“They’re hiding in the debris field,” said Corporal Chaasker.

  “Quite poorly, might I add,” Commodore der Waals said on the wallscreen.

  Corporal Chaasker highlighted a sector of space revealing the signature of the three pirate vessels where they rested, obscured by the fragments of broken structures that remained of a long destroyed Herd station. Their ships were dormant, attempting to lay silent in the underbrush until the danger of the Kolkata and the rest of the Third Fleet passed them by.

  The Third Fleet had been searching the systems on the edge of Sovereignty space for any trace of these pirates, only to come up short each time. Sometimes, a short engagement with the faster ships in the fleet would result in the destruction of a smattering of ramshackle pirate vessels while the rest of their own ships fled the battle, only for them to find they had been decoys. Oftimes, only a whisper of their ships would linger ahead of the Third Fleet’s arrival.

  The chase had seen the fleet through weeks of systems of dying stars, smashed stations, and barren worlds, following up on leads from merchant naval officers, vasser and Herd traders, and stranded civilian transports; all victims of the same pirate throng. It was as if the fleet was chasing ghosts, with the bedraggled force that was the pirate collective always one step ahead. Not even the Quisabar primarchs could offer anything more than a shred of disinterested rumour ever since they had eliminated their lost warship and departed this region of space; the inciting incident that landed the Third Fleet in this hunt in the first place.

  It was a state of cat-and-mouse that would have made lesser men doubt their own convictions. Karim however knew better. He knew that it was only a matter of time before the pirates made a critical error that would lose them steam and with it their lead.

  “You think this is the location of this pirate stronghold of yours, Lior?” Karim asked.

  Der Waals sighed, “No. It’s rather unlikely. My take is that we’ve caught them undertaking some salvage from the old station.”

  A marvel of engineering in the long distant past, the old Herd station now hung as a husk in space as carrion like the pirates picked away at its disparate corpse. Lyonesse Station, close to the heart of the Tristan system, was a remnant of a time of war in the fledgling days of both the Sovereignty and the Herd’s splintering from its ranks. Being composed of far flung worlds and stations much like this one, The Herd found a need to diversify and expand outside the confines of the Hold Worlds. As such, Lyonesse was a secret supply depot, a secret that was in due course found out and clipped by Karim’s long dead predecessors.

  “Going dark won’t save them here,” said Karim. “I wonder if they would like to talk?”

  “And give away our advantage?” asked der Waals, “They don’t know we know they’re out there.”

  “I would consider them stupid if they believed that. Their conduct in concealing themselves these past few weeks begs to differ,” Karim stated. “And besides, with the light delay between our two fleets, We wouldn’t know if they were already on the move until it was too late.”

  “So if we know they’re here, and they know we know they’re here, what are we waiting for?” pushed der Waals.

  Karim pursed his lips in tandem with his brow and nodded.

  “Chaasker, open a bulletin, wide-band,” ordered Karim, “I’ll see if we can end this chase here and now.”

  Chaasker punched a command and nodded to him.

  Karim cleared his voice, “To all Sovereignty citizens turned blaggard playing phantom in amongst the debris field, this is Fleet Admiral Karim Ashok of the Third Fleet. I wish only to speak with one of your representatives. Please respond or I will be forced to move upon your position.”

  After several moments of an impatient der Waals still hanging on the wallscreen, another image flickered into view, that of a cleancut almost naval-looking sort.

  “This is Aiden,” said the man, his words short.

  “Hello Aiden,” Karim said, “I take it you’re in charge here?”

  “Question here first; how do I know your fleet is not already on the move towards us?”

  “You have only my word,” argued Karim.

  “Suppose that’s not very good to begin with, what then? Tell me, what’s a Fleet Admiral doing way the hell out here? Surely you’re not here on my accord.”

  “If you are the master of these ships, and the swell of villainy in the sector,” Karim started, “then yes.”

  “That makes this a touch difficult then, Karim. I can call you Karim?”

  “Fleet Admiral,” Karim corrected, though he knew that had little chance of sticking.

  “Apologies, my decorum has been lacking of late,” said Aiden. “As has my number of ships and men, I take it I have you to thank for that?”

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  “The Sovereignty will not abide theft from its citizens or trading partners.”

  “The Sov won’t abide much of anything,” argued Aiden. “Tell me, what now– are you to lumber over and sack us into dust?”

  “I would rather not be the cause of more senseless violence,” said Karim, the voices of his grandmother and father ringing in his ear in agreement for once. “You would do your crew well to come quietly.”

  “My crew and I are square, it’s you that need decide what to do with the information I’m about to send you.”

  Karim, puzzled, looked to der Waals who shrugged. Seconds later, a closed document appeared on the bulletin.

  “Here,” said Aiden, “let me unlock that for you.”

  Karim’s terminal chirped, registering a command code decrypting the document. A wall of text spilled out. At its top were the words:

  Terran Sovereignty, A Letter of Marc

  Karim read it a few times, hoping to change the meaning behind the words. The document in question, Karim knew was a contract of sorts. Granting him and his crew clemency for any act of piracy or incidental bloodshed against the Sovereignty’s enemies, labelling Aiden and his ilk privateers under the crown.

  “I can see from your face that you’re less than amused. Those there are the genuine article, signed by our majesty, Karess Margit herself.”

  “How is it you came into possession of these?” Karim pushed, his patience waning.

  “A gift for a job well done,” Aiden explained. “But that’s neither here nor there. What you have now is a choice. Pursue me and face court martial, or let me and my folk wander back into the night.”

  “Hold on now,” said Karim, “We’re not at war, ergo The Sovereignty has no enemies. What you’re doing is in violation of these letters.”

  “Truth is subjective, mister Fleet Admiral. What you take on face as allies, I see more as leeches syphoning off the resources of these outer worlds, to the detriment of those who live here. To me, a condign an honourable Sovvo, it is my duty to root out those that would cause my fellow obscure citizens harm, lest we be made pale and lost.”

  “By killing others? Sacking transports and leaving them to drift? By attacking our vasser and Herd allies?”

  “Please, Admiral, those allies are only in it for their own gain, and the transports you speak of, well– casualties and acceptable losses, minor in the scheme of the greater prosperity of the region.”

  Karim was nearly done with this, the man seemed hell bent on repartee regardless of reason. Thinking about ending the bulletin and ordering the fleet into action, he was interrupted by a text bulletin from Commodore der Waals on a private channel.

  “This is pointless. Push him into giving us his base of operations. There we can route him out.”

  He cleared his throat, centred himself, and spoke, “Aiden, Letters of Marc or no, attacking the helpless does not make you honourable, it is a selfish act and brands you as such.”

  “I stand in defiance of that, Admiral. Killing a horse to save a village is the charity that my people need now,” argued Aiden. For Karim, that was the last straw.

  “Spoils begotten by death and atrocity are as far from any semblance of charity, boy,” Karim growled. He may not have approved of the path his father and mother had led, but damned if he was going to watch it be wielded like this by some prince of thieves.

  Aiden replied with only a grunt and a sardonic smirk.

  “You steal, you lie, and you justify your actions in the benefit of yourself, and yourself alone. There are no people that would have you willingly. No haven that would allow you home. You are nothing,” said Karim.

  “I see you, Admiral. I see your own deeds– know your type,” said Aiden, coolly. “Don’t act like you’re some paragon of virtue. You are a killer, same as me. You just have a fancier seat.”

  Another text from der Waals came in:

  “You’re losing him. We need the location of that stronghold.”

  Caught between two vexing forces, Karim was beginning to find der Waals’ insistence grating, and oddly anomalous. Aiden’s ships were still within the Schrodinger's sphere of light-delay, wherein their actual position had yet resolved into Karim’s universe.

  “No, Aiden. I see you, I stand, and I challenge you. The Karess would not validate your wrongdoings and neither will I. Flee now to safe harbour, I hope those citizens you claim to serve come to sense and cast you out. You will have nowhere to run.”

  “Wrong again, Admiral. I know what you are trying, and it will not work. My home is safe outside the Sovereignty’s grip. You have no jurisdiction over us, and never will,” Aiden spat. “Your own has seen to that.”

  “You don’t see everything. Bad men never do,” Karim said. Gesturing to Chaasker, he gave an order which enacted a plan he had been cooking under der Waals’ and Aiden’s nose. Shielded from the pirate ship’s sensors, and to that of the rest of the Third Fleet, The Kolkata’s twin battle generators were spinning at full force.

  Hammering the command on her terminal, Chaasker engaged the wake cannon and fired a blast in the direction of the debris field and Aiden’s ships.

  “Weapon successfully discharged, readings nominal,” Chaasker said, an announcement that Karim allowed the pirate prince to hear, along with der Waals and the rest of the captains of his fleet.

  “What are you doing!?”, Der Waals’ sent in panicked response.

  “Aiden, I trust you know that this will be the close of our conversation,” said Karim.

  “Aye,” he replied, “and in spectacular display of Sovereignty vigour. Is that a new weapon?”

  Nonplussed by the man’s stark reaction, he could immediately feel the cause.

  Moments later, the wake from the weapon arrived at the debris field, tearing apart what once had been a thriving Herd Station. Now, the debris field annihilated in a cloud of dust and gas. Seconds after, Karim’s instinct was validated with a rebuttal from the one man that shouldn’t have been able to.

  After the blast subsided and telemetry restored itself, the box-shroud of light-delay opened to reveal Aiden’s ships nearing the exit of the system, having long since departed their hiding spot in amongst the wreckage, likely having done so prior to The Third Fleet’s arrival.

  “Shame for you to have wasted such a shot,” Aiden smirked. “I moved our ships out the way before you even hatched the notion to fire on us. Good thing too, I wouldn’t want a mark on your service record of killing helpless Sovereignty contractors.”

  “Go then. Run. But leave your excuses in the void where they belong and drop your feigned virtue.” Karim said, “Save it for better men.”

  As Aiden’s ships neared the exit of the system, he let out one last haughty smirk.

  “That’s the trouble, there are no better men.”

  The pirate ships opened a rift and lept out of the system, leaving nothing but the expanding debris cloud racing to their last known location.

  “I can’t believe you let them go,” der Waals said over the wallscreen bulletin, in flagrant question of his own command.

  “Careful, Commodore. Promptly I shall have an inquiry on these Letters of Marc. One among our realm has hands on this and I will ascertain who,” Karim said, dropping the call where it dangled on the last knot of his rope.