

"Understood," Rodrigues clipped, setting the thermos down. He didn't panic. He simply adapted. "I am shifting the Vanguard to condition red. The escort wing will tighten the defensive sphere. If they jump in while we are still in sub-light transit, we will intercept and destroy. Keep me updated on their telemetry, Shephard."

The channel closed. Mark watched as the Vanguard warships broke their wide patrol routes, burning thrusters to close the distance, pulling into a tight, aggressive formation around the fragile civilian rustbuckets.

The fleet went on high alert. The atmosphere aboard the Shepherd shifted from peaceful routine to a suffocating, grinding tension.

For the entirety of the fourth week, the phantom ship trailed them.

Every time the fleet jumped and began their slow crawl across a new, empty system, Mark would sit in the captain's chair, his eyes glued to the tachyon sweeps. An hour or two would pass, and then, inevitably, the faint, red pulse would appear at the edge of the system. The stalker would sit there in the dark, watching them, never closing the distance, never engaging, simply acting as a silent, terrifying shadow.

Lyra sensed the shift in Mark's demeanor. She stopped drawing on her digital slate and spent her time clutching her plushie, her large eyes darting nervously between Mark and the ominous red blip on the holotable. Kenjiro slept in the engineering bay. His desire to understand Mark's creation wouldn't allow him to leave the reactor controls for even a second.

And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the shadow vanished.

A whole week went by, and the fleet made a particularly long jump across a dense nebula. When they dropped back into normal space, Mark waited. He stared at the sensors for one hour. Then two. Then twelve.

But nothing popped up on his screen. The red dot was gone.

"Marcos?" Mark asked, his voice rough from lack of sleep.

"The sweeps are clear, Mark," the AI confirmed, sounding equally relieved and confused. "No tachyon echoes. No gravitational displacement. Whoever was following us... they either lost our trail in the nebula, or they broke off."

Mark leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his face. He didn't feel relieved. He felt a deep, gnawing sense of paranoia. But as the fifth week dragged on with absolutely no sign of pursuit, the grinding tension slowly began to bleed out of the fleet. The Vanguard maintained their tight formation, but the civilian comms returned to their usual chatter. Sister Elara went back to ruthlessly managing the rations. The stalker became a ghost story, a terrifying anomaly that they had successfully outrun.

The final week of the stretch finally arrived.

"Final jump coordinates for this sector locked in," Kenjiro called up through the local comms channel from the engineering bay, his voice echoing through the bridge comms. "Reactor is nominal. We are ready to initiate the jump."

"Understood, Kenji," Mark said, sitting up straight in the captain's chair. This was it. The jump that would initiate the final week of their journey. Soon, they would be dropping into the Aurelian system. "Marcos, broadcast the telemetry to the fleet. Juan, form up. Let's make this a clean jump."

"Escort wing is synced and ready, Shephard," Rodrigues confirmed.

The massive void of space tore open before them. The thirty-four ships surged forward, consumed by the violent, swirling energies of slipspace. The transit was smooth, the Shepherd's internal stabilizers keeping the ride perfectly steady. Lyra sat beside Mark, her plushie squeezed tight in her lap, a small, excited smile returning to her face as they neared the end of their seemingly endless journey.

"Exiting the jump in three, two, one," Marcos announced.

Reality snapped back into place. The swirling violet tunnel vanished, replaced by the stark, cold blackness of a completely uncharted, dead star system.

The Shepherd dropped into real-space, its massive engines flaring as it decelerated. Behind them, in perfect synchronization, the twenty-seven civilian freighters and the six Vanguard warships tore out of the slipspace rupture, forming up in their defensive sphere.

Mark looked out the viewport, ready to order the sub-light transit to the next node.

But the space ahead of them was not empty.

"WARNING. MASSIVE GRAVITATIONAL DISPLACEMENT DETECTED," Marcos's voice suddenly blared over the bridge speakers, the volume deafening, stripped of all humanity. The holotable erupted into a blinding sea of hostile red icons.

Hanging in the dark vacuum of space, directly in their flight path, a massive armada came online.

Mark's blood ran entirely cold.

There were ten frigates, nine heavily armored corvettes, and anchored in the absolute center of the formation was a heavily plated destroyer. And painted across the sprawling, thick broadsides of every single vessel was a crest Mark recognized instantly. It was a golden hawk, wings spread over a bleeding sun.

The sigil of House Volanti.

Gregorio Volanti had never intended to keep his word. The calm, the quiet, the complete lack of retaliation from SIGS had all been a calculated, brilliant facade. Volanti hadn't struck Mark on Mechanicus Station because Mark was protected by the presence of the IUC Navy and the sheer publicity of his actions. He didn't respect Mark as he had claimed. No. He had simply waited. He had waited for Mark to gather his assets, pack up his life, and fly out of the safety of the core worlds, deep into the lawless, unconquered systems where no one would hear them scream.

"Brace for impact! Engage in evasive maneuvers!" Mark roared, slamming his fist down on the command console. "Break formation and engage the enemy!"

But it was already too late. Warfare in this universe was a brutal, unforgiving science of mass, velocity, and armor. Shields were a virgin technology that hadn't even been commercialized yet. There was nothing to absorb a mistake. There were no deflectors to bounce a hit. Space combat was a straight-up, horrific slug-fest. It was tank warfare played out across thousands of kilometers of vacuum. If you got hit in the wrong place, your ship cracked open, and you were done.

House Volanti had pre-calculated their firing solutions. They had been sitting in the dark, waiting for the exact moment the civilian fleet dropped out of the jump.

All hell broke loose.

The Volanti fleet opened fire simultaneously, unleashing a devastating, synchronized broadside of hyper-accelerated slugs, armor-piercing torpedoes, and heavy rotary autocannon fire. The sheer volume of solid munitions illuminated the dark system in terrifying, continuous flashes of muzzle flare.

The Void Vanguard didn't even have time to fully angle their armor.

A massive volley of railgun slugs tore right past the Vanguard screen, plunging directly into the heart of the disorganized, blocky civilian rustbuckets.

Mark watched in absolute, paralyzed horror through the Shepherd's viewports.

The Demeter's Folly, the massive agricultural hauler commanded by Elias Vane, took a direct hit from a high-explosive torpedo. The ancient, rusted hull crumpled instantly. The warhead bored straight through the thin outer plating and detonated deep inside the cargo holds. The massive ship simply cracked in half, its keel snapping like a dry twig. A silent, blooming fireball of escaping oxygen, ignited fuel, and vaporized metal expanded into the void.

A heavy freighter carrying the families of the station's atmospheric miners was stitched end-to-end by a sustained burst of heavy rotary cannons. The brutal rounds chewed through the civilian-grade metal, turning the ship into Swiss cheese. Atmosphere vented violently into space before the reactor containment failed, shattering the ship into a million pieces of jagged shrapnel.

In the span of ten seconds, five civilian ships were utterly, violently obliterated.

The fleet-wide comms channel devolved into a cacophony of absolute, mind-shattering terror. Screams of dying men and women, the shrieking of tearing metal, and the panicked, hyperventilating cries of captains begging for help flooded the bridge of the Shepherd. Two hundred innocent lives, families, farmers, people who had trusted Mark to lead them to a better life, were snuffed out in the blink of an eye.

Although, unfortunately, death had come to them, the Volanti gunners had fired blindly into the cluster. Apart from the agricultural hauler, none of the ships that were hit carried any specialized colonial assets, such as structural engineers, teachers, or medical staff. But they were still unfortunate families. They were people.

"No!" Mark screamed, a blinding, white-hot rage erupting in his chest. His biology surged, adrenaline flooding his system. He felt the predatory instincts of a cornered killer demanding absolute violence.

Beside him, Lyra let out a piercing, terrified scream. She pressed herself deep into the leather of the co-pilot's chair, squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears with her hands, clutching her plushie so tight her knuckles were white. The sudden, concussive impacts and the blinding flashes of galactic artillery rocking the space outside the ship terrified her to her core.

"Marcos! Transfer all weapon control protocols to my terminal and angle out armor profile!" Mark bellowed, his fingers flying across the haptic interfaces with blinding speed. "Kenjiro! Push the reactor to a hundred and twenty percent!"

"Reactor output spiking!" Kenjiro yelled back from the comms, his voice trembling with fear, but his hands working the engineering controls flawlessly. "Bracing for impact!"

Mark didn't wait for the Volanti fleet to reload. He seized the manual targeting controls of the Shepherd.

The frigate was massive, and the firepower it carried was fundamentally absurd for a ship of its classification. Mark locked the targeting telemetry onto the nearest cluster of Volanti ships.

"You motherfuckers!" Mark snarled.

The Shepherd shuddered violently as its primary armament unleashed hell. Ten massive, forty-meter-long railguns on rotating turrets fired in rapid sequence. The dense slugs accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light, tearing across the void.

The Volanti ships Mark had targeted didn't stand a chance.

Five of the frigates were caught completely off guard by the sheer velocity of the return fire. The massive tungsten-carbide slugs punched straight through their heavy corporate armor plating as if it were made of paper. The kinetic shockwaves shattered their internal bulkheads and detonated their reactors. The five frigates crumpled inwardly before exploding in rapid succession, blossoming into violent spheres of expanding debris and ignited fuel.

Mark didn't stop. He pivoted the Shepherd's trajectory, bringing the secondary heavy autocannons to bear. A torrent of armor-piercing, high-explosive munitions shredded three Volanti corvettes that had broken formation to flank the Vanguard, chewing through their engine blocks and turning the small warships into drifting, ventilated coffins.

Eight enemy ships gone in the opening volley. The sheer, overwhelming brutality of the Shepherd's response forced the remaining Volanti fleet to break their aggressive posture and scatter, desperately trying to evade Mark's targeting sensors.

But the battle was far from won.

While Mark had carved a bloody hole in their lines, the Void Vanguard was fighting a desperate, losing battle of attrition against the superior numbers. 

Out of the digital viewport, Mark watched as the two Vanguard heavy corvettes were caught in a brutal crossfire. The Volanti frigates swarmed them, overwhelming their heavy plating with a relentless barrage of armor-piercing missiles. The Vanguard corvettes fought to the bitter end, their own guns blazing even as they were ripped apart. A volley of solid slugs tore through their magazines, cracking their hulls open and venting their crews into the cold vacuum of space.

And then, the Volanti destroyer made its move, bypassing the scattered civilian ships entirely, focusing its immense, crushing firepower directly onto Rodrigues's flagship, the Rod's Belle.

The corporate destroyer unleashed a devastating volley from its spinal-mounted rail cannon. The hyper-dense, car-sized slug crossed the void in a fraction of a second, striking the Rod's Belle dead in the aft section. The Vanguard destroyer's heavy armor buckled, held for an agonizing microsecond, and then shattered. The massive slug sheared straight through the engine block, completely destroying the thrusters.

A massive explosion ripped through the back of Rodrigues's ship. The sub-light engines went completely dark. The Rod's Belle was instantly crippled, left dead in the water, drifting helplessly amidst the chaotic storm of flying metal.

"Shephard!" Rodrigues's voice crackled over the comms, heavy with static and the sound of blaring emergency alarms. "Our engines are gone! We are venting atmosphere on decks four through seven! Get the civilians out of here! We will hold the line!"

Mark's jaw clenched so tight he felt a molar crack.

Before he could respond, the Shepherd violently lurched sideways. A deafening, concussive CLANG echoed through the massive hull, ringing the ship like an ungodly bell. The Volanti destroyer had turned its secondary batteries on them. A solid slug had slammed into their flank. The sheer force of the impact knocked Mark sideways. Sparks showered from the ceiling of the bridge, and the artificial gravity flickered wildly for a split second.

"Port-side armor plating is severely compromised!" Marcos warned, his digital avatar glitching slightly from the structural feedback. "Mark, they are reorienting their primary rail cannon. If that destroyer hits us with another full spinal charge, the armor will hold the shape of the ship together, but the internal spalling and sheer kinetic transfer will liquefy everyone inside!"

Mark looked up from the tactical display. The bridge was flashing with red emergency lighting.

He looked at Lyra. The little girl was sobbing hysterically, her body trembling violently in the oversized chair, her eyes squeezed shut in absolute terror. She was covering her ears with her hands, trying to block out the horrific sound of metal screaming against metal.

Through the internal comms, underneath Kenjiro's frantic status reports, Mark could hear the muffled, terrified screams of the fifty orphans huddled in the secondary crew decks, entirely helpless as the frigate was battered by heavy artillery.

He had to make a choice.

"Marcos," Mark commanded, his voice cold, hard, and utterly desperate. "Calculate an emergency blind jump. Spin the drives now."

"Mark, an emergency jump without a pre-calculated spatial node is incredibly dangerous," Marcos warned immediately, his voice urgent. "Dropping into uncharted slipspace without a stable exit vector could tear the fleet apart. The navigational drag on the civilian ships-"

"I don't give a fuck! If we stay here, every single person in this fleet is going to be slaughtered!" Mark roared, his hands gripping the edges of the console as another heavy kinetic impact rocked the Shepherd, throwing him off balance. "The Vanguard is dying! We are sitting ducks! Do it, Marcos! Slave their drives and jump!"

"Spooling emergency slipspace rupture," Marcos complied, the ship's massive reactor whining in a terrifying, high-pitched crescendo as it pulled more power than it was safely designed to handle. "Jump in three... two..."

Space began to tear open directly in front of the Shepherd, a chaotic, unstable vortex of violent purple energy.

But the Volanti destroyer wasn't finished.

Just as the Shepherd crested the event horizon of the jump, the warship fired its rail cannon one last time.

The massive, hyper-accelerated tungsten slug didn't hit the Shepherd dead on, but it grazed the thick armor of the lower port wing. The sheer force of the glancing blow slammed into the heavy frigate just as it entered the unstable jump current.

The Shepherd violently veered upward, completely knocked off its intended entry vector.

The ship plunged into the chaotic tunnel of the jump at a horrific, erratic angle, dragging the tethered, surviving ships of the fleet in with it.

As the Shepherd breached the threshold, the violent shockwave of the impact transferred directly through the hull and into the bridge.

Mark was thrown completely off his seat. The world turned into a blur of red emergency lights and screaming metal. His head slammed brutally against the edge of the holotable with a sickening crack. Darkness swallowed his vision instantly, pulling him under before his body even hit the deck plating.

Behind them, the tear sealed shut.

The fleet vanished into the violent, unpredictable currents of slipspace. They left behind a graveyard of shattered hulls and drifting metal. Five civilian freighters, two Vanguard corvettes, and the crippled remains of the Rod's Belle were left drifting in the dark. The surviving fleet had dwindled from thirty-four ships to twenty-six.

---

Pain.

A deep, throbbing agony radiated from the side of Mark's skull. He groaned, the sound raw and thick in his throat. His eyelids felt like they were made of lead.

Slowly and agonizingly, Mark forced his eyes open.

The bridge of the Shepherd was eerily and terrifyingly silent. The deafening roar of the slugfest was gone. The red emergency lights had been replaced by the dim, flickering glow of the backup lumen strips. The air smelled of scorched wiring and the sharp tang of copper.

Mark pushed himself up off the deck plating, his vision swimming, his ears ringing with a high, constant pitch. He grabbed the edge of the holotable, hauling himself upright. His head felt like it had been split open with an axe.

He blinked, trying to clear the blurry double-vision. He looked out the massive viewports. The violent, swirling tunnel of slipspace was gone. They were floating in normal space.

He didn't care about where they were. He didn't care about the Volanti fleet.

A sudden, paralyzing spike of pure ice pierced his heart as he snapped his head to the right, his eyes locking onto the co-pilot's chair. His breath hitched in his throat, and a cold, suffocating dread washed over him, completely overriding the pain in his skull.

"Lyra?" Mark called out, his voice a frantic, desperate croak in the silent bridge.

The dim lights flickered.

She didn't answer.

Mark felt his chest tighten, his heart hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against his ribs. The silence stretched out, heavy and absolute.

"Lyra!"

---

To Conquer The Stars will return on Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. If you wish to read ahead, there are over 30 chapters on the infamous Patreon, and that number will only continue to increase over this 2-week break.

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