Privateer Station Tertia IX

“Omega Two here.”  A girl’s voice sounded in Jai’s earchip.  “I’m in.  I have the release code...” 

Jai took a deep breath.  So far, so lucky.   Hollyn had gained access the maintenance pod and acquired the code they would need to disconnect the SunSloop from the other salvage ships. 

It was time.  “Omega Two and Three.” she said, pitching her voice low, “Execute.”

“Here we go,” Rakesh answered.  “Static screen set…blocking in effect…now,” he marked.  “We have ten minutes before they’ll see anything.”

“Good job, both of you.  Go to Step Two as planned,” Jai prompted.

She took a breath to steady herself, then stood up straight and made herself relax, stashing the stunner inside her jacket.  When she stepped out of the accessway she tried hard to look like an ordinary student pedestrian walking through this part of the station.  Never mind that this wing was out-of-the-way and a very unlikely place for a student to wander.  Still, she still didn’t want to attract the attention of a security sensor by running or looking twitchy.

She stepped up to Gate 27C’s gantry door and checked her data unit like she’d been assigned to do something routine.  She placed her right hand on the lock as if activating a perfectly normal, fully authorized pass.  With her left, she angled her data unit at the lock and queued the illegal key that over-rode station security. 

The gantry slid open.

“I’m in,” she said over the comlink to the others.

She stepped through, and put her back to the wall.  A moment later, as if also casually traversing the gate area, Rakesh and Hollyn joined her.  Rak hit the manual switch and the gantry slid shut.  Jai used her data unit to re-lock the door, adding a pirated code that would jam it from the outside.  That would buy them maybe three extra minutes if station security showed up.

Rak was grinning.  “Easy as 1-2-3.”  He was enjoying himself, Jai realized.    

Hollyn, on the other hand, looked like a nervous lab rabbit, hands wringing on her scanner.  “Is anyone after us?  Can you tell?  Any alarms?”

“Not possible,” Rak shook his head.  “That was a top-notch a random-alternating quad static screen I installed.  We’ll be on that ship and three sectors away before they even figure out they have a problem.”

Hollyn looked dubious.  “Are you sure you calculated the random generator correctly?”  Rakesh stood taller, as if readying his defense.

Jai frowned.  This was no time for sophomore rivalry.  As the senior student, she made a slicing gesture and headed off the debate.  “The screen is up, we have the release code, it’s time to move,” she told them, tapping Hollyn on the shoulder.  “Go!”

Hollyn led the way, moving quickly, though Jai could see the younger girl’s hand shaking when she reached for a hand rail.  Rakesh followed next, and Jai last. 

They reached the berth for the first ship, a hulking old cargo carrier, and passed it.  Jai took a moment to look over her shoulder at the gate behind them—so far, no pursuit.

“A little faster Holl,” she said.

The gantry started bobbing in reaction to their steps, but silently they coordinated their movements until they were walking in step and the bouncing minimized.  They managed a jog past the second and third berths.

“This one’s it,” Rak said, excitement in his voice.

Hollyn turned and looked at Jai with eyes round, face pale.  Rak just put his back to the curved wall and held himself still so Jai could work.

 Jai lifted her data unit and prompted a scan of the lock.  An amber standby light.  She queued the most basic override code, one common to maintenance personnel, and the light went out. 

What now?

She held her breath.

Three long seconds later it lit up green.

“Can’t believe that worked,” she said, letting her breath out.  She tapped the unit for verification, but Rak shouldered past Hollyn and palmed the latch.

“I told you, these things are just salvage to the Tertians,” he said.  “Who in their right mind would want one?  They’re just cannibalizing them.”

A status panel opened and they leaned forward to read the gauges.  Pressurized, oxygenized, internal temperature in range…

“All right—in,” Jai ordered.  “You know your jobs.  Let’s just hope she’s isn’t stripped out already.”  She triggered the hatch and the door opened to a pitch black interior.  Rakesh found the lighting control and trackways leading inside the ship started to glow.

But Hollyn stood stock still, her handheld scanner, container of the all-important release code, clutched in both hands.  Jai huffed and pulled the girl in after her.  “Midship, Hollyn—look for the umbilical controls.  Remember the simulation.  Use that code to cycle the duo-levers into release mode.” 

Hollyn nodded, a glimmer of determination in her eyes now.  “Right.  I’m on it,” the girl said, taking a left down the sun sloop’s center aisle.

Jai turned for the cockpit, and Rak took the ladder to the lower level.

A five narrow, steep steps led Jai into an instrument-packed cockpit with seats for four.  She looked quickly from pilot’s controls to nav panel…seeing that every inch of console space sported controls and readouts and switches.  She let her breath out in a brief sense of relief that the cockpit controls hadn’t been ripped out or damaged.  But the next order of business was to see if the systems were still operational.   She scanned the overhead and forward panels, assessing the readiness.   It didn’t take long to see that the ship was moored in simple standby mode. 

As they’d hoped, it hadn’t been here long enough to start being dismantled for parts.

Feeling light-headed with relief, Jai slid into the right hand front seat and faced the piloting controls.  She noted three slight differences from the simulator she’d studied, but otherwise the controls were the same.  She flipped open her data unit, queued her notes on the startup procedure, and started the first sequence.

It felt odd.  Unfamiliar.  Too large.

She wasn’t really a pilot, after all.  She was just the senior student and the only one who’d done any co-piloting.   The only real rank she held was lab assistant.

"It’s a little messy down here,” Rakesh reported over the comlink. “But she still has the essentials.  Engineering is a go.”          

“Good.  Get up here,” Jai answered, buckling herself in.  “I need you in the Nav seat.” 

“Release code is good,” Hollyn’s voice quavered.  “Umbilical detach is ready.”

“Excellent.  Report here for Operationals.”

Jai’s data unit chimed ready, and by the time she tapped in the final startup override, Hollyn and Rakesh were climbing into the seats behind her.

“The basic complement of engineering systems is intact,” Rak reported as he buckled in.  “But a couple of ancillary units are gone, just like we thought.  No laser guns. No shields.”

Jai nodded.  They’d suspected that the most valuable add-ons might have been stripped upon arrival.

“Can we make Qarilan?” she asked.  That was their goal: the nearest waystation, operated by the politically neutral League of Governance.

“It’s just basic transportation,” Rak answered.  “But it can get us there.”

"Good,” Jai said, she could hear the other two tapping displays and running through their own checklists.  Everything was going as they’d simulated….there was nothing to worry about.  She clenched her jaw, regaining focus on her own final systems checks.  “Three minutes and we can cut loose.”

“2:58 and counting,” Hollyn said.  “Umbilical reads ready to release.”

Jai executed a thruster control check. 

“I have the star chart,” Rak reported.  “Nav is up.  Program is in.”

“We have 3 of 5,” Jai reported, meaning three of the ship systems were lighted green and two were still warming up.

“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” Hollyn said, her voice low and worried.

 “Focus, Holl,” Rak said absently. “Keep it together…”

Jai watched the system lights.  The fourth one turned from amber to green.  “Four of Five,” she reported.  “Last chance to buckle in.”

 Both crewmates signaled they were secure. 

“How can we be doing this?” Hollyn asked.  “We’re stealing a ship.”

"We’re not stealing, Holl,” Rak said, his tone peevish.  “We’re lawfully laying claim to salvage.”

“Waiting for Five,” Jai said, straining to keep her focus and hoping the other two would can it.

"We’re stealing,” Hollyn moaned.

“Green!” Jai called, seeing the fifth light turn.  She pressed the thrusters into readiness.

“Cut the cord, Hollyn.” 

She heard Hollyn catch her breath and then a set of overhead lights indicated successful ejection of the umbilical.  From here on out, the sloop was free of the station and operating on its own power.

Jai kept her eyes on the pilot controls.  One indicator, the main power cell, showed capacity at .788.  It was less than she expected, and on the edge of nominal for an interplanetary ship…but they’d chosen the SunSloop for a reason.

It was the kind of ship that could supplement the power cell with its solar skin.

Jai nudged the thrusters up, easing the sloop away from the station in a subtle, nice and slow maneuver that made the ship’s movement just look like it was drifting naturally.  Nothing abrupt.

“Turning 8 degrees port,” Rak announced as the ship slowly swiveled in place. 

“Are we go?” Jai asked, eyes running a check across the control panels.  When they gunned it, they would need to get out of there fast.

“Go,” Rak answered.

“Go,” Hollyn seconded.

“Execute Omega Course 1A,” Jai ordered.

Rakesh actually laughed out loud and adopted a old world pirate voice.  “Aye, Captain!  Omega Course 1A queued and…go!”  The little sloop twisted around and aimed itself at their destination.  All thrusters fired together in an explosive thrust that forced them back in their seats—and basic physics took over: for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction.  Thrusters pushed back, the ship pushed forward.  In moments they had distanced themselves from Station Tertia IX.

“They’re hailing us!” Hollyn’s voice sounded near panic.

“It’s all right,” Jai said, tapping her data unit and responding with their pre-recorded statement.  “We knew they would….”

Her message played in the cockpit as they shot away.  …As marooned free citizens of the Commonwealth Worlds, we are exercising our rights under interstellar charter and Tertian privateer law 345.23.41a-41m to lay claim to viable unlicensed salvage.  This was followed by a brief thank you to the Tertians themselves for liberating the three of them from the rest of the illegal cargo on the skelp smuggler, and for the five days of medical assistance rendered.  It did not mention their frustration over the Tertian’s refusal to allow contact with the Commonwealth consulate or grant them passage back to Commonwealth space.

But in the seat behind her, Jai could hear Hollyn moan. “They’ll be after us,” she said.  “We just stole a ship.”

“These are Tertians, Holl,” Rak said.  “They'te privateers.  They don’t think like the Commonwealth.  To them, this isn’t a crime.”

Jai nodded.  “Relax, Hollyn.  They’ll respect us for taking what they call entrepreneurial initiative.  We’re just jumping on what they view as a perfectly viable business opportunity.”

“But we shouldn’t steal,” Hollyn worried.  “We should have gotten official permission.”

“That would have taken months…and we’re not stealing.  It’s early bird gets the worm,” Jai said.

“What?”

Jai smiled, wondering where she’d uncovered that old maxim.  “Also known as first come, first served.  Standby for ignition…”

Jai triggered the countdown that would set off a single hyperburn of power.  They had done the math.  The thrusters would shoot them away from the Tertia IX station, but they’d need about two minutes of hyperburn to bring them up to speed and put them on a trajectory to Qarilan Station—and once at speed, they’d keep going like an artificial asteroid.  Getting the speed in the first place was the only challenge.  Well, except for braking.

“On the simulation this was one big jolt followed by two minutes of sitting plastered in the flight seats,” Jai reminded them, flattening her back against the captain’s seat in preparation.  In the background, a computer voice was counting down from five.  “Are you ready?”

“Aye, aye, cap’n,” Rakesh said, still using his pirate voice.

“Stop that!  We’re not really pirates, you know.”  Hollyn sounded exasperated.

“Hollyn?”  Jai asked. 

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Buckled in and ready?”

“Yes.”

Moments later, the hyperburn fired like a bomb going off, and all three of them felt themselves pressed into the seat backs as the SunSloop flashed away from Tertia IX.

10 Days Earlier on Porphyre Institute Station

Jai kicked off the wall and shot across the hub—the hollow center of the big space station, the one area on the institute with zero G.  It was the area used for meditation, zero g experiments, and, much to Jai’s personal enjoyment, synchronized air dancing.

Across the hub, two of the new students missed their marks and fumbled against each other mid-air.  Their laughter filled the space and the music stopped.

“All right, team,” Coach Landreth’s voice spoke in Jai’s ear through her communication implant.  “Let’s start again.  It’s a simple geodesic pattern—let’s see if we can do it for ten rotations.  Remember—you’re jumping the same interval in a straight line each time.  Everybody find a red spot to start…”

For synchronized air dance, the inside of the hub sported color coded hand holds in a geometric pattern that made it look much like the inside of a soccer ball.  Luckily, Jai had aimed for a red spot on her last kick and she alighted easily, grabbed the small rail, stopped her forward motion, and waited.  The two new students—flailing helplessly in mid-air, needed an assist from the coach but finally found new starting points and settled.

“It’s simple physics,” the coach went on.  “Shouldn’t be so hard for a stellar group of Omega students like yourselves…”  Everyone laughed.   Fact was, they were all Omega students…known for their brains but rarely their brawn, though there were a few surprises in the student ranks.  But it was safe to say that physical exertion wasn’t anyone’s strong suit.  Physics, Bioscience, AI programming…those things were mandatory on everyone’s list of high level accomplishments. 

Synchronized Air Dance: not so much.

The team, including the two new students, practiced the basic geodesic pattern another eight times…until they could sustain it for ten laps, perfectly synchronized to the metronome at 108 beats per standard minute.  At least they understood speed and trajectory even if they weren’t exactly graceful or athletic.

Back in the locker room the new students looked grateful to have their feet back on the floor in half G space.

“I’ll never get it right,” the youngest one shook her head. 

Jai grinned.  “You will.  Keep trying.”

The girl flashed a grateful smile, then turned when someone called her name.  Callista, Caleeka…something like that. 

Jai didn’t stay.  She was a Candidate this year—in the last stage of earning her five subject Omega Degree, her top status proclaimed by her blue jumpsuit.  That meant making time for health and physical fitness but not for silly chatter, gaming, or even news and politics.  None of those things interested her in the face of completing her final doctorate. 

Outside the ladies locker room she met up with Rakesh, a fellow Candidate who also did Synchronized Air Dance. 

“Good to get the newbies started, eh?”

"They did well, considering," she smiled.  “Headed back to the lab?”

“Of course.  I’m deep into thesis defense…”

Jai understood.  Everything she did these days focused on her research.  “I left a clean-up program running,” she said, hoping it would identify the last non-functioning strings in her analysis code.  “I need to check it.”

They took the same lift to the research level.  Jai palmed the security check into the advanced student lab and let herself in.  Rakesh waited for the door to close behind her, then palmed himself in.

Inside, about half the cubicles were occupied, the lab itself in half light, denoting the station’s evening time.  Jai took herself down the aisle, not bothering to wait for Rak.  There was a student code of silence and privacy in effect here—an etiquette that favored concentration and focus...and a certain protectiveness of one’s research.  Wouldn’t do for classmates to catch sight of one’s brilliant work and find themselves so dazzled as to copy it.  This led everyone to keep to themselves and even create private implant languages—so they could talk to the station systems instead of each other.

Jai had long since come to the conclusion that much of this attitude was simple paranoia, but she did appreciate the code of silence.  One needless interruption could break her concentration and require hours to get her line of thinking back to the same point in her work.  Here in the lab, doors closed silently, acknowledgements were reduced to hand signs if anything—even the flooring absorbed the sound of footfalls.  Interaction with AI systems were keyed to a person’s implants—a processor embedded under the cortex along with receptors in auditory and ocular nerves and nano-keys in the finger joints.

So with a kind of subtle sign language that looked more like magic wand motions, Jai prompted her implants to access the station’s main system while she was still ten steps from her desk.  She made an inquiry about Dunn, her younger brother.  Siblings were rare at Omega Institutes, but Dunniel had qualified last year and selected Porphyre, probably for the same reason Jai had: the reputation and the opportunities afforded its graduates.  He was three weeks into his first semester and as wet behind the ears as the young girl at Air Dance.  It made Jai feel a titch protective, as if she felt responsible for his adjustment to life on board an Institute station.  So far, he was showing all the usual signs: continually fretting about his subject choices (like all first sems) and obsessing about the proposal we was making to his faculty oversight committee.

The system located Dunn in the student study hall, flashing his location on the floor plan.  Jai smiled, recalling many, many hours spent in study hall herself before qualifying for a lab cubicle.  She opted not to send a message.   He was fine.

By the time she stepped into her cubicle, seven reports were appearing on the open-air displays that surrounded her.  Programs One through Four had run correctly, Five had a glitch…and that had held up Six and Seven.  Damn.

She slid into her couch and brought Number Five’s data forward, made an adjustment to the search parameters, and watched it run through the numbers. 

And just like that, Jai immersed herself in her work, unaware of time passing, unaware of the silent warnings on the station keeping panels. 

But she felt the jolt.

They all did.

And then the power blinked off, including the link to her implants, leaving everyone in complete darkness.

“Hey!” someone called.

Someone else swore a long and lurid string of curses.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please excuse the bad planning and lack of prior notification while we take a short break for station maintenance,” someone drawled.

Dim emergency lights blinked on, bathing everything in a weird blue.

"I swear, if I lost that last ten minutes of calculations..." someone muttered.

“Rak?”  Jai called.  Rakesh worked two cubicles over—and that sounded like his voice.  It was just so strange hearing the code of silence broken in the lab.

“Right here looking very blue…like everyone else.”  His voice sounded absurdly calm.

A sharp, overhead click made Jai look up.   The air vent had closed and the background hiss of the air recyclers dropped off.  If it was quiet before, it was now dead silent.   She didn’t even sense the background hum of the ship’s power plant.

She tried three times to access the station system with her implants.  Nothing.

“Are we...adrift?” she said aloud.

“Sure feels like it,” she heard Rak answer. 

Part of her refused to believe it.  A growing, nervous part of her was not so sure.

“Everyone stay where you are,” Jai called out.  She had trained as station monitor for emergencies like power failure, and she recalled the list of instructions.  “We’ll just hurt ourselves trying to move around.”

“My experiment’s tanked!”  Someone complained.  “Eight weeks of non-stop work...”

A second jolt knocked them hard enough to send Jai sprawling from her couch.

Something shattered a few cubicles away.

Whatever this was, it was more serious than one ruined experiment or a simple power failure.

A heavy, deep whump reverberated long and loud through the station.

"This is not a power failure," Jai said aloud.

And then the floor tilted.   Jai slid sideways, scrambled for a handhold, and felt a sharp flash of pain when her right knee banged the corner of the desk.  For a moment, all she knew was that excruciating and lingering ache—and then realized she was shivering.  She crouched low.  It’s just adrenaline, she told herself. 

Another whump resounded through the station, not as sharp as the first, followed by a metallic avalanche sound: bam rum rum screeee bam thud. 

Something was outside the ship.  Definitely not normal, not planned.

The blue emergency lights faded and clicked off leaving them in utter darkness.

Someone a few aisles away repeated a curse in a panic.  Jai heard someone else trying to calm her.

All of it just made her suddenly angry.  “You still there, Rak?” she called to Rakesh.

“Yep.You?”

Idiot.  “Where the hell is the station crew?”

“I don’t know,” he said.  “Let’s just stay quiet.  Something’s not right here.”

“Really?”  Jai rolled her eyes.   Someone needed to take charge.  Her monitor’s training kicked in.  "I'm going for the chem lights."  She felt around on the slanted floor until she found a port cover, then flipped it open and clicked a switch.

Eerie green chemical lights began glowing in pinpoint recesses along the floor: the last gasp of the emergency system.

Then the deck tilted more sharply and she felt a surge in the station’s movement.  She spotted Rak doing a slow slide down the aisle, his eyes wide, headset askew.

“Something’s hit us!” someone shouted.

Jai reached for the emergency oxygen next, but found her arm suddenly too heavy to lift, felt herself dragged down, her back pressed to the floor.

“No,” Rak called, his voice still level.  “It’s…”

“Gravity increase!”  Jai called back, unable to lift her head.

“Yes…”  Rak answered, his words coming farther apart.  “Station spinning faster...under…attack....”

Jai understood instantly.  She’d heard of this—an unprotected station was vulnerable to the simple act of attaching a ship to the outer rim and using the engine thrust to speed up the station’s spin.  That increased the gravitational force on the inhabitants two- or three-fold, effectively immobilizing everyone on board by making the gravity too heavy for them to move.

Unless you were in the hub, which at this time of night was no one.

“Just…try…breathe…” she heard Rak saying, his voice strained.

Yes.  Breathe.  It was an effort to lift her ribs against the crushing G-forces and she groaned…who…?

Breathe, dammit.

On Porphyre

Jai awoke full of aching muscles and blue-white spots in her eyes.  It took a moment to realize she was looking at a grid of artificial lights…the ceiling of the main lecture hall, to be exact.  Her implant links remained off, but her ears told her everyone else felt as beat up as she did—their groans and complaints giving voice to hers.        

How did I get here?  She tried to shake awareness back into her head.  The last thing she recalled was the lab.  That hellacious pressure of increasing G’s…

Dunn.  Was her brother here?  Jai struggled upright, relieved to feel normal gravity…maybe even a little less than normal.  Or maybe she was just light-headed.

She struggled to focus and scan the hall.  Students only, no professors.  Everyone lay in ragged groups, slowly sitting up and looking around.  It looked like everyone—all 40 or so of the current students.

Whoever did this had gathered them all here.  How?  She felt unsettled—someone or something  had moved her from the lab without her knowledge or permission.  She looked at the sleeves of her lab coat as if expecting slime or dirty handprints. But she only saw her clean lab coat, her blue Candidate’s coverall…everything intact but her memory.  Bastards.

“Dunn?” she called.  Her voice sounded thin.  She scanned the ragged piles of schoolmates—there, near the lower tier, a group of students in Novice grey.  There was Dunn.  He was up on one elbow in a tangle of several others, all in first semester grey.

Jai let her breath out.

That’s when she heard a name put to their problem.

Skelps.  People were whispering it.  It travelled around the hall like a zephyr wind. 

Jai’s guts froze. 

“Dr. Milliene,”  Someone called.  “Where is he?  Where are the Deans?”

That person was hushed.

There.  By the side door.  Jai could see one—the tall stick form of a skelp with an impressive, sleek laser weapon in its hands—its exoskeleton armored in something silvery.   She’d never seen one this close before.  What did she know about them?

Alien.  Merciless.   Worse than pirates.

What did they want with a station full of students?

“Instructions will follow.”  The skelp communicated through a speaker…a translation device, Jai realized.  “Be silent.”

Around her students were slowly taking to the lecture hall seats.  A few at first, then others as they realized their skelp guard didn’t object.  Jai took the nearest seat and realized she was several spaces from anyone else.  She ran checks on her implants, hoping to trigger system contact but got nothing.  She saw Rak two aisles behind her, sitting next to a green suited Junior.  A guy named Vance, she thought.  At one point someone passed water packets from the room’s emergency kit. 

The skelp didn’t intervene.  It only watched.

The whispering continued.

The faculty is dead.  One of the novices saw.

What do they want? 

They’re gutting the databanks.

Several hours passed.  Jai thought about easing herself down a few seats, making her way toward Dunn.  She  moved once, then twice, then realized the skelp had turned in her direction.  She remained in her seat and didn’t move again.

Eventually the overhead lights brightened, still simulating a night/day cycle.  At one point, one of the Sophomores in blue stood and approached the main door.  The skelp raised its rifle and in two motions fired a shot and the man dropped, lying still. 

Everyone stared.  Jai recognized him as one of the terraforming students—she didn’t know his name.

After another interminable stretch, the skelp paced across the front of the lecture hall and rolled the body over.  It was stiff. 

Jai swallowed, hardly believing. 

The skelp turned to face the remaining students.

“You will stand.”

No one moved.

The skelp shifted the rifle in its arms.

Everyone stood.

With a hum, the lecture hall seats retracted into the floor, a motion Jai had seen them do a hundred times. 

Then the central door opened and two more skelps entered the hall, their movements jerky like they’d been fitted with bad mechanicals.

One held a yellow cylinder and jerk-stepped down the center aisle.  Everyone watched in stunned silence.

He was five steps from Jai when she saw him pop a valve on the cylinder, heard the sudden hiss, and felt darkness slam into her like a physical fist to the jaw.

All went black.

---

For the second time, Jai awoke full of aching muscles and blue-white spots in her eyes.  It took a moment to realize she was looking at a ceiling she’d never seen before.  Someone touched her arm and she found herself staring at a medical staffer she didn’t recognize.

“Welcome aboard,” the doctor said.

“Aboard…?”  Jai tried to shake awareness into her brains.  She tried to access systems with her implants but hit an unfamiliar firewall.

“Tertia IX Station.  You’re in sick bay.”

Jai shook her head.  “Porphyre…”

The doctor had her hand on Jai’s arm, squeezing gently.  “I know you’re just now awake, but you have to know—the Institute was destroyed.  We picked you up off a skelp ship leaving the area.”

Destroyed?  Skelps.  It came back to her in a rush.  “They increased the Gs…”

“You didn’t have a chance.”

“Are you asking about survivors?” 

Jai swallowed and nodded. 

“We’re not sure.  One of our privateers picked up three of you together in a skelpi shipping container.  Our CEO believes the skelps took all of you for resale—traffickers. They had thirty, forty ships.”

Traffickers?  She meant slave traders, Jai realized.  Why students?

Young.  Teachable.

“My brother…” she said again, turning to look around the sick bay—two others?  She saw them, one male, one female on separate bunks across the room.  She wasn’t sure who they were but neither was Dunn.

Trafficking.   The idea stunned her more than the sluggishness of statis.  Death sentence. 

“What…” she struggled to ask her question in a level voice.  “What kind of ship is Tertia IX…?”

“Conglomerate.”

Privateers.  They had roving stations...one not far from the Institute’s location in Commonwealth Space.  Privateers were known to be politically touchy.  They refused galactic law in favor of their own.  Were they friends?

“The boss ordered three days in sick bay.  Try not to worry about anything else, now.”

Jai lay back, too weak and confused to be anything but obedient to the doctor’s gentle nudge.  But her brain whirled with if/then logic.  If Dunn wasn’t here, then he was dead or he was on some other skelp ship.  If he was on some other skelp ship, then he needed help to get away.  If he needed help, she would demand the Commonwealth go to his aid…

The medical staff put the two girls together for their first meal of broth and sliced moon-fruit.  Protein, carbohydrate, and fluids, Jai recognized.  She looked at her dinner partner.

Trouble was, they didn't know each other. 

“Jaiakurisu Kel, Omega Candidate,” she introduced herself.  “Doctorates in Microneurology, plasmid biology…”  Suddenly the five dissertation topics felt less than adequate.  “People call me Jai.”

A slight, a petite girl with large brown eyes and a stunned expression bit her lip, then introduced herself.  “Hollyn Urtreidesto.  Sophomore…I don’t have a short name.  It’s just Hollyn.”

And then a nurse wheeled in the third student.

Jai recognized him with relief.  "Rakesh!"

"Hey, Jai," he said weakly.  He looked at Hollyn.  Jai introduced her.

Rakesh waved as if the effort to lift his hand took everything.  He was a slight young man with curly brown hair and dark circles under his eyes.  “Rakesh Chavan.  Junior.  Cosmology, Analytical Chemistry, Mechatronics…” he, too, trailed off.  “Call me Rak.”

Jai looked at her classmates.  A Junior and Sophomore.

“That makes you the senior,” Rak said, reaching for a cup of broth and gingerly tasting.  “Bit hot,” he said.

“Will they send us home?” Hollyn asked.  “Is there even a spaceport in this sector?”

“Maybe the Commonwealth has an embassy on this station,” Rak offered.

Jai didn’t know the answers, but she had her neuralnet.  “Damn,” she said, rubbing her temple.  “I can’t access anything.  They have a firewall I can’t get through.”

Hollyn nodded.  “I can't get through, either."

When one of the nurses came back with electrolyte pouches, Jai spoke up. 

"Are there Commonwealth officials on this station?  We need to get messages back to our families."

The nurse looked at her and said nothing.  "I can send our administrator over to talk to you."  She tapped a wrist unit, then smiled.  "Drink the pouches.  You are all three still dehydrated.  Try to rest..."  She turned and departed.

Rak stared after her, absently taking up the electrolyte pouch and flipping up the drinking tube.

Hollyn blinked.  "She didn't answer the question."

"You're right," Jai said.  "She did not."

They sipped broth and nibbled on moon-fruit in silence, looking up when footsteps signalled the arrival of someone new, dressed in business-like grey. 

The administrator, Jai thought.

"Koghlan Sheen," he introduced himself, eying their paltry meal.  "You three," he said, "Are my next problem.

"Sir?"  Rakesh asked.

"What to do with you."  Koghlan clarified.

Jai stared. 

"The legal options are few," Koghlan went on.  "The first requires me to remand you to this station to await an interstellar ship with a welfare officer. They would take you into protective custody and fund your return to the Commonwealth.  But…" he looked at them as if assessing their frames of mind.  "There are complications. Do any of you recall what happened on Porphyre?"

"We were attacked," Jai said.

"I remember seeing skelps," Rakesh murmured.  Then he looked at Jai.  "Were there really Skelps?"

"Yes."  It was Hollyn, her expression bleak.

Koghlan Sheen nodded, looking at his folded hands.  "The situation is complicated," he admitted.

"We can wait for an interstellar," Jai said. "When's the next arrival?"

Koghlan smiled--or rather, grimaced.  "That's the problem.  Common Transport operated a weekly ship between here and Mahrenjeau...but it's out of business."

Jai made a face, trying to understand that. 

"In fact, the entire Commonwealth is out of business.  The markets in Mahren City have closed, the Weal Central Bank, collapsed."

"What does this mean?"  Hollyn asked, her voice nearly a whisper.

"It means," Rakesh said, glowering.  "That our government no longer exists."

Jai looked from Rakesh to Koghlan Sheen.  Impossible.  The Commonwealth was one of the the most powerful alliances in the Seven Worlds.  There were flight schedules, space stations, a network of communications...

But Koghlan's expression was grim. 

He wasn't denying it.

"That wasn't a random attack by those skelps, was it?" she asked.

Koghlan shook his head.