The silence permeated through Vale Sindrake’s nerves. There was once a time where he reveled in it. Used it to his advantage, controlled it as if it were a weapon the same as his rifle. "Time changes a man," someone once told him. He scoffed at the remark when it was said to him. Now it was all he could think about in the times of quiet anticipation. He stood, motionless, waiting knowing that there was nothing he could do. He just had to wait and ’hope’. Yet another term that he had no interest in nor the consequences that word brings to someone who believes in it, but that’s where Vale found himself. Silently hoping.

Standing on the bridge of the Quetzalcoatl, Vale stared past the black void of space that lay on the other side of the ship’s hull. Sindrake stood the ship’s captain. His more than forty years of age fraught with conflict and strife painted a formidable visage to any who looked at him. His skin was weathered and covered in a coarse beard of black and white hair. Purpose and duty were hardened into Vale’s soul. The mark of a soldier. For the beginning of his life that was exactly what he lived for. The civic call of the Union was ingrained in all who wore the Sindrake family crest. Vale not only answered the call, he reveled in it and he excelled beyond the benchmarks of his ancestors. Perhaps in another life he might have even led the entire military operations of the Union Republic, but that was not this life. Vale Sindrake was an outlaw. Hunted by the very institution he had given his life. "Time changes a man," the phrase repeated in his mind.

Vale turned in attention back to his ship not wanting to have his thoughts wander through memory’s twisting paths. The Quetzalcoatl was in a state of suspension, just like its captain. It held station in the middle of nowhere. Far from any planet, asteroid, or port. It was right where it needed to be. Inside the ship Vale took his gaze away from the front view port and surveyed the deck. The bridge was sparse, streamlined, intended for a light crew compliment and a military style of operation, but most of the crew stations were empty. A helmsman sat at the dual station alone, and another standing off to the Vale’s right. Both men were still, unmoving save for a few keystrokes on the control panels. Weston Hammer let out a shallow breath as he checked the coordinates on the navigational readouts.West, as he was called aboard the ship, was a fine pilot and a good friend. One would have to be to follow an outlaw to steal an experimental military vessel from the UMO before Vale’s defection. West’s younger brother, Wade was standing off Vale’s back right shoulder near an aft instrument panel. He was looking attentively at the readouts, balancing the ship’s reactor fluctuations. Both brothers had the typical features that distinguished them as family, close family. It was during many missions together that Vale learned about the brothers and their kin. One didn’t stray far from his brethren in the Hammer family line. Throughout the generations Hammer siblings often went into similar career paths. While not the stanch hardliners the Sindrake’s were in the UMO, the Hammer’s had a few ancestors that served the Union Republic. It wasn’t until serving under Vale that the brothers found a cause that they believed in. Vale came to trust the Hammers. They were with him when he liberated the Quetzalcoatl from the shipyard. They were with him when he-

“West?” Vale couldn’t stand the waiting any longer. Anything, even a pointless question was better than the silence.

“Sorry, Captain.” He cast a glance back at Vale.

Vale saw the look of what he thought had a sense of pity behind it on West’s face. He instinctively checked Wade’s expression. “Are you two still sure you weren’t born attached at the head?” The brothers turned to each other and smirked before turning back to their work. “Wade, go down and check the fission regulators on the stardrive. Make sure we are ready to get the hell out of here.”

“Aye, Captain.” Wade rolled back his eyes as he trodded off the deck.

Adding when Wade was halfway through the rear doorway, “If Helena gets back and finds out you’ve muddied up her engines, I’m not going to save you again.” Vale had already run through the ship’s diagnostics with the crew half a dozen times over the past two weeks while they sat out here in a state of metaphorical suspended animation, but giving the Hammers a hard time was about all he could do to stay sane. Needing West at the con, Vale had to make do with just one Hammer this time around.

Vale made his way up to West’s station and hovered over his shoulder, reading the displays.

“They will make it back, Captain.” West said when Vale caught himself lingering over the helm. The older Hammer was also the gentler of the two.

“You do realize you are the only two that still call me that, even though I’ve told you all to stop.” Vale had given up the formality of rank when he deserted the Union, and gave a standing order to all that joined him to disregard any former ties to military custom. “What we do after this moment is not for ourselves or for our own gain. We come down this path to save the future of the Republics.” Vale told this to his former subordinates the day he became a fugitive of the Union.

West slipped back in the chair and turned to Sindrake, “Old habits die hard…Captain.”

“Just don’t fall asleep up here staring off at the stars.” Vale drifted over to a neighboring console and flipped the comm panel. A line opened to the medical bay. “Doc, everything ready down there if things get a little interesting?”

A light and pithy voice called back on the intercom. “Don’t worry Vale, I’m sure that pretty little thing you call honey bear will get them back safe and sound. Why don’t you try and get off our asses and suck it up. You don’t hear me bitching about my husband being on your godforsaken errand runs, do you? Simone out.”

“I don’t know about you, Captain, but I think our fair doctor might need some personal rec time when our friends get back.”

“Just another day in the Union Republic, West.” Vale added, “but I would give the Trainors a wide birth if I were you.” Vale did feel fortunate to have Simone and Dominik Trainor aboard the Quetzalcoatl. Both were doctors that were at the height of their field, before throwing that all away on a promise. Vale was the one that introduced them to each another while stationed on a planetary survey mission in the Hearth Vitale Arm while an ensign in the UMO.

“Finally!” West exclaimed as he half jumped out of his chair when a sensor reading came across his screen.

Vale sat down in the adjoining navigation chair. “Is it the shuttle?”

“A signal is coming in on the old UMO relay channel.” West was working now on deciphering the coded transmission. “Come on, come on.” Vale was scanning the sector for other communication traffic and any incoming ships. “There! It’s coming out of the Col system. So far so good…dropping the decryption key into the command sequence.” The seconds droned on while they were glued to the data readouts. “It’s them!” West was reading the message that flashed up on the screen. “Mission failed. UMO ambush. Vale, they have your coordinates. Run. I’m sorry -T” West’s voice trailed off and blood drained from his face as if he was ready to vomit.

Vale stared blankly at the screen as a pit in his stomach began to over take him. “We have to go after them. Bring the stardrive online. Set the course to go through the Capitath system.” Flipping a switch for the ships intercom Vale shouted orders at the remaining crew.

“Captain. Another message coming in. It says, look up…”

“What the-”