“I’ve contacted the Oshakati, Uso. They’ll be exiting the asteroid belt in five minutes. They’ve acknowledged receipt of the evac plan and will be ready.” Aki, the Forsetti’s communication specialist, said.

  She was a slightly built woman of mixed Da’a’shori blood, an aberration within their culture, tolerated only by the morally flexible Corsair crews, who need expertise from anywhere they could find it.

  Hours earlier, once the crew had Mr. Esplin’s shuttle safely secured on the hanger deck, he had made his way promptly to the bridge. After a brief conference with Usora and her first mate, Presha, he had seated himself at the auxiliary helm station.

  They had retrofitted the station with the special control boards Mr. Esplin first brought onboard almost a year before, when they were on the other side of the Barrier. He had coordinated with the Forsetti’s pilot, Iressa, who trained with Mr. Esplin extensively over the last year, getting the ship ready to Travel. As they had initiated the complex process, warning lights and alarms went off across the bridge.

  Power levels dropped throughout the ship, and Usora could feel the engines die, the vibrations in the deck plates beneath her feet telling all she needed to know. Another engine malfunction, one of a thousand things that had plagued the ship intermittently since they had their disastrous encounter with that mining vessel. The malfunction would delay them. Again.

  “Commander.”

  Usora looked at Mr. Esplin’s station. His look seemed benign, but she had worked closely with the man long enough to know he was seething underneath. This was a dangerous individual. In full control of his emotions, letting them out to play only when it suited his needs.

  “Sorry.” Usora said simply.

  What else was there to say?

  “I’ll be in my quarters. Send someone with refreshments, if you wouldn’t mind. And please tell your engineers I’m most eager to get underway.”

  Before Usora could reply, Esplin had already stood and was walking through the hatchway. His quarters, a few steps down the short hall, were the captains. She had given them up after their first meeting on the far side of the Barrier. While he worked on both the Forsetti and Oshakati, before they had gained entry to Solvonus, her ship served as his home berth. A good captain knew when to acquiesce. She had moved into her first mate’s cabin, and down the chain of command the shuffling had gone.

  Ten hours after Mr. Esplin had arrived on board, the chief engineer, a brute of a woman named Utoro, promised the commander they had finally tracked down the issue. Usora wasn’t so sure and wouldn’t believe it until her ship started being reliable again. She sent someone to Mr. Esplin’s cabin to let him know they were ready to go.

  Again.

  She settled in to her chair, hoping this time they did indeed have the issue settled. She really didn’t want to get on the Traveler’s bad side.

  A moment later, the hatch at the rear of the bridge hissed open, a breeze accompanying it, as the pressure between compartments equalized.

  “All set, Usora?”

  “We better be, Mr. Esplin. Or heads will roll this time.”

  The commander glanced over her shoulder when there was no reply. In the open hatch, Esplin stood with one hand in his pocket, the other raised to his mouth, eating a piece of fruit as he looked around the bridge.

  The two stared at each other as she caught his eye. Callon held her gaze for a long moment, slowing eating away.

  Why didn’t the infernal man blink?

  It drove the commander crazy. It was something she had noticed within the first few weeks of working with the man. He did blink, of course, but rarely. When he did, it always seemed to Usora like he had reminded himself to do so. He would blink a few times like a normal person, but as soon as a new distraction came up, the blinking would stop.

  “I’m confident my crew has it, Mr. Esplin.” Usora said, forcing herself to sound more confident than she felt. Her crew needed to know she supported them, especially in front of this man.

  He shrugged, finishing his snack, throwing the core in a receptacle built into the bulkhead beside where he stood, before making his way languidly to his station.

  “Good to go, Iressa?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said from the helm. The pilot didn’t bother looking to her commander for permission. The commander had made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that when the Traveler spoke, he was in charge.

  “I’m initiating my sequence. Be ready to Travel on my orders.” Esplin said, sitting at his station and punching in commands to his terminal. “Still the same coordinates, Usora?”

  “Yes. We should still be able to make the rendezvous with the Oshakati on the far side of the Orbital Cluster, if the time required to Travel that you provided us is accurate.”

  “It is,” he said. “Iressa, in three, two, one.”

  Usora failed to notice any changes, but had Traveled before and knew that was normal. The myriad of sensors, coded to ignore the loss of information when they entered Non-Space, sat quietly, waiting to resume their programmed jobs. Thankfully, the Forsetti was cooperating and hadn’t set off a hundred alarms announcing another malfunction. She spared a glance at Mr. Esplin’s station and he rewarded her with a rare, small nod, before continuing to monitor his own readouts.

  Thank the dead gods.

  Usora took a moment, allowing relief to flood through her body, releasing the building tension. She keyed the ship wide mic on her console and addressed the crew.

  “Forsetti. Thanks to Engineering, and all their hard work, we’re back underway. Mr. Esplin has us Traveling and we will soon arrive at our destination. The Oshakati had to take the hard way and are currently being pursued. I want the ship ready for whatever action we’ll need to take.”

  The commander didn’t understand the power being used, but she understood the military advantage it could give them and how it would let them achieve their objective. That power is why she let Mr. Esplin act like he was in control of the ship. She had gone as far as instructing her crew to follow his orders as if they were her own. Not that Mr. Esplin actually took control of the ship, he still deferred to her for most decisions, but with Traveling, he was the clear authority. She knew better than to get in his way.

  Thanks to the infuriating man, the Forsetti was now making up for the lost time caused by their engine malfunctions, and they would bypass the Orbital Cluster completely. Within the hour, they would arrive at their target destination, which was out past the asteroid belt that marked the inward boundary of the Cluster.

  Fifty-nine minutes later, they were station-keeping in the shadow of a rogue asteroid. When Mr. Esplin had called up their charts and shown her his chosen destination, she seriously doubted the man’s ability. She knew so little of his power and had questions as to its accuracy. They had Traveled through Non-Space for the precise time Mr. Esplin had detailed to her. The Forsetti then appeared exactly where he said they would; Uncomfortably close to the massive asteroid, on the side opposite the asteroid belt.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Mr. Esplin had thought of every contingency and the asteroid, composed of an iron core, helped mask their signature from any sensors. The asteroid floated in the emptiness of space six hundred thousand kilometers from the asteroid field. Without the cover, the Rishi would have immediately detected them at this range.

  Usora had ordered the launch of a small drone as soon as they returned to normal space to act as their eyes. On the feed, a shuttle from the Rishi was currently laying mines around the exit. Earlier, they witnessed a handful of drones fly into position around the exit of the cluster. There had been a moment of confusion when the drone dropped from the transmission. After some back and forth, her bridge crew determined the composition of the asteroid belt must have masked their signatures, much like their own asteroid did for the Forsetti.

  Time seemed to stand still, and Usora waited, watching the Rishi, their preparations complete. Currently, the enemy vessel was at station keeping in the middle of the space lane exiting the asteroid field.

  With Aki’s announcement that she had contacted the Oshakati, Usora could feel the bridge crew’s energy building matching her own.

  “It’s about time they got back to us,” Mr. Esplin said, leaving his station and sauntering over to stand beside Usora.

  “Quiet,” the commander said, wincing as soon as she did. The waiting had been fraying her nerves. After a moment she added, “please.”

  Once they had arrived on station and seen the Rishi somehow already out of the Cluster and laying their trap, Usora had her senior staff, and Mr. Esplin, meet with her to plan their next steps. Before they could even begin planning how to best help their sister ship, Mr. Esplin had laid out a plan, relying exclusively on his Power.

  The senior staff had returned to their stations and Aki had broadcast a repeating encrypted message on the low band frequency they had designated for exactly this sort of situation. It should go unnoticed, camouflaged by the system’s own background radiation.

  Usora agreed with Mr. Esplin’s assessment. They had been cutting it close. To make their evacuation plan work, the Oshakati had to know their part before they left the asteroid belt. They had responded with only a few moments to spare. Usora had been about to implement their secondary plan and was glad she didn’t have to; she had little hope in the probabilities of it working. Corsair ships, while armed significantly, played a cloak and dagger game, and their strength came with subterfuge; Not with direct engagement. She didn’t think they could go head-to-head with a Delta Class cruiser in an extended engagement, especially with the damage they had sustained in the Navorian Belt.

  “I’d guess that something disabled their main communications array,” Aki said. “We’re communicating over the encrypted channel, but on the short range ship to ship array. They’d normally have to be within a million kilometers or so, but the clusters electromagnetic field is cutting down that range. It’s getting clearer as they exit, but there’s still a lot of interference to cut through.”

  Mr. Esplin didn’t even look as if he had heard the woman, but the crew was used to his apparent disdain. If he spoke, it was to the captain, unless giving orders to the crew. However, the commander put up with it and her crew followed her lead, keeping the grumbling to a minimum. If the commander could do it, so could they.

  Usora nodded her thanks to Aki. She appreciated knowing their sister ship’s limited capabilities, giving her a better understanding of how they’d be able to respond when their plan started. Which, it seemed, would be any moment now.

  “Time to get ready, Mr. Esplin. I fear we won’t have much margin for error with this plan of yours.”

  Mr. Esplin glanced at the commander, looking like he had something to say, probably about not taking orders. Usora braced for an eerily quiet rebuke from the man, but he simply nodded. Turning, Callon Esplin made his way off the bridge, heading to the hangar deck.

  As the insufferable Power left the deck, Usora could feel the tension leave her crew. Not that he was overly demanding, but he had an air of superiority about him that put her crew on edge.

  “Aki, any other communication from the Oshakati?”

  “Just confirmation that their crew is waiting for Mr. Esplin on their hangar deck, as planned.”

  Usora knew the Oshakati’s captain, Zirenna, would stay on the bridge until the very last minute. She was a commendable officer, and her dedication matched Usora’s own. They had both risen in the ranks together, gaining the command of a corsair with a few years of each other. Zirenna was technically her senior by a few months at best. That may pose a problem if they pulled this plan off. There were supposed to be two Corsairs for the next step. Contingencies existed for only one to succeed; but not for one ship and two crews. They had finite resources, after all, but that was a bridge to cross once they got out of this mess.

  “I want updates, starting with sensors.” Usora said, knowing her crew would be ready.

  “The Rishi is in the center of their trap, presumably waiting to spring it. Their mines are actively pinging. The drones are still hiding in the asteroid belt. We’re assuming they’re still where they were last seen.”

  “Helm is showing all green. Our drive controls are ready to be slaved to Mr. Esplin’s controls as soon as he returns to the bridge. We’re free to maneuver as needed in the meantime.”

  “Weapons primed and ready, Usora. Shields are at one hundred percent.”

  “Communications is firming up a direct link with the Oshakati. We can see their status boards now, commander. They aren’t good, but she’ll hold together for a while yet.”

  “Engineering shows green across the board.”

  “Usora, the crew is strapped in and ready for battle maneuvers,” her first mate said, completing the string of updates Usora needed to begin the next phase of the plan.

  The commander keyed on her mic, addressing the entire ship.

  “Forsetti, our sister ship is in a bad way. We have tenuous communications with them. It looks like the Cluster beat them up pretty badly. As you know, Mr. Esplin is going to evacuate the crew. If successful, it’s going to mean tight confines for a long time. But we’re the Forsetti. We’re Corsair. We are Da’a’shori. We will prevail. You all know your roles. Let’s go save our sisters and brothers.”

  Usora keyed off her mic and turned to her first mate, Presha.

  “Did you finish the inventory? How will we be on rations? Space?”

  Presha, an unassuming woman, who Usora had known her entire life, being cousins on her mother’s side, looked at her data-pad before replying. Usora knew she had the information memorized. She had an eidetic memory which never failed her. However, Presha had learned to use her data-pad as camouflage to prevent people from being unnerved by her ability to pull up any information at a moment’s notice. She had been doing it for so long that it was second nature now, even when she was alone with Usora.

  “Space wise we’re fine. The Forsetti, being a fourth generation Corsair, is bigger than the Oshakati by an extra eighteen percent. We’re also more automated. We have plenty of extra room, and engineering has converted the space required to make more berths.”

  Presha paused, appearing to double check her figures.

  “Ration wise, we’ll be fine for a while. I’ve spoken with Mr. Esplin. We were due for a supply drop once we arrived at Nthandi, and he’s sent a message to increase the supplies being provided. He also said they may have a ship available for us. Outfitted, to ensure the completion of our mission.”

  I can always count on Presha.

  “Good,” the commander said. “Thank you for taking that initiative.”

  Presha nodded and looked down at her pad again.

  “It’s time.”

  Commander Usora looked at her own screens and realized her first mate was correct. She nodded to her friend, thanking her, then keyed her mic to call Mr. Esplin.

  “Mr. Esplin, it’s time. The Oshakati is station keeping just outside the exit to the asteroid field. Her captain should be communicating with the Rishi, stalling for time. I suggest you begin the evacuation now.”

  It took a moment before Mr. Esplin acknowledged her “suggestion”. Another moment went by, and then Lahiri, the hangar deck boss, called out that Mr. Esplin and his shuttle craft had Traveled.

  This next phase would be all up to Mr. Esplin’s ability to Travel and Zirenna’s capability to stall the Rishi’s captain. She had to keep him oblivious to their escape from his carefully laid trap.

  “Aki, let the Oshakati know that Mr. Esplin should arrive on their deck within a few moments. Remind the captain that time is of the essence if we’re going to pull this off.”

  Aki acknowledged her commander, sending the encrypted communication to the Forsetti’s sister ship.

  Usora knew they didn’t have a moment to spare; the longer they took evacuating the Oshakati’s crew, the more likely the Rishi would figure out something was going on. They figured they had seven minutes per trip at the most. It would take three minutes for Mr. Esplin to Travel and arrive on the other ship’s deck. The Oshakati had to be organized, and Usora was sure that Zirenna’s crew was up to the task. They’d have a minute, at best, to load four crew members, and their meager supplies, onto the small shuttle; that was based on the time Mr. Esplin needed to reset his circuits and re-initiate Traveling.

  The Oshakati had a crew complement of nineteen, so they needed to complete five trips. The last trip would include the computer cores, which the crew should be stripping from their mainframes even now, along with any other sensitive equipment the Forsetti could use as backups. Zirenna would try to stall until the last moment and then race to the hangar and get the last shuttle out before scuttling the ship.

  Hopefully, it’ll work out just like we planned.

  Usora sat, watching her screens, knowing there wasn’t anything left to do. If this worked, they should be able to escape, the Rishi never realizing they were here at all.

  This had better work.

  They were on a deadline, and they were already falling behind. They had an empress to assassinate and a civil war to start, after all.