“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.

II Captain Getz had no interest in becoming an admiral. He loved life aboard ship—the rhythm of command, the simplicity of duty. Politics, however, were anathema to him. The endless jockeying of ambitious officers grated on him, especially those who rose by exploiting others. Commander David Kales was exactly that type—eager to rise above his station, short on talent, long on opportunism. He was smart, intelligent enough to be able to bet on the failings of others. Not so smart that he failed to recognize that it did not make him better. That made him dangerous—not just to his peers, but to Getz himself. Still, there was little to be done about Kales until Artemis’s current tour was over.Lieutenant Michael Thomas was also ambitious, but his confidence stemmed from his capabilities. A legacy officer from a family with deep naval roots, he had the unfortunate combination of a famous last name and actual talent. Merit was often overlooked in the privileged, but Thomas left little doubt that he earned his position. His one flaw was arrogance. He had strong opinions and wasn’t inclined to easily subordinate them. Naturally, this put him in conflict with Kales at every opportunity. This time, the issue at hand was their mystery guest in DECON-5.“Lieutenant,” Getz said, voice low and cold, “you were aware I did not authorize the subject to be briefed on his condition.”“Yes, sir, but—” Thomas began.“Why then,” Getz cut into Thomas‘ response, “did Commander Kales inform me that you instructed him to tell the subject about our findings?”“Unresolved childhood trauma?” Thomas snorted. Kale, standing quietly in the corner, didn’t react, but Getz slammed the data-pad down on his desk, cutting Thomas off.“Damn it, Lieutenant, I want a straight answer,” he barked—a rare crack in his usually controlled demeanor. As if in response to the Captain’s ire, the lights in the cabin flickered, causing everyone to glance up at them in a mix of concern and annoyance.“Sir,” Thomas said, his voice dipping toward apology, “I believed Mr. Phillips deserved to know what we could tell him about his condition—”“Believed?” Getz snapped. His tone dropped again, gravelly thick. “Your beliefs, like your faith, are personal matters. My orders are not. We don’t know what we’re dealing with, and until we do, we’re not sharing information.”“Sir, permission to speak freely?” Thomas asked, irritation creeping back in.“Permission denied,” Getz replied flatly. “You’re on report for insubordination. Any further contact with the subject and you’ll be polishing the hull by hand. Understood?”“Captain—”“Do you understand, Thomas? Or are we skipping straight to stage two?”“…Yes, sir,” Thomas said tightly. “I understand. Who’s taking over my duties with the subject?”“Not your concern, Lieutenant. Dismissed.” The lights flickered again as if to dramatize Getz’s point. “In fact, you’re on lightbulb duty now. Figure out why Arte’ keeps mood lighting me.”Thomas saluted stiffly and exited without another word. Kales stepped forward as the door slid shut.“I suppose he’ll be on the comm to his father the first chance he gets,” Kales said coolly.“You’re not off the hook for this, Commander,” Getz growled.“Excuse me, sir?” Kales asked, feigning surprise.“You outrank Thomas—or did you forget that?”“As the ship’s doctor, I rarely consider rank when dealing with command staff,” Kales said smoothly. “Also, I wished to respect your appointment of Lieutenant Thomas over the subject’s security.”“But you were aware of my orders?”“Yes, sir. Which is why I came to report the incident to you immediately.”“Consider yourself on report as well,” Getz said. “I don’t have time for this kind of crap from my officers. Am I clear?”“Crystal, sir,” Kales replied in his usual monotone.“I want the full medical report on the subject, to me, and no one else. That includes MEDNET. This information is classified until I say otherwise.” “It’s standard procedure to file medical with MEDNET, Captain. Omitting it would be a serious breach of protocol.” “Captain’s discretion outweighs MEDNET protocol, and you know it. Don’t play dumb, Kales. Dismissed.” Kales saluted with thinly veiled disdain and left. Getz dropped into his chair and sat for a long moment, letting the silence soak in. At their next port, he’d request a new doctor and see Kales assigned somewhere deep in the Core—some soulless research station with too many sensors and not enough people. The irony, of course, was that Kales would see it as a reward. Still, Getz wouldn’t wish Kales on another command. Once the irritation over Kales had faded, Getz turned to the side drawer of his desk and slid it open. Inside was the bag containing what they found with their guest. The DECON crews had already swept it—no biological, chemical, or radiological hazards.He pulled out the wallet Thomas had already examined and opened it. The ID inside looked fresh—too fresh for something printed five centuries ago. Plastic cards followed, marked with long alphanumeric strings. Credit chips? Data storage? Hard to say. A wad of paper currency, crisp and colorful, sat in the larger pocket. If authentic, each piece would be worth more than its face value—valuable artifacts from a long-dead era.Getz set the wallet aside and turned back to the bag.The clothing came out next: a set of pants, underwear, a buttoned shirt, and a long coat. Nothing especially remarkable—nothing he hadn’t seen in civilian wear even today. Practical. Durable. A bit dated. Then came a multicolored sash, tapered and ornate. Strange fashion choice. He couldn’t place it—cultural? Ceremonial? He wasn’t an anthropologist and had no intention of pretending to be.There was also a thick leather belt, solid and well-made. Manufacturer tags dotted the inside of the garments, but none offered any clue to the man’s identity. Nothing monogrammed. No personal stitching. No military designations.He pulled the shoes out next—low-cut leather with scuffed rubber soles. Worn, but not neglected. The laces were still looped, tied with care. Getz ran a thumb along the sole, noting the darkened edge—treated, probably polished regularly. He was reminded of his own cadet years, countless hours spent with brushes and spit, preparing for inspections. Ritual polishing—it was never just about shine. It was about discipline.Whoever this man had been, he’d learned that lesson too.Then came the last item, a worn leather holster with an archaic weapon still distinct for what it was. Getz laid it on the desk. His fingers curled intuitively around the pistol’s grip. Centuries of innovation in weapons design, and the fundamentals hadn’t changed.He unfastened the retention strap and slid the weapon free, turning it over in his hands. It was heavy. Mechanical. Familiar. The finish was clean, the polymer grip was textured to counter the material’s smoothness, and the ceramic and metal components of the upper section cold. No digital parts. No biometric lock. Just simple, mechanical killing potential.Unusual for someone to be put into stasis armed, almost unheard of."Well, Mr. Phillips,” he muttered, setting the weapon down. “I think you’re going to have one hell of a story to learn." The door to the captain’s quarters hissed shut behind Commander Kale, who paused just long enough to compose his expression. Cool. Neutral. Unbothered. He turned and headed down the corridor back to his domain in the Medical Bay. He would keep his own log, separate from the official reports for the Captain, and use it to complete the MEDNET Journal entry after the cruise. Castaway stories were not uncommon, but the nature and possible reasons for the surgeries on Phillips made his records and study a curiosity that Kales could see himself leveraging for more prominence. As he reached the bulwark separating the command and habitat sections, he spotted Lieutenant Commander Polson approaching from the end of the corridor. Polson was ever the poster boy for the Confederation Navy, more so than Thomas even. Tall, athletic, and professional, with a data-pad under one arm, his stride crisp and steady as always.“Lieutenant Commander,” Kales said smoothly, falling into step beside him. “Heading in to see the Captain?”“Briefing handoff,” Polson replied, offering a polite but impersonal nod. “Standard status update.”“Of course.” Kales gave a thin smile. “I just came from there myself. Productive conversation.”“Good,” Polson said flatly. He didn’t slow his pace.“I imagine you’ve read the updates on our guest.” Kales prompted.“I’ve reviewed the logs.”“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Kales said. “A man out of time. No record of stasis initiation, no data trail, and yet here he is. Perfectly calm. Perfectly… composed. It raises questions.”“And the Captain’s addressed them,” Polson replied, “Containment until we reach Curaçao.”“Yes, yes. The cautious route.” Kales’ tone stayed pleasant. “Still, it strikes me that there’s an opportunity here. A unique subject like this—psychological, historical, possibly even technological significance.”Polson stopped walking. Turned slightly. “You’re suggesting we escalate evaluation beyond what the Captain ordered?”“I’m suggesting,” Kales said carefully, “that we might be wasting time by keeping him in a box.”“Or preventing problems before they start.” Polson’s voice held no challenge, just fact. “Protocol exists for a reason.”“Of course it does,” Kales replied, smile still in place. “But protocol is often interpreted differently by different commanders.”“Not this one,” Polson said. “If you’re hoping I’ll advocate for your recommendations, you’re misreading the situation.”“Merely exploring perspectives, Commander,” Kales said mildly. “It never hurts to have more than one voice in the room.” “Sometimes it does,” Polson said, and resumed walking. “Excuse me. The captain is expecting this report.” Kales didn’t follow, watching Polson disappear around the bend. He stood for a moment, alone in the corridor, his smile slowly fading.