"Navigator ready," I said.
"Then let's go home."
Lucky Strikelifted off the interior surface of the hollowed asteroid, maneuvering carefully through the entrance. Outside, the asteroid field still tumbled chaotically. But our exit vector was clear—a narrow corridor of relatively empty space leading away from the densest sectors.
Away from the raiders.
Toward Mothership.
"Engaging warp drive in ten seconds," Kret'nor announced.
I watched the asteroids fall away on the viewscreen, this battlefield that had nearly killed us all. Thought about Mayalying sedated in the medical bay. About the expansion project waiting back on Mothership. About Zor'go standing beside me, his presence steady and reassuring.
About the future we were building instead of the past we'd lost.
The warp drive engaged. Space stretched and compressed. The stars smeared into lines.
And then Kret'nor's voice cut through the relief: "Multiple contacts dropping out of warp. Dead ahead. Reading six vessels, heavy armament."
The tactical display lit up with red markers. Six ships—much larger than the raiders we'd escaped, positioned directly in our flight path.
Zor'go's markings flickered rapidly. "IFF?"
"Not broadcasting. But hull configurations match..." Vaxon's voice went tight. "Kavroth vessels. Military class."
The Kavroth. The species that had sparked the conflict that drove Zandovians like Zor'go's family off Garmuth'e. The beings Mothership tried to avoid at all costs.
And they'd found us.
"Incoming transmission," Vaxon reported.
The viewscreen flickered. A Kavroth commander appeared, pale skin, sharp features, eyes like chips of black ice. When he spoke, the translation matrix rendered his words with unsettling precision.
"Unidentified Zandovian vessel. You are trespassing in contested territory. Cut your engines and prepare to be boarded. Resistance will be met with immediate destruction."
Zor'go's hands moved across his console, calculating options. I could practically see his mind working through scenarios. We couldn't fight six military vessels. Couldn't outrun them in our damaged shuttle. Couldn't?—
"Sir," Kret'nor said quietly. "They're powering weapons. Targeting locks acquired."
The Kavroth commander smiled, cold and predatory. "You have thirty seconds to comply. After that, I stop asking nicely."
Chapter 12
Zor'go
The medical bay hummed with controlled urgency as we transferred the three Liberty survivors from the shuttle. Maya, the architect Jalina had recognized, was the most stable despite eleven months of survival trauma. The other two, a systems engineer named Garrett and a botanist called Prisha, required immediate intervention for malnutrition and radiation exposure.
Zorn moved between them with practiced efficiency, his medical team deploying Zandovian healing technology that would have seemed like magic to these humans just months ago. I stood near the entrance, watching Jalina hover at Maya's bedside, her small hand gripping her friend's with desperate intensity.
She looked hollowed out. Like something essential had been carved from her chest during our three days in that asteroid field, waiting for raiders to find us while Vaxon's team jury-rigged our damaged engines.
"They'll recover," Dana said quietly, appearing beside me. She'd come straight from Engineering when she heard we'dbrought survivors back. "Physically, at least. The psychological recovery takes longer."
"You know from experience."
"Yeah." Her green eyes tracked to Jalina. "And I know that look. She's drowning in guilt. Thinking she should have searched harder, done more, somehow prevented eleven months of suffering."
"She was surviving herself. Building a life from nothing. That's not betrayal."
