“Captain on the bridge!” called the chief of the watch as Getz climbed through the access hatch.

“What do we have, Lieutenant?”

Thomas stepped away from the tactical display. “A distress call from the freighter Tamara, sir. Civilian merchant registered out of New Chicago.”

“That is in the Ursa Cluster.” Getz frowned. “What is she doing this far out on the Fringe?”

“Unknown. She’s reporting an attack by unidentified vessels. The transmission is degraded, but the signal originated inside this sector.”

“Any other contacts?”

“Nothing on passive sensors.”

“Tell me when we have a fix on the freighter. Sound general quarters.”

“Aye, sir.” Thomas relayed the order. A moment later, claxons sounded throughout Artemis, followed by Arte’s calm voice directing the crew to action stations.

The bridge came alive around Getz.

Though one of the smaller vessels in Concordat service, Artemis was fast, maneuverable, and heavily armed for her size. She had been designed to patrol distant shipping lanes, pursue raiders, and bring pirate vessels to heel before they could disappear into the Fringe. It was work Getz understood, work he enjoyed.

“Captain, we have a fix on the freighter,” the sensor officer reported. “Coordinates are being relayed to Helm.”

“Best speed to intercept. Maintain a full sweep for additional contacts.”

“Aye, sir.”

The deck pressed upward and forward beneath them as the helmsman changed course. The adaptive restraints in the command chairs tightened automatically, compensating for the maneuver before the inertial systems fully caught up.

Thomas moved to the weapons station. Status indicators flowed across the surface as Artemis’s primary and secondary batteries reported ready. " All weapons crews standing by.”

“Very well, Lieutenant. Teeth out.”

Thomas passed the order, and a low vibration moved through the hull as armored panels opened along the ship’s hull. The paired Gauss turrets elevated into firing position, followed by the smaller defensive beam arrays distributed across the hull.

“Primary batteries deployed,” Thomas confirmed. “Defensive grid active.”

It took several minutes to close the distance, then the Tamara emerged from the darkness as a battered silhouette. Her engines were cold. Sections of her outer hull had been peeled back or punctured, and thin plumes of atmosphere streamed from several breaches before freezing into clouds of glittering vapor.

“Any response to our hails?” Getz asked.

“No, sir,” said the communications officer. “The distress message is still repeating, but there is no direct reply.”

“Arte’, analyze the transmission.”

“The signal contains authentic vessel-identification markers,” the ship’s intelligence answered. “Transmission degradation is consistent with damage to the freighter’s communications array. Some data fields cannot be verified.”

“Some?”

“The temporal signature of the transmission contains irregularities.”

Getz looked toward Thomas. “Recorded?”

“Possibly,” Thomas said. “Or repeatedly routed through damaged equipment.”

“Any reason we can’t dock?”

The sensor officer reviewed the data again. "No catastrophic structural failure near the emergency ring. No significant radiation hazard. The rear docking compartment remains pressurized.”

“Launch the fighters. I want a close external sweep before we commit.”

Commander Yang, the executive officer, relayed the order to the flight bay. Moments later, the ship shuddered as the launch cradles fired. Two Concordat starfighters streaked away from Artemis, engines flaring blue-white against the dark.

Their sensor feeds appeared across the bridge displays.

Getz watched the imagery as the fighters passed over the freighter. Hull breaches. Dead maneuvering thrusters. Scorched armor. No visible attacking vessel.

“No drive wake,” one of the pilots reported. “No debris consistent with an enemy ship either.”

“Continue the sweep,” Getz ordered. “Do not approach the docking axis.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The sensor officer leaned closer to his display. “I have life signs. Seven—possibly eight—clustered around the rear airlock.”

“Condition?”

“Alive. Elevated respiration and heart rates. The area is pressurized and thermally stable.”

“Can they control the ship from there?”

“Doubtful, sir. The airlock is isolated from the primary systems.”

Getz studied the image. Survivors trapped at an emergency exit were exactly what a rescue crew would expect to find. “Prepare a boarding party and medical support at the emergency dock,” he ordered. “Security enters first. The medics remain aboard Artemis until the compartment is secure.”

Lieutenant Entebbe, head of shipboard security, relayed the order. “Commander Polson reports the boarding team suited and ready. Medical detail standing by.”

“Helm, bring us alongside. Keep the fighters outside our defensive perimeter.”

“Aye, sir.”

Artemis rolled to match the freighter’s orientation. The smaller vessel grew across the forward display as the two ships aligned.

Getz watched the closing distance. “Arte’, restrict the docking connection to local mechanical control,” he said. “No network handshake with the freighter.”

“Confirmed. Data exchange disabled.”

The final approach seemed to take longer than it should have, then the docking clamps engaged with a heavy metallic impact. The ship vibrated as seals expanded around the emergency ring.

“Hard dock confirmed,” Helm reported.

“Pressure test underway,” Entebbe said as a schematic of the docking connection appeared on the tactical display.

“Seal is stable,” Arte’ reported. “No atmospheric leakage into Artemis.”

“Boarding team is cycling through,” Entebbe said.

Getz switched one of the bridge displays to Polson’s helmet feed. The boarding party entered the connecting passage in two files. Their armor was sealed, weapons raised, each marine’s position and vital signs displayed along the edge of the feed. Polson moved near the center, directing the formation while two security specialists advanced to the freighter’s inner hatch.

“Local systems are unresponsive,” Polson reported. “Beginning manual entry.”

The hatch opened, revealing a compartment filled with bodies. Men and women in civilian clothing lay against the walls and across the deck, some piled near the sealed inner door. Emergency lighting strobed weakly above them. The marines entered cautiously.

“No movement,” Polson reported.

Getz looked to his sensor officer, trying to reconcile the readings from the report.

One of the marines swept the far corners while another checked the freighter’s inner hatch. Polson crouched beside the nearest body and extended a medical scanner from his gauntlet.

“Boarding team reports the compartment secure,” Entebbe said. “Multiple casualties. No resistance. Requesting medical support.”

“Medical team is cleared to enter,” Getz said. He looked toward the weapons station and motioned to Thomas. “Lieutenant Thomas, assemble a prize crew. If the freighter can be stabilized and flown out of here, I want her recovered.”

“Aye, sir.” Thomas transferred weapons control to the secondary officer and climbed down through the bridge hatch. Three crew members assigned to the prize detail broke from their action stations to join him.

On the tactical display, the medical team entered the docking passage behind Polson’s marines.

Polson passed the scanner over the body again, and his expression sank. “Negative,” he said. “This one has been dead for hours.”

The sensor officer looked sharply at his display. “Captain, I still have a strong pulse from that location.”

Polson reached beneath the body’s coat and pulled out a flat device no larger than his palm. A green indicator pulsed across its surface. “Biometric repeater,” he said.

Several bridge displays flickered as Arte’s voice cut across the communications channel. “Warning. Conflicting personnel telemetry detected. Multiple boarding-team identifiers have been duplicated.”

“Break the dock,” Getz ordered immediately. “Polson, withdraw now.”

“Boarding team, fall back!” The marines reversed formation but stopped at the sound of tapping against the freighter’s inner hatch.

Polson looked back. A figure in a sealed pressure suit stood on the other side.

“Contact!” Polson cried, raising his weapon.

The figure waved in an almost friendly manner, then lifted one arm and pointed past the boarding team, toward Artemis.

Polson turned. A device had been fixed beneath the lip of the docking collar, concealed behind one of the dead civilians. Its indicator changed from amber to white.

“Bomb!” Polson shouted. “Seal the—”

The charge detonated and light consumed the compartment.

The device was not intended to rupture either ship. It drove fire and pressure through the enclosed docking passage, using an oxygen-rich mixture already vented into the freighter’s airlock.

The bodies became shrapnel. The boarding team and medical detail disappeared inside a storm of flame, fragments, and expanding gas.

On the bridge, Polson’s feed dissolved into static.

The blast struck Artemis a heartbeat later, rushing through her corridors before local countermeasures could fully engage.

Thomas and the prize crew were moving through the forward passage toward the docking section when the pressure wave reached them. A bulkhead slammed shut between compartments, but not before the blast threw all four from their feet. Thomas struck the wall shoulder-first and fell beneath a shower of fractured paneling.

Throughout the forward section, crew members were knocked down as emergency doors sealed and fire-suppression systems activated. Suppressant foam flooded the damaged passageways. Ventilation reversed. Compartments isolated themselves from one another.

On the bridge, warning symbols multiplied faster than the crew could acknowledge them.

“Docking compartment breached!”

“Fire in Forward Two and Three!”

“Boarding-team telemetry lost!”

“Arte’, release the clamps!” Getz ordered.

“Unable to comply. Local docking controls are no longer responding.”

“Explosive separation.”

“Command rejected. Docking collar reports friendly personnel within the separation zone.”

“They are spoofing the safeties,” the replacement weapons officer said.

“Override them!” Getz ordered.

Before the officer could respond, several crew-location indicators shifted across the tactical display. Dead marines appeared to move deeper into Artemis. Other crew members vanished from the network entirely.

“Captain,” the sensor officer said, “I can’t distinguish our people from theirs.”

“Stop trusting the tags. Seal the forward pressure doors manually. Security teams hold the first command junction.”

“Aye, sir.”

Inside the scorched docking compartment, movement returned.

Polson lay against the wall, one side of his armor blackened. His visor was cracked, and warning lights pulsed inside the helmet. A marine beside him pushed herself upright and fired toward the now-open freighter hatch.

Needles hissed through the smoke.

The first suited attacker stepped into the compartment behind a shimmering magnetic distortion. The marine’s burst bent away from him, scattering into the walls.

A second marine joined her. “Concentrate fire!” she ordered.

Both weapons fired together, lighting the field around the attacker. It flashed once, then again. Its distortion collapsed beneath the sustained barrage, and the next cluster of needles struck his chest and throat.

He fell backward into the freighter.

A second attacker fired through the doorway, and one of the marines spun to the deck. Polson dragged himself toward the emergency bulkhead.

“Entebbe,” he rasped into his comm, “they have field generators. Concentrated fire can break them. Repeat—concentrated—”

Static swallowed the rest.

More attackers entered. One knelt beside the emergency control panel and fixed a compact device to its melted surface. The unit extruded thin leads into the exposed circuitry, and the bulkhead’s status changed from red to green. The door began to open.

Two surviving marines took positions behind the inner frame and fired the moment the gap appeared. Their combined burst drove the first invader back and forced the others into cover.

One of the attackers threw a small disc through the opening. It struck the deck and emitted a violent pulse.

The marines’ weapon displays went dark. Their helmet feeds vanished from the bridge network. The lights in the compartment failed a second later.

The invaders surged forward in darkness, guided by their own sealed systems, needle fire flashing blue through the smoke.

One marine fell. The other retreated deeper into Artemis, firing short bursts as she moved and calling warnings over a comm channel that had become little more than static.

Behind her, the attackers stepped over their own dead and continued into the ship.

Next Chapter: V