Author's note:

Posting this message twice because it's important.

I have decided to give a name to the planet that the Hammond spectre factory is built upon. As it was a referenced location in the game – there's an actual map there – but the name of the planet isn't mentioned, I wasn't going to name it. But calling it "the planet" is boring. So, from now on, the planet shall be called "Hephaestus".

Similarly, the sun that Hephaestus orbits is now named Solhephaestus, following my conventions with naming planets and stars.

Ashley Stone switched to team D's private channel.

"Team D. Time to face the music."

Her fingers flew across the keyboard in front of her.

"You've got to find a shuttle. I'm searching the planetary infonet now... 92 hits. Jaggerjack, you there?"

"Hearing you loud and clear."

"Good. I've spotted a place on the other side of Alpha – nice and far away from the spaceport so you guys can cover your tracks. You're off to Samel's Shuttle Emporium. 'Reliable shuttles, low prices, no questions asked'. Get your team over there by 1300 hours tomorrow, it's getting late today. Keep in mind that the days are shorter here."

The enormous orange sun hovering in the thin sky served to remind the team that this was another planet.

"Copy that, Stone. Can you give me more precise coordinates?"

"Translating the address into coordinates – 31 degrees, 30 minutes, 53.1072 seconds north, 6 degrees, 25 minutes, 56.9820 seconds west. I'm adding a waypoint in your locator now."

"Waypoint received. Oh, wow. That's a couple of hours' walk."

"And I'm afraid you're going to have to walk it. We can't afford to hire or buy a transport."

"It'll be fine, I'm sure we'll manage. We'll find a merchant's inn for tonight and head off to Sorian by tomorrow."

"Gotcha. Good luck, Team D."

Stone moved to the other teams.

"Misha, are you guys good?"

"We're fine, Mission Specialist."

"Leader of team B, Pilot Bruce. We've located some unmarked probes you could purchase at a market not far from Alpha. Patching you the coordinates now.

"E-team. You've got the shopping list?"

"Copy that, Ms. Stone," replied the Pilot George, leader of team E. "We'll be getting some rest tonight before going out to the markets tomorrow."

"Sounds good. Good luck."

Stone sighed, relieved. All was well on the desert planet below.

"All teams are go, Captain."

Captain Soryuu glanced sideways at her Vice-Captain, John Roberts. He nodded at her, as if to say, it's your ship now. She opened her mouth.

"We wait until morning. Then we begin."

"Commander, we will reach the bearing you specified in five minutes. This is your last chance to cancel or we will jump to Solhephaestus. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Yes, Admiral. Commence the jump to Solhephaestus. Arrive 1.2 billion metres from the surface."

"Commander, that is too close. We'll melt after a few minutes. May I suggest we jump to a point 2 billion metres away?"

"Spyglass."

"Trust is an interesting exercise," the AI mused. "Very well then, Commander. You understand that you will not be paid if you melt? And that Solhephaestus is in the opposite direction from Outpost 207?"

"Admiral. Please."

Spyglass switched his broadcasting mode to the entire fleet. "Attention, all personnel. Ensure your ships are in position behind the IMS Hercules. We will be jumping to Solhephaestus in thirty seconds.

T minus 29. 28. 27. 26. 25."

"All ships are in position!" called the chief of navigation. "They're ready to ride our jump wake!"

"15. 14. 13. 12. 11. T minus 10. Preparing Jump Drive."

"Let's do this, Spyglass," whispered Blisk. "We're going to show this asshole who's boss."

"6. 5. Initiating jump sequence in three, two, one, mark."

Four large flywheels deep within the Hercules had been drawing energy from the Hercules' tritium reactor over the past 10 minutes and had now achieved peak velocity. Each flywheel suddenly stopped, dumping their entire reserves of stored kinetic energy into two particle accelerators. The energy formed two black holes within the bounds of the Hercules' jump drive.

At the same time, the three Hammond MK. 31 large mass drivers that were the Hercules' engines flared brilliant blue, firing propellant behind it to accelerate the ship forward at a rate of 30 metres per second, slamming the entire crew back into their seats and briefly forcing the air out of their lungs.

As the space in front of them began to compress by 5,000 times the light entering the Hercules' side cameras began to speed up, bending like light through water. Solhephaestus – directly in front of the jump drives' area of influence – stayed the same, while the rest of space seemed to converge ahead of them.

"Hang on tight," grunted Blisk to the bridge crew, and then they were gone.

"Captain, we are receiving a hailing signal from Venice 3," called a Communications technician. "Do you want to take it?"

Once again, Soryuu glanced at Roberts.

"Your call, Sir."

"You're Captain now, Ma'am. I would advise you take it, but ultimately the decision is yours."

"Very well. Put them through."

A man appeared on the display screen in front of Soryuu. Heavily tanned, curly black hair, brown eyes, bony cheeks – and luscious silky robes flowing from his shoulders.

"Good afternoon, travellers!" the man grinned. "I am Lucian Jzaque, leading trader of Alpha's markets. To whom do I owe the pleasure?"

"Yuuki 'Nina' Soryuu of the TKY Shikinami. Have you business with us?"

"Perhaps." Lucian's smile never fell from his face. "I noticed your ship jumping in from New Tokyo a few hours ago – I must say, it is enormous! You're not thinking of selling, are you?"

"No thank you, perhaps another time. She has served us well so far and I'd hate to give her away."

"Very well then." He rubbed his hands together. "Well, I was wondering exactly what are you planning on buying or selling? I'd love to be of assistance."

I'm sure you would, thought Soryuu. "Well," she mused, "We've already sent some traders down to the surface -"

"Excellent!" Lucian quickly interrupted. "Send them to me! I will hook them up with whatever they need!"

"Well they'll be looking for various knicks and knacks tomorrow – fuel, of course -"

"I happen to have the largest fuel depot in town!" Lucian added.

"- and shuttles, communication pods, tritium – all sorts of things. For now, they're just looking for accommodation before they go off to the market."

"Well, tell them to come stay with me!" Lucian exclaimed, happily. "I'm used to traders staying at my mansion, we have plenty of beds for guests. I can arrange everything for you. Let me make your visit to Venice 3 as comfortable as possible. What do you say?"

"Can you excuse me for a moment, Mr. Jzaque? I'd like to discuss this with the rest of the bridge."

"Absolutely." He began to finger a ring.

"Communications, mute microphone and disable camera feed," commanded Soryuu.

She turned to Roberts. "Vice-Captain. What do you think?"

"For starters," began Roberts, "It would be unwise to trust everyone on Venice 3. That said..."

"Well?"

"I've heard of people like him before. 'Trader-hoarders', they're called.

What he'll have done is launched a huge amount of communication drones into orbit around Solvenice and told them to alert him if a large ship was approaching Venice 3. The moment he saw us he would have gone straight to the bank, asked for the biggest loan they'd give him and then hired out a large mansion and some fancy clothes to make himself look like a millionaire. By the time we arrived at Venice 3 he'd be desperately broadcasting – just like every other trader-hoarder on Venice 3 – for our attention, hoping that we'd talk to him first. He says he's the leading trader of Alpha's markets – hence the mansion, clothes, and 'the largest fuel depot in town', the last of which is likely complete bull. What he wants now is for us to send our traders to stay at his mansion. We rock up, he acts all friendly, asks what we're selling or buying, and makes sure we don't ever see the markets of Venice 3. He, claiming to be 'the leading trader of Alpha's markets, will then buy whatever we want to buy, add his own price markup, and sell it to us. He'll also buy our goods at less than what they should be and then sell them to the markets at full price. By making sure we never get to see Alpha's markets, he makes sure he makes an enormous profit off us."

"So we shouldn't go with him?"

"Depends on the markup he adds. I reckon we send team E to him and send the other teams for a quick stroll through the market. We compare the prices, and, if he's not screwing us over too badly, we leave team E there, safe within his hired mansion."

"Very well then. Activate microphone and camera feed.

I'm back, Lucian."

He dropped his ring. "Have you made your decision?" He wrung his hands nervously.

"We're going to send our traders over. Can you give us your address?"

"Yes! Uhh..." he fumbled around for a piece of paper. "Ready? 31 degrees, 31 minutes, 56.4 seconds north, 6 degrees, 23 minutes, 16.8 seconds west."

"Cool. Can you be ready for them in an hour?"

"Absolutely!" Lucian almost screamed with excitement. "Come as soon as possible!"

The call ended.

"Overwatch. Focus our long range cameras on his address. I want orbital imagery, I want to know that team E will be safe. Search the infonet too."

Soryuu turned to Roberts, raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what you were talking about, Vice-Captain. That man was obviously a trader of very high stature."

"Disengaging jump drives," Spyglass called. "All ships, confirm jump success."

"IMS Pillar of Winter successfully jumped, Admiral!" broadcast the first cruiser.

"IMS Strongarm successfully jumped, Admiral!"

"This is the Rorschach, reporting in."

"IMS Dreamgate, reporting in."

"Logistics cruiser IMS Queen of hearts, here."

"Logistics cruiser IMS Queen of spaces. We made it."

"Logi cruiser Queen of clubs, jump successful."

"Confirming successful jump drive disengage from the Queen of diamonds."

"All four carriers have jumped successfully. All four logistics cruisers have jumped successfully. Sensor readouts indicate that all destroyers, frigates and corvettes have jumped successfully." Spyglass turned to Blisk. "Commander, we are too close to Solhephaestus. We can't vent our heat fast enough. I hope you have a plan."

"We'll start by angling the Hercules so that our thrusters are pointed directly at Solhephaestus. The thrusters should deflect some of the radiation."

"Commander, I am having difficulty understanding your actions. You ask me to trust you, then you make the fleet dangerously close to Solhephaestus? Please explain yourself."

"Well." Blisk grinned. "Graves has set up camp between Hephaestus and Outpost 207, right?"

"Yes. I was planning on breaching their blockade with a pincer formation."

"Admiral, Graves invented the pincer formation. And he knows you. I'd bet a months' pay he'd preparing to counter a pincer formation. There's no way in hell we'd get past."

"Nor will we survive being this close to Solhephaestus. Status update: Hercules radiators functioning at 74 percent, and rising. We cannot survive more than 10 minutes like this, Commander."

A timer appeared on Blisk's monitor, counting down from 600 seconds.

"Very well. Admiral, shut down all non-essential systems to help out our radiators. Tell the rest of the fleet to do the same."

Blisk began to smirk. "Next, set a course for the large asteroid that's coming our way."

"Commander, do you plan to attempt a gravitational slingshot around the asteroid? To catapult us towards Outpost 207 faster than Graves expects, flying past his blockade and surprising him?"

"It's a pretty good plan, aye."

"I have already calculated the chance of such a plan's success to be 7%, Commander. Our radiators will melt before we can reach the asteroid."

Blisk's smile fell slightly.

"Admiral, are all the ships in the fleet either docked with a larger ship or cruising in our shadow?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Then here's the fun part. Ion shield capacity?"

"Current canister is at 20%, Commander, but we have another 15 cannisters."

"Divert all ions to the rear shields. Tell the shield operator to turn up the ion expenditure to maximum."

As the Hercules and her fleet sailed across the sun towards the asteroid the space by the Hercules' thrusters began to crackle and pop, the ions appearing there soaking up some of the sun's radiation.

"Ion expenditure at maximum, Commander."

"Now what are the radiators at?"

"72 percent, Commander. Cooling. But at this rate of Ion expenditure we will run out of Ions in 40 seconds."

"Turn the shields off, then. I want you to turn them on whenever the radiators hit 95%, and turn them off whenever the radiators are below 95%. Keep them balanced at near-critical."

"Very well, Commander. I trust you."

Radiators vented heat faster the hotter they were, until they hit 100% capacity – at which point, they would not be able to radiate any more heat for fear of melting, increasing the load placed on the other radiators. If the ship got too hot the ship's AI – in this case, Spyglass – would have to turn off different parts of the Hercules to keep it from getting too hot. First to go would be the weaponry system, the last, the AI core.

Life support was considered expendable. It was better for the ship to return home piloted by an AI than for the AI to turn off and then have thecrew get cooked a few minutes afterwards.

"Admiral, how many ions do we have left?"

"14 canisters. We will not survive."

"Continue on our current course."

"Very well, Commander."

"What the hell are they doing?" asked Graves, face contorted in confusion. "Outpost 207 is this way."

"Admiral," said the chief of navigation, "Scans indicate that they are too close to the sun. Keeping in mind that light takes 17 minutes to get here from their current position, they may already be dead."

"Spyglass," Graves murmured, "what are you doing?"

"Commander, we have reached our last canister of ions," informed Spyglass.

"Time till we can slingshot around that Asteroid?"

"In six minutes we will be caught in it's gravitational pull; in eight we will be within it's shadow for a few minutes, in 13 our slingshot will be complete. But our ion reserves will not last any longer than one minute, and we will melt after two. Commander, your plan is not going to work.

"Spyglass. Do you trust me?"

"Not any more."

Blisk frowned.

"Have you ever played Chess, Admiral?"

"Many millions of times, Commander. Please get to your point quickly; we have little time."

"Let me tell you a story, Admiral.

A king engages in battle and is defeated. He flees with his queen and a few knights and pawns. The enemy cuts off his escape. Do you know what the king does?"

"I would have to see the board, Blisk."

"Have I been demoted?"

"Yes. 15 seconds until our ion supplies are depleted."

"Spyglass, don't you think it's time to sacrifice one of our Queens?"

There was a brief pause.

"Blisk, I do not understand the analogy. Players only have one queen while playing chess."

Blisk pushed a button on his console. "Logistics cruiser IMS Queen of hearts, do you copy?"

"Yes, Commander. Captain Edmond Wensley speaking."

"Queen of hearts, can you remotely operate your ship?"

"Yes, but it would be inadvisable for combat."

"Then I want you to eject your entire crew and evacuate to the Hercules, then set your ship to move directly between the Hercules and Solhephaestus."

"Commander, I'm not sure what -"

"Just do it, Captain! We have little time!"

"Very well. Ejecting crew."

The Queen of hearts began to vent escape pods which moved slowly toward the Hercules.

"Blisk. Our hull is getting too hot. We have forty seconds. I will turn off life support and warp out of here in thirty."

"Trust me, Spyglass. Captain Wensley, do you copy?"

"Loud and clear, boarding the Hercules now."

"Where is the Queen of hearts?"

"Directly behind the Hercules' thrusters, Commander."

"Activate your tactical jump drives, Captain. Spyglass, how are we looking for radiators now?"

"You are no longer a member of the bridge, Blisk, and I – oh."

"Admiral?"

"Commander Blisk, your rank has been reinstated. Bookmarking memories for tactical analysis."

Jump drives compress the space in front and behind them, increasing the speed at which objects moved in the direction of the jump drive. If used properly, they could be used to accelerate dangerous objects away from another ship.

Dangerous objects, such as the radiation from Solhephaestus.

"Radiator load decreasing to 97 percent, Commander.

Blisk grinned evilly.

"Graves," he whispered. "I'm going to show you who's better."

"Commander Blisk, incoming transmission from Captain Wensley. Patching him through."

"Commander." Wensley said, a hint of fear in his voice. "There's something you need to know."

Blisk leaned toward his console. "What?"

"I lied. You can't manually operate a logistics cruiser from afar, not when there's so much radiation interfering with the infra-red signal."

"Wait -"

"And you know what they say about captains going down with their ships."

"Wensley -!"

"It's okay, Commander. I guessed what you were going to do. This was my own decision and I accept full responsibility. Updating system shutdown priorities for heat distribution. Setting warp drive to highest priority. Don't worry, Commander. Even after I die, the warp drive should continue to function for a – geez, it's hot in here." He sounded a little more panicky, a little more high pitched.

"Anyway, Commander. I have a favour to ask of you."

"Anything, Captain."

"I object," said Spyglass. "There are limits to what we can do."

"Admiral, please. We will make it happen. Continue, Captain."

"I have... a son. He's fourteen years old, lives in a boarding school back – ugh, I'm sweating. School on New Athens. His mother left me and I had to pay the bills somehow. Commander, I want you – nngghhh – to make sure he's taken care of."

Blisk stared straight at the man on the monitor, a man whose final words were to try secure the safety of his child.

"I promise, by the power of God in heaven above and by the power of men on Earth, that your son will be taken care of. I will ensure it personally and will pay from my own pocket if necessary."

"Thank you, Commander... I can feel the heat, even now."

"Fire detected," the ship's AI said. "Venting Oxygen."

"Nobody would blame you if you ended it now, Captain. Do yourself a mercy if you wish."

"No," Edmond said, and Blisk could see now that the man was caressing an old photograph. Printed on real paper with real ink. "I -" he gasped, "want to," gasp, "see -"

He collapsed to the ground. "one..."

"Commander. Radiators functioning at 87 percent. We will make it to the asteroid."

"Admiral, please add Captain Edmond's son to my notebook and remind me of him when we reach Outpost 207. And add him to our black box's recordings."

"You actually intend to honour your promise?"

"Spyglass." Blisk glared straight at the robot's optical sensor. "Be he a friend or a foe, you always honour a dying man's last wishes."