Space is vast, and one might expect it to be nearly impossible to encounter a ship emerging from Etherspace by chance. In practice, the opposite is true. The same gravity wells that restrict our use of Etherspace also define it. There are only a handful of viable entry regions into any system. Each may span hundreds of thousands of kilometers, but on an interplanetary scale, that is a remarkably small target.

  – Orlos Vindalor, Etherphysicist

  “That was Gristlemaw?”

  The navigation room had become the de facto meeting place for after action reports, even though only Naven, Sallus, and Apex himself were present for them. The room could accommodate many more than the two bodies that used it, but with the crew still numbering at a measly nineteen bodies and one dragon soul, the command crew didn’t need to be big.

  Sallus slumped into a chair, looking much more tired than normal. She rubbed her temples with her fingers, as if soothing a headache, while Naven sputtered across from her.

  “It was his ship, at least,” Sallus admitted. “I never heard anything about him choosing a successor, at least.”

  Naven let out a long breath, sliding his hands through his hair as he thumped his elbows onto the table. He stared at the table in thought, eyes wide and distant.

  It was at this point that Apex felt he should ask about the problem. “It was an impressive ship, but I cannot help but feel I am missing some context.”

  Naven looked up with worried eyes. “Famous pirate. Too famous. You and Sallus play at being pirates, but Gristlemaw was – is – the real deal. I’m sure the loot he secured was nice, but as far as anyone knew, he mostly did it for the fun of it. That ship, the Rattling Saber, terrorized half the Coalition for decades before just vanishing one day, about a century ago. Everyone assumed a misjump, or that Gristlemaw died of old age and his crew splintered.”

  “Hmm.” The dragon’s rumble was thoughtful this time. “The ship was very big, but it looked to be in less than perfect shape. If we are careful, we should be able to outrun it.”

  “Don’t count on that,” Sallus muttered. “Bigger ships can carry larger reactors, that scale up faster. Their inertial compensators are measurably more powerful, and the Rattling Saber had even better ones than were normal for the time. They can probably push fifteen Gs for hours, maybe more if they’ve made improvements.”

  Naven nodded. “And even an old cruiser mounts enough weapons to make it a problem if you try to close in with them. Even if they’re just using visual sighting, they can put enough ordnance in the area that you’re unlikely to dodge long enough to latch on to the hull.”

  Apex grumbled loudly. “How is a mere pirate able to own such a mighty ship? How did he afford it in the first place?”

  “You can’t just buy a cruiser like that,” Naven agreed. “The going theory is that he found one that was damaged but repairable, and salvaged it. But even that would have been very difficult for an unknown pirate. He showed up with it, and only became famous afterwards. For a while, every Principality was accusing the others of funding him, but he kept hitting everyone. Nobody is sure how the ship is maintained, either.”

  Sallus leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Parth gave it to him.”

  That got Naven’s attention. His head snapped up with a scowl on his face. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would Parth give a pirate a cruiser? Where would he get one? Parth is one of the Wanderers.” The man paused with his scowl turning into a thoughtful frown. “Though I suppose even a Wanderer would have a lot of pull. It still doesn’t make sense, though.”

  The elf waved her hand with an annoyed frown. “No, not the cruiser. He probably did salvage that. Parth just gave him the ability to maintain it. I’m not sure why, he never seemed to be the most stable of the heroes to begin with. I couldn’t guess.”

  Before Naven could interrupt again, she went into more detail. “Parth had an artifact that he gave to Gristlemaw. It allowed Gristlemaw to replace or enhance certain functions of his ship using magic and strange rituals. It’s related to the technology and rituals we used to install Apex into the ship, but I don’t think any necromancy was involved. I’m not sure about that part.”

  Apex growled softly. “I am also curious why, though I gather he is one of my murderers.”

  A heavy sigh slipped from Sallus. “Wanderer is just the term for one of the heroes who did not choose to found a Principality. A lot of them ruled some kingdom or another for a time before we expanded into space, and decided they didn’t like it. That’s why there are only seven Principalities. As for why… you’ve lived for ages, why would you do such a thing?”

  After a long moment of consideration, the dragon rumbled an answer. “Boredom, most likely.”

  Sallus nodded. “Exactly. After thousands of years, they don’t really think like mortals any more.” She slapped a hand down onto the table. “But this is drifting away from the real problem of Gristlemaw.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  That prompted Naven to lean forward. “Agreed. He seemed to be waiting for us, unless we just happened to stumble upon his hiding place. But if he was that easy to find I’d imagine it would have happened ages ago. And if it really is him… we don’t even know much about him or how he’ll act. Is he working with the cartel? Are they on to our plan?”

  “Mmm.” Sallus closed her eyes and tried to relax in her chair. “He’d be very old by now. He was old when he started this, and maybe that’s why he’s here. Kaleidoscope has some uses in retarding the aging process. Or maybe he just ages differently. He’s an orf, and we don’t see enough of those to know if they linger on in old age. A century extra seems like a lot, though.”

  All of this was making Apex stall as he tried to catch up. The dragon could think very quickly, but unfamiliar terms made that hard. “Wait. An orf?” A moment later, before they could answer, he guessed by himself. “Ork-elf hybrid? I didn’t know that was possible.”

  “It’s very rare,” Naven agreed. “They normally can’t conceive together. I wasn’t aware they’d ever found out who he was, though.” He turned toward Sallus. “You think he’s working with them? So they do know we’re here?”

  By this point the elf had opened her eyes again and was drumming fingers on the table. “I’m not sure, but I think he‘s either there for his own reasons, or to chase us. Gristlemaw has always done things for the challenge, and Apex would sound like a new and unique challenge. I’m not sure how he’d have known we would be there unless he also knew about the trade routes, and figured out our plan from watching what we were doing.”

  “Do we need to worry about it now?” Naven asked. “I imagine this means we shouldn’t linger in the systems we check out, but if cartel forces are waiting for us in the next one, we’ll know they’re on to us.”

  Sallus sighed. “That’s all we can do, is get in and find out if this is the target, then get out.”

  At first, Apex hadn’t understood what Sallus had meant by a ‘resort’ world. Even once the concept had been explained, he’d struggled to grasp why anyone would go out into the middle of nowhere, in an area known to be run by criminal syndicates, just to relax. It didn’t seem reasonable for the wealthy to go so far from their center of power, to him.

  He was glad that he’d insisted on more clarification. Periphery worlds would often have shakier technology bases, but not always… and this was one of those exceptions. The reason the wealthy retreated here was because their wealth could give them luxury without the watchful eye of too much government. The local Enforcers would still patrol, but it was unlikely they would look too closely at the tourists that brought in so much money. All that wealth could also bring in many of the comforts of home.

  This meant Apex was prepared to be monitored the moment he jumped into system. Immediately, he could tell that there was quite a bit more traffic in the area. Small patrol ships zipped about, inter-system freighters transporting goods from offworld warehouses to the main settlements, and likely other signals he couldn’t figure out without spending more time on it.

  He couldn’t cloak coming out of Etherspace… yet. But the moment he materialized, he sheathed himself in another disguise. Rather than vanishing off scanners, Apex lowered his heat output, storing the excess in his containment yet leaving enough of a signal to look like a smaller transport. He still wasn’t beaming his identification codes, but Sallus and Naven both insisted this would give him more time to move without arousing suspicion.

  That had been the plan, anyway.

  Apex already knew this system wasn’t the target. He could feel his Essence in another direction, even closer than the last system he’d been in. It was not toward the fancy resort world. Sallus had insisted it was a possibility because the regular auroras the tourists paid to see might also be able to hide some kind of activity, but his own senses told him that if they were hiding something, it was not the hero he sought.

  He entered into a light burn, a gentle two G’s of acceleration toward the planet, and kept his heat signature low. He’d swing close enough to confirm the traffic couldn’t justify what Sallus wanted, then ask her to recalculate a new jump under the excuse that Gristlemaw might find them.

  Mere minutes after he’d started the burn, another Etherglide signature manifested nearby.

  “Signature about… 36k kilometers. Keep an eye on…” Naven paused his routine statement. “SHIT!”

  “High-G maneuvers in fifteen seconds.” Apex announced the message to the entire crew as he expanded his wings, killed his heat signature fully, and aligned the boosters. Even waiting a mere fifteen seconds, the sudden burst of speed barely avoided the streak of a mana beam along his side. More shots peppered the space around him as the dragon jinked to the side and rattled his passengers even through the compensators. He knew his thrusters would give him a visible signature, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

  “How did they find us so quickly?” Naven asked, grunting as he was pressed back into his seat.

  Sallus groaned, but through a pained hiss, she answered. “I don’t think they did. I think they knew we were coming and where we’d most likely jump. I was stupid.”

  “Too late now!” Apex barked in annoyance at his navigator. Behind him, the behemoth of the Rattling Saber was turning toward him while filling space with a flurry of projectiles, both energy and physical. He could feel MADAR-guided missiles trying to lock on, and it was all he could do to confuse their signals while keeping himself somewhat cloaked. In just a few minutes, he was forced to use his point defense cannon, blasting two of the pursuing explosives out of space despite his mystical befuddlement.

  “Sallus, can you calculate a new jump?” Naven wheezed as Apex did another jerky maneuver. The dragon was pulling twenty or more G’s in these maneuvers, well above what the compensators could handle, and some of the less-experienced crew had already blacked out.

  “Don’t,” Apex warned. “Unless we think it through, they’ll likely know where we jump already. That will just waste fuel.”

  “Apex is right.” Sallus confirmed this with slightly less effort than before. “We need space. The nearest cover is a binary planet. Think you can last that long?”

  Apex growled quietly. “I can… but I don’t know about the crew.”

  Behind him, the huge cruiser finished its minutes-long turn, and lurched into motion. The acceleration was frightening, just as Sallus had warned.

  The chase was on.

  Old Acquaintances