Dust Between Stars (Zaran Journals, Book 4)

By Scott Seldon

Independent galactic trader Ven Zaran is wanted for piracy. Trouble is he was no where near the system where the attack occurred, yet the evidence against him implicates him specifically. The authorities seem to be convinced of his guilt and have set one of their best inspectors on the case. Ven chooses to go on the run to find the evidence that will clear his name. He has to use every trick he knows to stay ahead of the inspector. Only adding to his troubles is a ghost from his past who manages to find him faster than the inspector can and knows too much to leave behind. Ven must juggle his new traveling companion and his own investigation while covering his tracks to keep the inspector at bay. Unless he can uncover the real pirate, his career as he knows it is over.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Seldon
• Release date: Nov 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311404633

Scott Seldon

Scott Seldon lives in Colorado with his wife and family in a house brimming with old and new computers. He is a student of technology, history, anthropology, languages, and cosmology. Each separate direction of study has enriched his imagination, but he credits the creative output of George Lucas and Isaac Asimov for the direction it has taken. He turned his creativity to science fiction in his teens and has never looked back.In his writing, Scott strives to create rich worlds and characters. Although his stories take place in the future, he often looks to the past to give his stories a solid background. He’s is more likely to watch Captain Blood than Star Wars to find inspiration on the feel of a story. He reads the latest titles by Jack McDevitt followed by C. L. Moore’s stories of Northwest Smith written decades ago with Les Miserables and the Princess of Mars next on his reading list.

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Dust Between Stars

Zaran Journals Book 4

Scott Seldon

Published by Arrano-Taldea Group

at Smashwords

2013

Discover other titles by Scott Seldon at

sites.google.com/site/scottrseldon

Arrano-Taldea Group is a collective association of independent authors. Each author accepts full responsibility for the content of their own publications. Please contact the author directly to report any problems with this ebook. [e-mail]

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

DUST BETWEEN STARS

Copyright © 2013 by Scott Seldon

Cover Art by: Yotsuya

Visit him at: yotsuya-sama.deviantart.com

All rights reserved.

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ebook Edition

First Edition: November 6, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-3114-0463-3

Revision 0

This is for all the Police Officers out there

who put justice first.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Index

About the Author

Dust Between Stars

4615 GCE*

Prologue

The starry blackness of interstellar space was broken by a ship dropping out of hyperspace in a cloud of gases. It pulled forward into the long arc that would change their course while their hyperspace engine recharged.

Unseen, a second ship dropped out of hyperspace several kilometers to their stern. It surged forward at high speed on course to intercept.

* * *

Captain, the scanners just picked up something.

Can you identify it, Forlantin?

No, sir. But it is approaching fast.

Captain Ularan checked the scanner himself and his face slowly lost all color. How long until we can jump? he demanded of the navigator.

Another ten minutes, Captain. I have the course laid in, we are just waiting for the engine to charge.

They’ll be on us in three. Give me full thrust forward, maximum acceleration.

Yes, Captain, Forlantin said and throttled the ship up to maximum.

Ularan kept his eyes glued to the scanner. At first it looked like they might get away, but their pursuer followed suit and again began gaining on them. The maneuver had only gained them two minutes. Not enough time to escape.

He tried to identify their pursuer, but he was sure that no matter what type of ship, that their goal was to attack and take his cargo. He would do everything in his power to prevent that, but he wasn’t sure that was going to be enough in this case.

As the distance closed, he was finally able to identify the ship. It was a Leywanese light freighter and featured the distinctive hump halfway back giving the cargo bay more space. The rounded curves indicated it was a newer model. They were jamming the comm channels, not surprising considering their intent, which also prevented him from easily detecting their transponder signal.

The minutes stretched by, the tension making them seem much longer. The only question on Ularan’s mind was if they were going to shoot first or hail them on the comm. He got his answer when a narrow beam of concentrated energy shot out and narrowly missed them. He quickly flipped on the intercom and shouted, All hands brace for impact. We are under attack. The echo of his announcement had no sooner died than a second narrow beam of energy shot out and this time impacted the Wisp of Starlight, shaking the ship as it tore through the hull and damaged vital components.

They were helpless as the attacker fired again and again. Ularan could only watch as the power levels decreased. All hope of escape vanished when the hyperspace engine panel lit up in orange.

Captain, the engineer called over the intercom, we’re losing power and the hull is in tatters. We can’t take another hit.

I can’t do anything about it until they contact us.

Another shot from their attacker breeched the pressure hull and the depressurization warning sirens sounded. The internal hatches automatically shut, locking the crew where they were. Ularan tried to pinpoint the breech so he could release patch compound into that compartment, but it appeared to be more than one.

His ship was drifting now and their attacker quickly caught up with them. He used his security cameras to capture everything he could. He would find a way to make them pay for this if it was the last thing he did. He saw some unique markings on the hull and made sure to capture it on the security vid.

He watched helplessly as the ship activated their grapples and locked the two ships together. He was trapped in the cockpit and couldn’t meet the invaders at the airlock where he could have at least tried to stop them. As it was, he was nearly helpless as several suited figures crossed from one ship to the other, each one armed. He watched on the internal scanners as two of them hunted down the air leaks and sealed off the affected section.

Ularan’s heart sank. It was in engineering. That plus the silence on the intercom told him that his two engineers were dead. Both good men.

Their repair efforts gave the attackers time to scan and locate all the remaining crew members. When the depressurization warning was silenced and the internal hatches opened, there were armed, suited figures there to cover everyone.

One of the suited figures approached him. He could tell it was a man, of average height with dark hair, but he did not take off his helmet and spoke through his suit’s speaker. You are the captain, I presume?

Yes.

We are here for your cargo. I think my men can find their own way. You just sit tight here and we will relieve you of the burden of having to deliver it.

You won’t get away with this. Not only is piracy severely punished, but you have killed two of my crew. That will get you put away for life.

If they can catch me, they might stand a chance of doing just that. But I don’t think that will be happening any time soon.

Before he could say anything else, the pirate captain was heading toward the cargo hold. He stood there in the cockpit staring at the two guards while the pirates transferred the cargo to their ship and quickly departed. When the guards were gone, he ordered his men to search the ship. Forlantin confirmed that the engineers were dead. What he wasn’t expecting was the report of a large crate in the hold. He went down there himself to examine it. His blood ran cold when he scanned it. It was packed with enough explosives to vaporize this ship. He quickly ordered his crew to dump it into space, but precious time was lost in two of them suiting up. He deactivated the artificial gravity as the cargo hatch opened and the two men pushed the crate out.

But the ship had no thrust. He sent the two suited men into the ruins of the engine room to try and get something working. It took an agonizing ten minutes before they got the thrusters online. He had Forlantin turn the ship and move away using all the available thrust. He had no idea how much time they had. Slowly the distance increased.

The two men in engineering continued to try and get more power and more systems running, but it was no use. The main engines were too badly damaged and the hyperspace engine was nothing but slag.

When the crate was no longer even visible, they began to relax. It took them by complete surprise when the crate exploded and the shockwave hit the ship and undid much of what the crew had tried to fix.

They all got to work and began to patch the ship as best they could. The first order was to restore pressurization. That made the work in engineering easier. It also gave them access to properly care for the two dead men. They had families who would want the remains returned so they stowed the bodies for the return. But that return did not look hopeful. Without a hyperspace engine, it would take years to get to the nearest planet. His hope was to restore power and communications and get the hypercomm to connect so they could call for help.

At first that task looked impossible, but Rekkov, his first mate, had some past training and refused to give up. After three days of exhaustive effort, he finally got the hypercomm running and it miraculously connected on the first try. Ularan immediately sent a distress call to Customs. They quickly responded that they would send a ship and a repair team. It would cost, but they would be able to get their ship to a proper facility to carry out full repairs.

While he waited, he went over the security vids. He gathered the best and most telling to show the Customs officer. He reviewed the comm logs and finally found readable transponder information. He couldn’t believe it at first so as soon as the hypercomm connected and customs had been contacted, he checked the markings against the galactic database.

"So, it was Nova Trango," he said when the markings led to the same ship, a ship he was passingly familiar with. He brought up the vid with the captain and compared the image to the one on file for Nova Trango’s captain, Vendarka Zaran. From what he could see, it looked like a match. You are going to pay for this, Vendarka Zaran, if it is the last thing I do. Those were good men you killed. He held out hope that Customs would take this information and use it to find and prosecute the attacker.

When the Custom’s ship arrived several hours later, they had a backup hyperspace engine and their engineer helped his men install it. The Customs commander came and took his full report, including the security vid footage, and promised to keep him updated. It was a long flight back to civilization using the underpowered emergency hyperspace engine, but by the time they reached their destination, news of the attack and those responsible for it was already plastered all over the news vids and there was a warrant out for Vendarka Zaran’s arrest and seizure of his ship.

That gave Ularan the heart to get to work. He made arrangements for the bodies of his old engineers and hired replacements and started on the repairs. He was determined to come back for the trial when they found the culprit.

Chapter One

Ven always found carrying passengers a mixed blessing. In this case it was a private group of archeologists hunting for a treasure, at least in their eyes. He had been up front with them about the price and that he charged by the day and that meant this job, which was nearing its third week, was going to be very profitable. On the other hand they had taken over his ship.

While there were only four of them, led by Dr. Ensara Kolan, they had brought quite a bit of equipment along and had insisted on mounting it to several of Nova Trango’s external hard points and they had filled the upper observation bay and spilled over into the cockpit. He was not surprised when the ship’s AI announced that the scanners had picked up a target of the correct size, that he couldn’t squeeze his way into the cockpit to have a look.

Nova, remind me not to carry scientists again, he said to the AI.

I’ll make a note of that, but normally the only way we make this much for our time is with smuggling runs. This at least is legal.

But maddening.

I could feed the scanner data to the comm screen in your quarters.

I know, but it isn’t the same.

While none of the scientists had heard him, his lead pilot, Kasal had. You know, Ven, I think they are breaking several Customs regulations by congregating in the cockpit like that. They should have hired a ship with a full bridge.

I don’t think they were thinking about that when they approached me. Dr. Kolan seemed more interested in the power output and the gravitic thrusters then how the ship was configured.

She isn’t wanting to tow that thing out of here, is she?

No. She couldn’t afford it if she wanted to. No, we are just supposed to find the ship and help them do an EVA to examine it and retrieve some artifacts

I’m glad Nova has been piloting for their search grid. That sort of thing is truly boring.

Kasal, Nova said, just because I am an AI does not mean I don’t get bored. I can, however, multitask. Have you been displeased with the quality of simulations I have run for you?

No. I get your point.

You should know better than to argue with her, Kasal, Ven said.

I know, I just forget she’s an AI sometimes. Anyway, since they don’t have room for anyone but Ladna up there, I’ll just go back to my simulations. Let me know if something interesting happens, will you, Nova?

Of course.

Kasal headed back to the crew cabin and Ven was about to return to his cabin when Nova said, This is getting interesting. Early readings on the age of that ship are in the neighborhood of six to ten thousand years old.

An Algonan Empire era ship? That is unusual.

I’ve been monitoring our passengers and they most certainly didn’t have any idea how old this ship might be until a few moments ago when they got their first reading.

How long until we pull alongside?

They have requested I move in to half a kilometer and then do a full flyaround so they can scan it from every side. That will take at least an hour. Then they said they would need to decide how to proceed based on the condition of the ship. Just from my preliminary scans, I think it might take them a while to decide. It shows considerable damage from some sort of conflict. I’m sorry I can’t give you an exact time frame, but with all the facts, I’m sure you have some idea.

Yes, I have quite a bit of time. From the way the scientists had gone about making decisions, he guessed he would have two or three days before they were ready don their EVA suits and get their hands on this piece of ancient pre-Confederation history, but they didn’t give him that long. Within an hour of Nova completing the flyaround for the external scan, Dr. Kolan suggested an immediate EVA.

I’m afraid most of my crew aren’t ready for that. I know you’ve been working with my AI, and she doesn’t sleep, but the rest of us need to get some sleep before conducting a multi-hour EVA. You should get some sleep yourselves so you are fresh when we get over there.

I’m sorry, Captain Zaran, we get too used to the long hours we tend to keep and weren’t thinking of you or your crew. Of course it can wait for a few hours. It’s waited a few thousand years for visitors, what are a few hours.

In truth the EVA was the part of this job that Ven had been waiting for. It wasn’t every day that he got to enter a piece of history. It was one thing to spend time on some of the stations or planet-side locations that were thousands of years old. They had been occupied and, while the shell was old, they didn’t feel old. This was a ship frozen in time. It would be like traveling back to another age. Of course there was no telling what vandalism had occurred when it was initially abandoned and in the years since, but anything left behind was bound to provide clues. Ven hoped that some of the computer hardware was salvageable. If the hardware still functioned, the software and data stored on it might still be intact. That would be the most valuable thing they could find.

Ven had difficulty sleeping, but he fell off eventually. He woke early and got ready. Depending on the conditions inside, this could be a very dangerous EVA. He met the four scientists in the cargo hold where they had stored all their equipment for this part of their mission. Ven was glad that they had successfully located the derelict and could put all this to use. He was curious to see what some of it was for.

Ah, Captain, Dr. Kolan said, are you ready for an adventure?

I am, but I’m hoping that your old ship doesn’t prove to be too big of a challenge.

There we differ, she said. I am looking for the challenge. This ship could make or break my career. The more puzzles it offers the better. I am here to learn.

I’m here to make sure you get to see the ship and get home in one piece.

Dr. Kolan laughed at the way he put it. Yes, I can’t imagine the red tape involved with Customs if there was an accident. I see your point and I’ll see to it that we do as little to make this a challenge for you as possible.

Six of them would be making the excursion over to the derelict. Doctors Kolan, Yipanis, and Jandro from the team, and Ven, Kasal, and Berglund from the crew. Berglund was going to assess the safety and help the team analyze the systems to determine function. Kasal was the next best qualified and would help conduct the analysis faster. Ven would be there to make any final call if he felt conditions were not safe. He did carry a lot of the risk for a mission like this. Especially since they were flying under his legal identity.

Ven strictly segregated his jobs. Anything legal and above board and he flew as Ven Zaran on Nova Trango, the legal registration for his ship. He frequently took on jobs that were less than legal for a variety of reasons and had five secondary registrations that he switched to. One of them had been compromised more than seven years earlier, but it still had its uses on occasion. The extra he was bringing in from smuggling had paid for the AI, installed just a little over a year ago, and he had made a big dent in the loan on the ship itself. He was starting to be able to be more selective in what jobs he took. This one was a prime example. It was long term, little real effort, and even offering a competitive rate he was making a sizable chunk of money. It was safer than any smuggling job and more profitable than any regular cargo run. In many ways it was giving them a break from their hectic schedule.

He really didn’t intend to let up until the ship was completely paid for and that would still take a couple of years, but at the moment he was a couple of months ahead and he intended to keep it that way.

Dr. Kolan was adamant that they not latch onto the derelict. Fortunately Nova was skilled at keeping the ship stationary in relation to their tumbling target and, other than needing a line to facilitate getting across safely, they could avoid any disturbance. It had been one of the big selling points for the team in picking Nova Trango.

When they were all suited up and ready, Ven closed the inner hatch and started the cycle to depressurize the cargo hold. The artificial gravity held everything in place and there wasn’t much to signal that they were in a vacuum, even when the cargo hatch opened.

Up close, the derelict showed its age. In addition to whatever hurts it had suffered at the end of its service, some stray debris had pitted and scared the hull. In several places it was clear there had been markings, but they were undecipherable.

Kasal used his suit’s thrusters to fly the transfer cable over to the derelict. At the team’s insistence, it was jet black. That way they could leave it in place and unless you knew it was there to look for it, it would not tempt any potential looters. It would make transferring seem a lot like floating free.

Nova Trango was small compared to the bulk of the derelict. It had once been smooth and evenly painted, typical of Algonan era vessels. That made it hard to get an idea of what type of ship it might be. That was one of the many reasons for this expedition.

Berglund was the first to transfer over on the cable. He spend some time examining the hole that Kasal had entered and attached the cable to before he signaled it was safe for the rest of them to cross over.

Dr. Kolan led the way. She clipped onto the cable and jumped. Her landing on the other side was not particularly graceful, but it showed she had taken some time to practice. Ven went behind her and his years of experience showed in his quiet landing at exactly the right speed so that the magnetic pads adhered to the derelict’s hull. He followed Dr. Kolan into the ship.

Kasal had brought a diffuse lamp to illuminate the interior. Near the hole in the hull, the interior was marked and pitted badly. As they moved further away, there was less aging and damage. The hole had brought them into some sort of storage room with a hatch at either end. Ven was tempted to head to the bridge, but Dr. Kolan was already moving aft and when she reached the aft hatch she called, Let’s try this way first.

By that time the other two scientists, Yipanis and Jandro, had made it across. They followed her without question. Ven turned to his two men and said, I guess we’d better help them get the hatch open.

Such a simple thing turned out to be a lot of trouble. The power pack they’d brought over to open the hatches didn’t fit and Berglund’s tools didn’t work so they couldn’t hot-wire it. Fortunately Berglund had a solution. He took a piece of putty and pressed it into the external power socket and then scanned it with his pad. Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back, he told them right before he went back out the hole.

While they waited, the scientists examined the other corners of the room. There were some traces of what may have once been stored in here, but there was nothing substantial. It had been cleared out sometime near when the ship had been abandoned.

Berglund returned with an adapter to fit the ancient socket and hooked up the power unit. The door panel came to life and he hit the release. Sluggishly the door opened, but not fully. Berglund checked the power unit. We won’t be able to open too many of these. It takes too much power.

We’ll just have to take it back and recharge it, Ven commented.

Once free of the storage room, they split into two groups. Dr. Kolan headed aft on the deck they were on and sent Jandro to find a way to the lower deck and Yipanis to find a way to the upper deck. Berglund had only made one adaptor for the single power unit he’d brought over so he would have to go between the groups if they needed a hatch opened.

This part of the ship was in good shape. With the hatches closed to space, there were few signs of weathering. Ven followed Dr. Kolan as she explored further aft. They came to a few hatches that were open, but most were closed. Ven suspected that she wanted to open every hatch and fully explore the ship. That might take a while doing it one door at a time. After their initial exploration, he’d find out if Berglund could feed power to this ship directly from Nova Trango. That should activate most of the hatches and leave the power unit for any that didn’t work.

They were all very quiet as they explored. Ven could feel the ghosts of the past and he’d just as soon let them be. This ship was a hundred and fifty meters long and had probably carried a crew of fifty to a hundred, depending on its mission and how many passengers or how much cargo it might have had. The fate of those people were lost in time. With the damage they’d seen to the hull, many of them likely died terrible deaths as the ship depressurized. There were a few pressure doors, but they were all open. Likely the power systems had been attacked and destroyed before the hull was breeched. Fortunately it looked like the ship had been cleaned out. Ven hoped they wouldn’t find anything.

They were all on the same comm channel so Ven listened as Jandro and Yipanis reported their discoveries while he trailed behind Dr. Kolan. Her most interesting discovery was something that had snagged on an uneven seam in the corridor. It appeared to be a torn piece of fabric, but it was stiff and frozen to the metal. She documented it and moved on.

Some of the hatches had descriptive labels beside them in a lettering and language that Ven had no clue how to read. Dr. Kolan documented each, but she had a goal in mind and was passing by other things to get to it. They finally came to the end of the corridor and a sealed hatch. She called Berglund on the comm. Jandro had called him not too long before that so he called back that it would be a few minutes.

Ven and Dr. Kolan waited. She had the patience of a pilot in hyperspace. She did not move for the ten minutes that it took for Berglund to reach their position. He took one look at the hatch and said, This may eat up the last of the power. That is one big solid door. But I bet the engine room is behind it.

Ven smiled at the excitement in his voice. Berglund could care less about history and solving a mystery, but give him anything mechanical, even something as old as this, and he was in heaven. He was probably more excited than any of the scientists, at least for this part of the exploration.

The hatch moved slowly, and Ven could feel the grinding through the deck. When the seal broke, a small gust of gas and debris came out. As the hatch ground open further, it became obvious that the real work had begun. A blacked body drifted partway out the hatch, pushed by the slow flow of gasses escaping. Dr. Kolan reached out and halted the corpse at the hatch and gently turned it and examined it visually before pulling out her recorder and getting some still pictures of it.

The body was covered with surface burns, but underneath, it had frozen solid. In several places it was obvious that it had run into hard objects and things had broken off.

That would explain why this ship is derelict, Berglund said. They must have had a serious fire in engineering and not been able to control it or get to the engines to get them online again.

As astute observation, Mr. Berglund, Dr. Kolan said. Do you think there is any point in exploring the engine room further at this point?

"Chances are that all the systems are dead and there is no chance of bringing anything online. Finding the umbilical connection on the hull and linking this ship to Nova Trango with another adapter is probably the best bet. But we probably should make sure the systems are completely shut down first. We don’t want to short anything or cause any damage."

Think you can do that in a burned out engine room where you can’t read the controls?

Of course. Give me half an hour in there and I’ll have it ready on this end to power up the systems externally.

Just remember, don’t break anything and use the recorder we gave you to document everything before you touch it.

I got it.

Berglund went in first. Ven followed while Dr. Kolan secured the dead engineer to the corridor wall so the body wouldn’t float away.

Inside it looked like most engine rooms. The main reactors vented to the stern and there was access to work on the forward end of each of the four. Set in a pit in the middle of the room was the hyperspace engine. Disturbingly, there were two more bodies floating around. When Dr. Kolan came in, she went to each to document and secure them. She took them out into the corridor. Each one was burned and frozen.

In barely any time at all, Berglund had found the main power relay and was examining it to shut off power to most of the ship’s systems. At first he didn’t touch anything, then he used the recorder to archive the state found he found all the controls in before he reached out to touch the first circuit. He methodically went over the controls to analyze what system they belonged to and what it was they did. As Ven watched, he could tell that most of the controls were self-explanatory, but not all. It took Berglund the better part of an hour to isolate and cut the power for most of the ship. It was hard to separate the doors and lights from the gravity and life support, but Dr. Kolan insisted that the only thing they could try to power on were the lights and doors. She explained that the life support was probably drained anyway, and turning on the gravity could cause bodies, like the ones they had discovered, to sustain damage.

The others were reporting their own discoveries. Yipanis found room after room on the upper deck, all open and virtually empty. Jandro reported that there were two decks below and all of the hatches were closed. He found the main hold, on the lowest deck in the middle of the ship, but it was almost empty. It was the almost that started to yield some of their first finds. Jandro reported that the large hold had a few scattering objects in it. Several turned out to be intact baggage or small containers that his scanner showed were not empty. He marked them for further examination and moved on. Right now they were just conducting a preliminary exploration with an eye toward how they would proceed.

Berglund eventually reported that he had done all he could from there and needed to go to the bridge to double check that there were no overrides set. Ven followed him while Dr. Kolan continued to explore the engine room.

The bridge was on the same deck so all they had to do was go forward. They found the hatch sealed and locked. Powering the hatch only produced a small noise and lit up the control panel. The hatch did not budge. Berglund worked on it for a while and tried several of the overrides he was familiar with. If this was a salvage operation, Ven would suggest just blowing the hatch, but his employer was a scientist trying to examine and preserve a bit of history so they had to try and crack it.

I almost have it, Berglund told him. It seems to be an Arensiece sequence, I just have to determine which one.

You get to legally practice those breaking and entering skills you’ve picked up.

I knew they would come in handy someday. I just thought what I was doing wouldn’t be legal.

A few tries later, something in the hatch clicked and Berglund tried to open the hatch again and it slowly slid open. It cleanly slid all the way open to reveal the bridge. The pitted opaque viewports glowed in the light of a nearby star and illuminated everything. It was mercifully empty.

Berglund proceeded to document all the controls as he found them and then to make sure that there were no bridge overrides of the controls he had set in engineering. When he was sure that these controls wouldn’t override those in engineering, he suggested they return.

When Yipanis heard that they were done in the bridge, he requested they come to the upper deck. He had found one sealed room, just above the bridge. They had to go back to the middle of the ship to the main gangway and then went up and forward.

All these other rooms are open, he said when they joined him, but this one is sealed. Maybe they didn’t take the time to ransack this one room.

Let’s get the door open, Berglund said. He hooked up the power unit and started working. That’s funny. I’d swear this door was locked from out here.

That doesn’t make sense, Yipanis said, but Ven could think of several reasons for it to make sense. Berglund soon had it open to reveal a macabre scene. It was hard to count, but there appeared to be at least twenty bodies. Most looked like they were sleeping, but the overall scene was gut wrenching. Ven’s eye locked on a young girl off to one side, looking like she had just fallen asleep, although she’d been dead for millennia. It brought back memories of the recent loss of his wife and daughter. He averted his eyes, but the image was burned on his brain. He couldn’t think of anything else as they finished their work.

* * *

Captain Jav Tlejon carefully examined the enhanced images of the pirate ship. There was little doubt that it was a Leywanese ship, but the images off the vid, even after enhancement, didn’t give him a clear