Wayfarer ripped out of warp with a deep thud, dropping into realspace before a thick curtain of silver and grey. Lights dimmed as the ship switched to battery reserve; systems fell silent, and the hum of travel gave way to a quiet so complete it felt deliberate. The grave field surrounded them in slow motion: fractured hulls, torn plating, and millions of flecks of micro-debris forming a dark metallic fog that hissed against Wayfarer's rift field.
Elias waited in Hangman's cockpit, generator off, as it leeched from Wayfarer's battery, struggling to hold temperature. Wayfarer drifted sluggishly left, avoiding a steel carcass split in two, its hull dwarfing their own. The debris thickened near the broken hull, the fog taking on a pearly white hue as they pushed through hundreds of thousands of polymer tubes.
Mike leaned closer, breaking the silence. "It's—"
"Casings," Elias finished.
"From one ship," Mike said, the words catching in his throat.
Hours passed in silence.
The further they went, the darker the field became. Distant light was blotted out by the shroud until visibility dropped to nothing. Wayfarer leaned on its sensor array, struggling through the haze.
A single white light burned ahead. Too bright to be a star. It clung to a hull, illuminating the space around it.
Elias stared at the distant speck, mesmerized by the pitch-black contrast. He shook it off and sat up in the cockpit.
A moment later, Mike registered it too.
Wayfarer brought its eighty-eights to bear. Lethargic on low power, but trained on the contact all the same. Thermal optical sensors magnified the source.
Its body was squat, armored carapace heavy and low, all belly tapering into a single booster. Dozens of other nodes protruded from the segmented plating—maneuvering thrusters layered to the point of redundancy.
Four spindly arms mounted to the front worked in unison beneath the floodlights. Two claws dug into the hull while a cutter and a prying limb worried at an old launcher turret, pulling it by the roots with practiced precision.
The turret tore free in a single, efficient motion and was drawn into a storage intake that resembled a mouth. Another arm reached into the cavity, extracting a long belt of munitions and feeding it into the intake with care, all four arms working in concert.
Then it turned.
Careful. Practiced.
It moved on to another hull—closer.
The distance between them closed as minutes dragged on. Elias'shand hovered over Hangman's startup control. Mike kept his finger resting lightly on the trigger. Neither spoke. Both held their breath as the floodlights slid across Wayfarer's orange hull, washing the edge of the ship in white.
The scavenger turned about. Bringing Wayfarer and Hangman into the hideous light.
Exposing them to the unknown ship. Hangman growled to life, cutting the airlock without a second thought. Wayfarer's generator picked up, lights flickered as all power went to sheilds. Both parties had weapons trained, but neither moved.
The scavenger's light remained fixed on the transport as its operator weighed the numbers. This wasn't a dead frame. It was armed, alert, and carrying an escort.
He could attack. If he won, the haul might be worth it. If anyone asked, the grave field would swallow the truth whole.
Or he could leave.
A second stretched. Then another.
Whatever advantage he'd had evaporated. The fighter was live, reading combat output. The moment had passed.
One floodlight dimmed. Then another. The rest followed.
The scavenger backed away into the dark, never turning its flank to the transport or its escort. Its four mechanical arms lifted and spread, tools open and empty.
A wordless exchange passed between them.
"We don't want trouble"
"Neither do I."
Darkness closed in once more.
Mike broke the silence first. "That just happened,"
"We need to move," Elias said, like it had been his call to make from the start.
Wayfarer answered, thrusters lurching as the transport pushed ahead. Shields shouldered through chunks of steel and drifting shrapnel. Hangman followed, struggling more as she jerked between debris, her rift field burning and hissing against countless flecks.
A narrow corridor opened in their wake.
Distance grew between them and the scavenger encounter. Wayfarer eased off, returning to a cautious drift. Hangman followed wordlessly, lining up on the docking vector—
Then her IFF chirped.
Faint.
Old.
"I've got a contact," Elias said. "Imperial."
"Same here," Mike replied.
"I'm checking it out. Hold vector." Elias nudged Hangman forward toward the contact.
A familiar silhouette resolved through the haze, still painted green as a friendly in Hangman's systems. As if it were unwilling to forget.
A heavy cruiser lay in a dead drift, cannons frozen off-kilter, still aimed at an enemy long since gone. A tight hole had been punched through the port bow, right where its life support once lived.
A single, crippling blow to an otherwise intact ship.