I gulped as I stood there and stared out the windows.

The warship settled into position directly between us and the Hammersmith, and we were looking straight down the barrel of their main armament. I was no expert but I was pretty sure it was a large-bore linear accelerator, just like the Hammersmith had.

In fact the entire ship looked a lot like the Hammersmith, once I tore my eyes off the big gun in the middle and took in the rest of the light-grey armour-plated hull.

Sarah confirmed my suspicions a moment later as she commented, "That's another Lambeth-class frigate. Same design as the Hammersmith."

The captain gestured us both to be quiet and I realized she had her mic in her hand. She keyed it and responded calmly, "I'm Captain Piper of the Merchant Vessel Demeter. And who might you be?"

A male voice responded, "This is the Imperium Starship Kennington, communications officer Dixon speaking. You are ordered to leave this area immediately. This is an Imperium Navy operation, we are taking control of the ISS Hammersmith."

Our captain rolled her eyes but before she responded to them she glanced at me and stated, "Amanda keep watch on the sensors. One eye on that ship, another eye on everything else. If they start powering up weapons or open their hangar doors I want to know about it. Likewise if there's anything else already flying around I want to know before it sneaks up on us."

I quickly moved to take my seat while Piper looked past me and added, "Sarah I'm going to try and avoid a fight-or-flight situation, but just in case I need to know the ship's good to go. If you're more comfortable in the engine room then get back there. But wherever you are, be ready."

"Aye-aye boss," the cute blonde replied. She quickly added, "The Kennington's a sister ship to the Hammersmith. Same fleet as well, she's part of the two-oh-three. I know her chief engineer, Lieutenant Andy Ferguson."

Piper asked, "Do you know anything about her captain?"

Sarah hesitated, "Not directly. Andy mentioned the Kennington's skipper can be tough but fair. Says she's a good captain. And I should add, sister ships in the same fleet means quite a few of the folks on the Kennington knew people on the Hammersmith. They'll have lost friends, so emotions might be running hot."

"Noted. Thanks Sarah," the captain replied as her attention returned to the ship outside the windows.

Our engineer did an about-face and hurried aft, while Jenny settled into the empty engineering seat. Not that she actually needed to sit down. Unless that would save power for her HPD, resting on the seat rather than using its built-in anti-grav to hover in the air. I wasn't sure if that was the case though.

I pushed that thought out of my mind for now, and focused on the sensor readouts in front of me. Though I was still paying attention to the captain too.

"You'll have to wait your turn Kennington," the boss said into her mic. "I've already claimed salvage rights here. According to interstellar law and custom regarding abandoned and derelict vessels, that wreck is my property. I advise you to move off to a minimum distance of one hundred thousand kilometers."

"Negative," the communications officer stated immediately. "That is an Imperium ship, and as such it remains property of the Imperium Navy. Imperium laws are very clear about that Demeter."

Before Piper could respond I spoke up, "Captain we're being scanned. I don't think it's their fire-control system, it seems to be standard short-range sensors."

"No sign of any activity on their weapons," I added.

"I sure hope they don't want their ship's boat back," she grumbled. "After all the trouble we went through to get our hands on it."

She sighed then keyed her mic as she put on her relaxed casual act again. "You might want to have your navigator double-check their charts and get an accurate fix on your position Kennington. This is the Gorath sector, it's not part of your empire. I found that wreck abandoned in open space, as long as I'm here it belongs to me."

There was a slightly longer pause this time, before a different voice addressed us through the comm. This was a woman's voice, she sounded middle aged. She also sounded a bit tougher and angrier than the lieutenant.

"Demeter this is Captain McClure. Do I have to remind you that you are a light freighter, while we are a warship? We don't recognize your salvage claim, the ISS Hammersmith is Imperium property. You will leave the area immediately. If you fail to comply I'm prepared to take drastic action."

Piper glanced at me and in a quiet serious voice stated, "You see any weapons power up over there you tell me immediately. Likewise if their fire-control sensors lock on to us I need to know about it."

"Yes ma'am," I nodded, as I kept my eyes glued to the screens in front of me. "They're scanning the Hammersmith now with their short-range sensors."

I hesitated as I wasn't quite sure what I was seeing, "I think they're using a lot of power on the scan? Like high power, high resolution."

"Noted," the captain replied. Then she thumbed her mic again and stated, "Kennington you're threatening to commit an act of piracy. We're a peaceful ship going about our lawful business in free and open space."

There was another long pause, then my heart skipped a beat as my displays registered action. "They've opened their missile launchers. Four port, four starboard. As far as I can tell they haven't targeted us yet."

"They're targeting the Hammersmith," Jenny stated. "I think they mean to destroy the wreck."

The captain glanced from me back to the AI sitting behind me, but before she could speak up my screens lit up again.

"They're launching!" I gasped.

A moment later we saw them outside the windows. Four points of light streaked out to the left of the Kennington, four more flew to the right. The missiles were each following a different course, some of them angled upwards, some angled down, a few continued to the left, a few to the right.

Piper demanded, "Jenny you're positive they're not targeting us?"

"Yes ma'am," the AI stated.

Sure enough the missiles weren't coming towards us. My sensors continued to track them as I reported, "All of them are turning away from us. Jenny's right, they're converging on the Hammersmith."

A couple seconds later the warheads slammed into the derelict vessel and detonated.

Five of them hit the larger aft section, the other three struck the smaller forward part of the ship. And ironically having the Kennington directly between us and the wreck meant we were more or less shielded from any dangerous debris or radiation caused by the blasts.

My heart was still racing but I focused on the sensor readouts again and reported, "They're closing their missile launchers."

"Thank you Amanda," the captain replied as she frowned at the sight outside the windows.

A growing cloud of debris was visible behind the Kennington. All that remained of the Hammersmith now was a widespread field of small shredded fragments. The largest pieces were probably about the size of our shuttle. And needless to say, it was unlikely there'd be anything left in that mess that was functional. Nothing left to salvage but scrap metal.

After another half minute or so Piper made a decision. "Amanda, start plotting a level-zero course to Regulon-4. Jenny keep an eye on the sensors, watch the Kennington closely incase she tries to stop us."

With that the captain took the controls and started us moving.

We slowly backed away from the Kennington till we had another kilometre or two between us and them, then the captain brought the ship about. A few seconds later the warship was directly behind us, and we began to pick up speed as we put even more space between us and them.

It didn't take long for me to have our course figured out, it would be about two and a half days to get us to the mining colony. There was no further contact with the Kennington, and they didn't challenge us as we left the area.

After about fifteen minutes we accelerated to Jump-0 and that was that. The ship's computer would follow my course, Jenny would watch the sensors, and the three of us headed aft to the mess while Sarah came forward from the engine room.

"I take it things didn't go well?" the cute engineer asked.

The captain got some shot glasses and a bottle out and poured a few drinks as we all sat around the table. As she did that she shrugged, "We're alive, we didn't get boarded or shot at, and they didn't demand we dump the salvage we already retrieved. So from that point of view it was a success."

"They destroyed the Hammersmith," I added. "I guess that was to make sure nobody else could salvage it?"

"Yep," Rebecca nodded as she knocked back a shot. "They probably weren't happy to find us already there working on it."

Jenny commented, "I'm actually surprised they let us leave with what we had? It couldn't be any more blatant, with the Hammersmith's boat docked to our starboard side."

The captain explained, "Anything we'd already got on board was ours. Blowing up the Hammersmith was annoying, but at worst it'd be 'destruction of property'. The most we could do is register a claim against the Imperium, but nobody's going to do anything about it. If they'd boarded us though, or fired on us, or otherwise forced us to relinquish anything on board, that's piracy. And that's a much more serious crime."

After having a sip of her drink Sarah asked, "Why destroy it though? If this was back in the Imperium they'd have mounted a recovery operation to try and get all the crew remains back, and a couple Navy tugs would show up and haul the wreck to a contracted salvage yard."

Rebecca shook her head, "It's probably too far out in the frontier to send their own tugs. And I'm guessing they've got other business in this sector, or maybe they're just not equipped for a prolonged recovery mission. Either way, they wanted to prevent anyone else from scavenging the ship."

"It's not uncommon for Imperium military operations," she added. "If they can't recover their equipment, they destroy it so nobody else can benefit from it."

Sarah grimaced, "Right. Now that you mention it, I recall that happening back in the border war."

I knocked back the shot in front of me, but my own thoughts were already far away from here. The liquid burned its way down, then as I felt the warmth spread out I asked, "So the Kennington has confirmed the Hammersmith's loss. How long before the families are notified?"

My question left everyone quiet for a few moments, till our captain broke the silence.

"Assuming the Navy uses the same protocols as the marines," Rebecca said quietly, "The Kennington's captain will send off a report by FTL back to the fleet sometime in the next few hours. By tomorrow at the latest. That'll work its way through channels which could take another day or so. The Hammersmith hadn't executed any of the secret orders, she was still operating under the public cover story, so there's no need for subterfuge. I'd say two to four days, before the crew's families start receiving the notices."

I sighed, "So our families will probably know by the time we get to the mining colony. Or if not then, they'll definitely know by the time we reach Rolandan-2."

Piper nodded, "Yeah that's about right."

"Are you still thinking of contacting them?" Sarah asked.

I nodded, "Thinking about it, I haven't made any decisions yet. I don't know what I'd tell them either. But I guess I'll have that figured out by the time we get to Mel's shipyard. I'm assuming we'll have a couple days layover there again?"

The captain poured us all another round as she replied, "Depending how things go at the mining colony, we should have two or three days at Rolandan-2. And if you want to send your family a message, there's places in the city where you can do it."

"Thanks Rebecca," I replied.

The three of us all knocked back our second shot, while Jenny pointed out "We've departed the Hammersmith two days earlier than planned. That means we're going to arrive at Regulon-4 two days ahead of schedule. Will that cause us any problems with Mr. Lebeau?"

Piper grimaced, "Not half as many problems as the Imperium Navy boat we're bringing with us."

"So what do we do?" Sarah asked. "We can't exactly hide it."

After a moment the captain asked, "I don't suppose it has any jump capabilities? Jump-0's all I ask."

Sarah shook her head, "Sorry boss. She was just there to move people and equipment to and from the Hammersmith and a planet's surface. At best she could handle inter-system travel, but even that would be slow."

"Ok," Rebecca decided. "Without jump there's no way to hide it. I was thinking we could split up and send the boat on ahead to Rolandan-2 while the Demeter stops at the mining colony, but forget that. We'll just deal with Lebeau's whining when we get back to Ecclestone's World."

She continued, "Tomorrow we drop out of jump and see if the boat's space worthy. We also want to use that special scanner to inspect the two containers we're taking to the mining colony. We'll stay put up to a day and a half while we work on the boat and scanning Lebeau's cargo. Then we resume our course and get to the mining colony on schedule. Maybe a half day early, that shouldn't be a problem."

She continued, "When we get to Regulon-4 we leave the boat in orbit while the Demeter heads down to the mine. If the boat's operational then Amanda and Sarah you two will be on board, so it's not unmanned. I'll make it another quick stopover at the mine, then head back up and grab the boat again and from there we head to Rolandan-2."

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