Page 4 of Commander’s Mate

Degatu gave one slow nod. “I have already sent word through private channels. Governor Evzen Guryon of Halor has a missing daughter. Kyanna Guryon. Taken from Plotain Pleasure Station by Sargan raiders. Her father will pay whatever is necessary to recover her.”

“Where is she?”

“Likely bound for Ursaga.”

The name was filth in my mouth. Ursaga was auction territory. Sargus-controlled in everything but the lies on its treaties. If Kyanna was going there, she would be sold publicly unless someone bought her privately first.

I looked once more at the hearth. At the names.

“We rescue the governor’s daughter,” I said. “We take his credits. We use them to hunt our people.”

“And anyone else we find?” Degatu asked.

The answer should have been complicated. We could not save everyone. We had limited space, limited money, limited supplies, and a wounded world waiting behind us.

But I had just stood in my mother’s ashes.

“No one who can be freed stays in chains.”

For the first time since landing, Degatu’s expression shifted. Not a smile. Nothing so light. But a recognition.

“Then we are agreed.”

I slid my helmet back over my head and sealed my grief behind armor.

“Farseek Brigade is dead,” I said.

Degatu touched two fingers to his brow in salute.

“Long live the Farseek Mercenaries.”

Chapter One

Zared

A warship is quiet after betrayal.

Not silent. Dreadnought One never slept. Air handlers hummed behind bulkheads. Lift doors opened and shut. Duty boots struck metal decking in disciplined patterns. The AI whispered status reports to officers wearing faces carved hollow by grief. Engines held steady. Weapons systems cycled. Medical teams processed survivors pulled from Farseek’s ruins.

But beneath all of it, the ship had changed.

Before, Dreadnought One had been a Consortium defense vessel commanded by Farseek officers under contractual authority. We had carried ourselves like warriors serving a lawful alliance, even when we disliked the men who signed our pay orders. We had fought because Farseek had agreed to fight. Because a contract was an oath, and Uatu did not discard oaths because they became inconvenient.

Now the ship felt like a blade stolen back from the hand that had used it.

I stood in the tactical chamber with Admiral Degatu, Lieutenant Pyrr Avantu, intelligence specialist Tivid Lantu, and five senior officers from ground and fleet divisions. We had stripped Consortium insignia from the main display. No one had ordered it. Someone had simply done it while the ship orbited our broken world.

I approved.

On the central table floated a rotating image of Ursaga’s primary auction district. Buildings rose in ugly blocks of stained stone, fortified glass, and shielded domes. Heat signatures marked holding rooms, guard rotations, loading tunnels, and private buyer entrances. The data was incomplete. Auction houses protected inventory more carefully than they protected employees.

Inventory.

My hands curled behind my back.

“Governor Guryon’s daughter is confirmed in this transfer group?” I asked.

Tivid pushed two fingers across his console. A young female appeared above the table. Purple skin, teal hair, delicate ridge line, formal Haloran family jewels digitally blurred around her throat in the image the governor had sent. Kyanna Guryon. Betrothed, indulged, politically valuable, and unfortunate enough to be loved by a man rich enough to pay for her return.