“Commander, Titan’s Whisper is reporting a slight delay in their timetable for ConSpace transition.” Stacy announced as we all kept at least half an eye on the tactical screens.

  Bathurst was a significant distance from us still, but too close to make a hyperspace jump feasible to cover the distance. It could be done but pinpointing accuracy of that kind is never guaranteed, even with giobhioni technology. We could end up overshooting the mark and end up having to traverse as much conventional space in the end.

  So we were stuck watching the Untangled Knot’s asses while we slowly caught up with them.

  “What’s causing their delay?” Jophixa responded.

  “Seems Fisch managed to get a couple infiltrators into her crew.” Stacy reported. “There is evidence of sabotage aimed at ensuring the battlegroup would never exit hyperspace. They caught one of the saboteurs, but another evaded capture. They are also unaware if it was only Titan’s Whisper that was affected, or if the entire group has. They are scrambling to ensure the transition will be safe, but there is no ETA on it.”

  “Blast!” Jo’s voice was stressed and tired, “Any more bright ideas on how to use what little access you have to slow them down Stacy?”

  “I’m able to access their artificial gravity, comms, lights…”

  I heard Jesse laugh, “Hey Stacy, why not set their lighting to Rave Mode, their artificial gravity on randomize, and…I don’t know, flood their comms with high volume Grompak Rock. It won’t be as spectacular as the bit with the inertia dampeners, but it’ll mess with them.”

  “Oh, I like the way you think, Sis!” Stacy guffawed loudly, “Distraction measures, I can certainly do that! Let me see what kind of chaos I can cause.”

  “You’ve certainly caused enough chaos in my brother’s life!”

  “And he loves me for it!”

  An hour later, there were some serious signs of erratic behavior amidst the enemy fleet. Some of the ships were beginning to lag behind, others pulling further ahead, others still were simply drifting out of formation in random ways. We were seeing weapons fire targeting nothing, and even a few escape pods launched. In general it looked like there was a complete breakdown in discipline between the different elements of the ships.

  “Oh, it is a madhouse over there at the moment.” Stacy put in after we had watched the chaos ahead of us escalate. “It won’t stop them, and I”m sure they’ll lock me out before much longer, but I bought us some time.”

  “You can explain all the havoc you caused later, but good work.” Jo said, “I don’t suppose you were able to identify Fisch’s flagship, were you?”

  “Reassigning tactical indicators now, commander.” And suddenly one of the ships on our sensor feed changed to being marked with a star. “Its name is the Gordian Knot. Would you like me to try to open a comms channel? I can actually patch in the holo feed from the bridge if you want, I managed to tap into the lines going to their flight recorder.”

  “I would very much appreciate that Stacy.”

  “Patching you in now.” And Stacy, bless her digital heart, patched the feed into the holomonitor in engineering as well.

  The bridge was a mad tumult of light and sound. The deck’s lighting was a frenetic, random pulsing of every colour in the visible spectrum, bathing everything in the visual pandemonium of the wildest, dust-fueled rave that one could imagine. Wild cacophonous sounds assaulted the ears in crashing beats and the scream of instruments that bordered on the range of pain to the human ear. Through the pulsing of the lights, we caught sight of random objects around the deck being flung about by bedlam of momentary reversals of gravity.

  Strapped into their seats, one or two bridge officers were obviously in states of full on ataxia, muscles seizing as if they’d been jolted by some unseen electric current source.

  Stacy only allowed a moment of the havoc to play out for us before the sound cut off, the lights steadied, and a dozen small objects clattered to the deck. “You’re on Commander.” She said quietly.

  “Gordian Knot, this is Commander Jophixa Throhx of the Giobhioni ship Elegance of Light.” Her voice was hard as Duranium, “We are operating in conjunction with, and at the behest of Admiral LeBeau of Terran Commonwealth FleetSec. You are in violation of Interstellar law for operating without active transponders. You are also closing on a ship which has been declared off limits and quarantined. You will stand down or suffer the consequences.”

  “Who put that message through?” the man sitting in the command chair demanded, and we could see several of the bridge crew shake their heads, and one explained that it seemed their comms systems had been hacked and it was also being broadcast to all decks. “Well what are you all doing! Lock them out! The old man is going to…”

  “Going to what?” asked a new voice, one we all knew belonged to the disreputable Mr. Benson Fisch. “Demand an explanation for how incompetent you all are to let them hijack our systems so easily?”

  “Mr Fisch, I…”

  “Just shut up. You can give me your useless excuses later.” Fisch did not seem to be in a very good mood. I could also make out a hint of something dark dripping out of his left ear. “Well Commander Throhx, congratulations on this…”, he turned and glanced at the crewman twitching violently in their seat. “Mess you managed to create in my fleet. It’s too bad the Admiral won’t make it here to back you up.”

  “Mr Fish.” Jo responded, deliberately mispronouncing his name in a petty way I hadn’t expected from her. “I wouldn’t count on her absence. They already caught your saboteur, They’ll be here any minute, just surrender and make this easier on yourself. I understand you are already in a heap of trouble.”

  A faint smile tugged at the edges of the ruthless corporate’s face, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” he stated calmly, “I haven’t done anything related to sabotage, I simply heard tell that the admiral was experiencing significant delays in hyperspace. But if she indeed captured a saboteur, it would be wise for her to assume that where there is one, there are more.”

  “You really aren’t as clever as you think you are Mister Fish. Does your crew understand what is waiting for them if there is contagion on board the Bathurst?” Jo sighed and shook her head. “In all my time fighting this thing, I’ve never encountered someone so egotistically stupid as to want to capture, repurpose, and release a plague that forces any species to metamorphose into another. You’re aware that it can penetrate the types of material your people use for EVA suits, aren’t you? Or is that the idea? You let your people go over there unprepared, get infected, only to come back and be locked into a quarantine lab so you can gut them for study?”

  Through the holocomm, we could see some of the junior bridge officers turn and stare at Fisch in concern. It was obvious that not everyone in the knowledge of the contagion was being kept close to the vest. Even the Captain gave the corporate bigot a half concealed stink-eye.

  “You’re wasting your time, Throhx.” Fisch finally retorted, “And we’re just here to render aid to a ship in distress. We received a distress signal from Bathurst some time ago, and I don’t know how it is in your section of the galaxy, but here, we’re obligated to render aid in such circumstances. You are an unknown, and we do not acknowledge your authority here. For all we know, you are the ones behind what happened on the Journeyman and are now here to cover the whole thing up. Your authorization is either forged, or gained through lies and fabrications.

  “This battle group will defend itself while it renders aid. You are only two ships, we have you outnumbered. Do the smart thing and withdraw before someone gets an itchy trigger finger.”

  “Are you sure I’ve only two ships, Flounder?” and Jo flashed him a predatory, shark toothed grin, “there are only two humans that know a damned thing about giobhioni technology, and they are here on this ship. For all you know, I have a dozen cruisers hiding in stealth right now, just waiting for you to make the wrong move. How’s your nerve, Mister Fish? Just these two ships took out three corvettes and a couple dozen of your fighters. A dozen of our warships would turn you into little more than debris within seconds.”

  “You’re bluffing.” Fisch sneered at her, “If you had backup, you’d have brought them in when we first converged on you.”

  “You know nothing of giobhioni honour or guile Mr Trout.” Again Jo flashed those teeth, I got the impression that if she’d had something like a pepperoni stick handy, she’d have bitten into it just to demonstrate their effectiveness. “We absolutely love going into fights outnumbered. So what do you say? I think it was one of your human performers who said ‘Do you feel lucky, punk?’”

  “Captain, I want that ship sucking vacuum, pronto.”

  “Aye, Mr Fisch. Tactical, lock targets, fire at…”

  Suddenly we were hearing alarms going off on the bridge of Gordian Knot. I thought for a moment maybe the Admiral had managed to deal with the sabotage and transition to conspace just in time, but an instant after their alarms went off, so did ours. Boudya and I glanced at each other across engineering, wondering what fresh hell we were dealing with now. Had a ktonshi vessel transitioned in the vicinity instead? Would Cutlass get to trial the kaon lance against the threat it had been built for?

  But then our tactical alert cut off, and a voice full of duranium announced through our feed to Fisch’s ship, “Benson Fisch, this is Captain Har’sholi of the Benastian Cooperative battle cruiser Arstrina. We are here at the direct request of Prime Minister Mendala to contain this situation until Admiral LeBeau can arrive. You and your fleet will stand down, and you personally will hand yourself over according to Terran Commonwealth interstellar warrant 87391-B. Do not make us open fire on you Mr. Fisch, I’m sure our giobhioni friend there is an honourable warrior and would give you a quick death, but the Prime Minister wants you alive, even if that means you are a head in a jar.”

  “This is none of your business, blue skinned freak.” Fisch growled.

  “Now, now, Benson,” The benastian captain chided the corporate renegade, the smile on her face turning almost as savage as Jo’s, “I believe by Terran Commonwealth laws, as someone who is to be placed under arrest, you have the right to remain silent. I suggest you exercise it, as I only promised the Prime Minister I would try to make sure you were brought in alive. I’m on record as demanding your surrender, so if you continue to spout bigoted garbage at me, I’ll take it as resisting arrest. Do go board a shuttle and bring your ugly pink ass over to my ship.”

  “Captain?” Fisch asked, still glaring daggers at the benastian. But there was a set to his shoulders I didn’t like, and through my feed in engineering, I could see Jophixa scowling now too.

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  “Yes?”

  “Relay to all ships, fire at will!”

  Railgun and beam fire lit up the void, slicing across it towards the benastian battleship, and the ion trails of torpedoes wove their way through the turret fire. Toftri, luckily seemed to have been expecting that, and sent us into a series of evasive maneuvers to avoid the weapons fire that were directed our way.

  On the holocomms channel, Captain Har’sholi continued to grin savagely, as all that fire lit up her ship's shields. “So it’s a courting party you want, Benson? We’ll need more dancers for that.” and she nodded off to the side.

  The tactical alarms went off again as multiple transition signatures obscured the stars around us. The immediate vicinity suddenly became very crowded as ship after benastian ship popped back into conspace, their cylindrical, cobalt blue hulls bristling with turrets ready to open fire. “Take out any ship still firing in 5 Krats, but aim to disable the Gordian Knot. I really want to see what the Terran Prime Minister has in store for him.”

  In the next seven and a half seconds - or 5 krats - multiple ships in the Untangled Knot fleet broke off and made a run for it. Their captains were, thankfully, aware enough not to flee in the direction of Bathurst so no fire ended up directed at them. The better part of their numbers still continued firing, and it wasn’t long before the benastian fleet returned fire. Almost at the exact same instant, Jophixa let loose with our own weapons systems,

  “Drones have Gordian Knot set to primary target, Commander.” Stacy announced, “as well as helping with point defence, taking out torpedoes wherever I can get a good shot.”

  “Good plan Stacy, keep the heat on him.” Jo acknowledged, “How’s Cutlass holding up under all this fire?”

  “Cutlass is…” I heard Jesse stammer in confusion, “Where the hell did they go?”

  “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, as pa used to say!” Gerturde broke in over comms, “Mr. Corposhit over there isn’t the only one that can disable their transponder. We snuck over to the Bathurst while you guys had them distracted, and we got problems! There are ktonshi crawling all over the hull!”

  Curses echoed throughout the ship as everyone took that in. We’d all been hoping that the crew of Bathurst had avoided infection, even as we knew that with them having gone silent, it wasn’t likely.

  “Do you have a clear firing solution?” Jo asked

  “We do. Spannerman advised against using ROG. I assume conventional weapons should work since they haven’t converted the ship yet?”

  I felt the ship surge around us as Toftri threw us into a roll and the ship’s dynamic beam weapons let loose again. Tactical showed one of the enemy destroyers wink out of existence. Nice shooting Jo, I thought, then heard her say in a rush, “Yes, they should be enough. We’ve got authorization, end them.”

  “Roger Elegance, Ending them with extreme prejudice.”

  Moments later, the muted shockwave from Bathurst’s reactor core losing containment struck our shields. At this distance, it wasn’t anywhere near enough to cause even a blip on their power levels, but it signaled that at least that part of this situation had been dealt with. Or at least, I’d thought so for a moment.

  “Bathurst is scrap!” Giselle announced over comms, moments before we heard alarms go off from their end. “What in nova’s blast… They’ve webbed us! Elegance, we’ve got three ktonshi survivors that have somehow managed to catch us with some kind of webbing. They’re trying to pull themselves in towards us!”

  “Stacy, see if you can’t sever those webs with your drones!” Jophixa barked out. “Cutlass, see if evasive maneuvers can generate enough gravitational force to slow their progress.”

  “Roger, Elegance.”

  I watched the screens as Gertrude put Void’s Cutlass through a dizzying sequence of aerobatic maneuvers. Just watching the split second turns, rolls and yaws made me queasy. I knew if I’d been on board that ship I'd have needed a barf bag for sure. I had no idea how the twins could even stay conscious during all those extreme course changes, but the ship did not, at any moment, appear to have lost control. In fact, at one point, Gertrude was able to close on one of the Untangled Knot ships, and use it to bludgeon on of the ktonshi, causing it to lose its grip on the silken rope it held onto, and go tumbling off into the black.

  Angry and panicked chaos erupted over on the Gordian Knot. Fisch was browbeating the captain to turn and go after the tumbling ktonshi, while the captain was fully occupied with dodging incoming fire from the benastian fleet.

  I ground my teeth until my jaw popped. It’d suck as surely as a hard vacuum if Fisch managed to get his hands on a ktonshi, alive or dead. No matter how it turned out, it’d be bad for the entirety of the Orion spur. My heart raced as I watched his ship speed off towards it, but I knew better than to doubt Jo.

  Behind me, I heard our conspace engines ramp up, to intercept levels, and felt the telltale hum of the inertia dampeners through the deck plating that said we’d rapidly changed course. Seconds later I heard Jesse put in over comms “Arstrina, this is Elegance. We’re breaking off to pursue Gordian Knot. We cannot allow them to seize a ktonshi prisoner. Requesting covering fire.”

  “You’ve got it Elegance.” came the reply, “Give ‘em hell. Cap says if you disable his ship, she’s got a case of Hansinii rum for your crew to share.”

  “We’ll do our best, Arstrina! We’ve got debts to collect.”

  With the furious thrumming of the engines in my ears, I turned my attention back to the engineering console, working to make sure I could catch any warning signs before any stresses could sneak up on us. Toftri was pushing the engines hard, and they could quite easily rupture a containment seal, or burn out any number of vital circuits.

  “Bouda, we need to shunt some of the excess heat or the engines won’t last long enough to catch them. Be prepared to divert cryogenics away from non-essential systems.” I called out, then patched into the bridge, “Commander, engines are holding for now, but we’re preparing to shunt cooling from non-essentials. It’d be a good idea to make sure everyone has their helmets sealed in case we need to pull from life support as well.”

  “Acknowledged, Spanner.” Jo replied, using an abbreviated form of the nickname Gertrude had given me. “This shouldn’t take much longer.”

  Even though I was keeping a close watch on the engineering readouts, I spared a glance at the tactical screen every few moments to check our distance to target. We were definitely closing on them, but I wasn’t sure we’d be able to catch them before they’d catch the ktonshi. I furiously looked for a way to squeeze even a few more megajoules of thrust out of the engines, but everything I did just caused more thermal stress in the system. Eventually, I couldn’t delay any longer, and entered the command to shunt cryogenics into the propulsion systems. It wasn’t a magic cure for how hard we were pushing things, but it would stave off disaster for a while.

  “Come on, beautiful.” I whispered, resting one hand against the console, closing my eyes momentarily, “You got this. Just hold out until we catch them, and I’ll personally scrub and calibrate every injector and harmonizer. I promise.”

  “Commander!” Jesse called out, “they’re firing a grapple line.”

  “With it still alive? Is Fisch insane? Stacy, do we still have a line into their comms?”

  “Affirmative, Commander.”

  “Put me on.” Jo ordered, and when Stacy confirmed she had the mic said, “Fisch, you don’t want to give that thing a way onto your ship. We giobhioni have been fighting those things since before humans had even discovered all the planets in your own system. If you try to bring that thing aboard, I will end you before you are a threat to the rest of the galaxy. Heave to and surrender.”

  There was no reply from Fisch, nor from the captain of the Gordian Knot, though we could clearly see the captain quietly arguing with Fisch. In the meantime, the grapple line had spun out towards the tumbling, arachnid form of the ktonshi.

  You’d think the horrific creature would have been disoriented considering the rate in which it was tumbling through the void, but no; When the grapple came close to it, a pair of its legs shot out and latched onto the cable. Soon after that, it managed to stabilize itself and begin crawling up the grapple line in the same way a terran spider scurried up one of its webs.

  Our weapons started rapid firing at Fisch’s ship, and I wasn’t sure if Jo was aiming to actually commit the man to the void, or simply cause them to have to maneuver so wildly that they shook the ktonshi loose. Whichever it was, she wasn’t succeeding in either. Fisch’s helmsman seemed to be nearly the match for Toftri, dodging every shot Jo sent his way, even managing to avoid the two torpedoes she sent barreling towards them.

  The engines started to make sounds I really didn’t like, reminding me of a cross between nails on a chalkboard and a feral cat being given a bath for the first time. They were definitely hitting their limits. “Commander, we need to back off on the engines! They’re about ready to throw the worst tantrum ever.”

  “Strixta!” she cursed out loud. “I’m going to try aiming for the ktonshi itself. Maybe that’ll knock it loose.”

  “Make it quick Commander,” I warned her, “I don’t relish us being dead in the water with all these Corpo goons shooting wildly.”

  And as if I’d summoned Murphy himself to enact his law, there was a deafening bang, and coolant began to shoot out from several conduits around the engines. The temperature in engineering shot up rapidly and if it weren’t for our suits, Boudya and I likely would have been roasted alive. “Activating blast doors, sealing the deck. Boudya, vent the compartment before we cook!”

  “On it!” she shouted, and a moment later, I felt the rapid change in pressure as engineering was void of atmosphere. Even with our suits, I knew we were going to have to get Tratsa to check us over after the exposure to the extreme heat from the coolant leak, but for now, we had to deal with the engines.

  “Commander, engines have lost coolant! I’m sorry, but it’s likely to be a bit before we can get them back online!”

  The swearing that came from the bridge was enough to make even the worst roughneck blush, but eventually it ended with, “They’re going to get away with that thing! Cutlass, can you assist?”

  “Negative, Elegance, we’re too far away. We’ll just have to hope…”

  “Transition Alert!” Jesse called out, "Aperture is right on top of us!”

  “Who the hell…”

  “Gordian Knot.” a voice hard as the highest grade duranium called out over comms, “This is Admiral LeBeau, you will cut that grapple line loose, heave to, and prepare to be boarded. This is your one and only warning. You can take your chances standing trial, or you can suck vacuum, it’s your choice.”

  Glancing over at the tactical display as I unbuckled from my seat and made towards the engine to begin repairs, I saw the giant profile of Titan’s Whisper begin disgorging dozens of Class-E fighters, as well as a few larger gunboats. LeBeau was not messing around now that she was in the midst of things.

  “They’ve set up an interdiction field.” my sister called out, causing me to pause for a moment. Those things took huge amounts of power to keep going, and usually didn’t cover a large area. They weren’t generally seen as a worthwhile expense, which was the only reason we didn’t see more pirates using them.

  On the feed from Gordian Knot, we were shocked to see the Captain haul off and knock Fisch on his ass with an unexpected haymaker punch, then call out for the grapple to be cut loose. But rather than heave to and surrender, our tactical alerts went off again. “Tunnel aperture forming. Commander, they’re…”

  “Blast!” Jo shouted, “He had some sort of transition field stabilizer. How the hell did he get one of those!”

  “Titan’s Whisper to Elegance of Light,” the Admiral called over the comm, “We’re reading a large amount of cryogenics venting from your aft section. Are you in need of assistance?”

  “Appreciate the offer, Admiral. We may require some help with parts if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m sure we can arrange that. We’ll make sure the rest of those Knotty Boys are either in custody or running for their lives, then dock up. I’m looking forward to a tour of your ship.”

  End Volume 3

  The Salvager’s Plague.

  Ko-Fi or on