Mila's fingers drum against the armrest of the nav officer's chair, a steady rhythm that helps her think. The bridge of the Cinder—they really need to settle on a new name—is dim, running on minimal power to keep their signature as faint as possible. Through the viewscreen, NavCom Buoy 4421-B floats against the star-speckled void a few thousand kilometers away, looking for all the world like it isn't worth sixteen replacement jobs in five months. The red and green signal lights on the buoy blink on, off, on, off, every three seconds.
Three days. Three days of watching nothing happen while her mind churns over everything Trigger told them. They beat the Meridian maintenance ship here by a full day, and ever since they took off post-repair, the space outside has been dead.
She shifts in the chair, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged. The nav officer's seat is a little big for her frame, designed for someone with longer legs and with a bit more bulk. Everything about this ship feels oversized after so long in the cramped cockpit of her old Sparrowhawk.
'Belka,' she thinks, the name still foreign on her mental tongue. 'A whole nation that thought bigger bombs and crazier tech would solve everything.'
The tactical display shows their passive sensors at work, painting a picture of empty space for kilometers in every direction. Just them, the buoy, and a whole lot of nothing. She's already run through the sensor logs twice this shift. Still nothing.
Her mind drifts back to Trigger's explanation, delivered in that matter-of-fact way of his that makes even the impossible sound routine. Dreadnought-sized superweapons used in-atmo, drones that could outfly any living pilot, wars that reshaped continents, and somehow, their stoic captain not only survived all that but came out on top.
That's to say nothing of all the other insanity that took place on the fittingly named Strangereal. Giant meteor coming towards the planet? Lets build a giant railgun array to blast it!
'No wonder he flies like physics is optional,' Mila muses, remembering the sim footage. 'When you've shot down AI-controlled superfighters inside a space elevator, I guess a bunch of crappy pirates really are just a regular Tuesday.'
The night a few days ago is still stuck in her brain, like it was carved there…
"Belka was... different," Trigger begins, his voice carrying his usual calm, flat tone. "They built their entire national identity around military superiority. While other nations developed civilian technology that could be adapted for war, Belka went straight for the throat. Energy weapons, aircraft that defied physics, chemical weapons. If it could kill more efficiently, Belka perfected it."
He pauses, organizing his thoughts. "The technology of my home wasn't quite as advanced as it is here. We had no anti-grav, no energy shielding, no other planets for humans, my kind, to flee to. Belka's weapons were revolutionary, game changing, and an arms race that never ended started."
Mila opens her mouth to ask-
"What kind of weapons?" Jodie asks, her mechanic's curiosity getting the better of her and beating Mila to the punch.
The mink crosses her arms with a huff, and Jodie sticks her tongue out at Mila.
Trigger frowns slightly, looking away as he thinks. "There was the Excalibur, a chemical laser tower, constructed by the South Belka Munitions Factory in the 1990s of the local calendar. One shot could vaporize squadrons from beyond visual range and rendered ICBMs moot. They also built the Hresvelgr, a flying fortress that carried its own fighters and cruise missiles, wingspan of five-hundred meters or so."
"Five hundred meters?" Jodie's brows furrow. "Without anti-grav? That ain't possible, captain. Nothin' that big can get off the ground without some mean anti-grav generators, and it sure as shit ain't flying in-atmo."
Trigger gives her a look, his lips upturned just a little in amusement. "I was of a similar opinion when I came face to face with an Arsenal Bird for the first time. It and its complement of eighty drones didn't care what I thought."
Jodie raises an eyebrow with an unspoken question, and Trigger answers. "Arsenal Bird. Drone carrier that had a kilometer wingspan powered via radio transmission from a space elevator. Had lasers, particle cannons, earliest form of shield tech, and eighty MQ-101 drone fighters housed under its wings. Intended for peacekeeping, but misused as an air superiority weapon by Erusea during the Lighthouse War."
"I… A kilometer?" Jodie blinks at the overload. "Particle cannons?"
"You're talking about these Arsenal Birds in the past tense," Eli notes aloud, uncrossing his arms and leaning back forward. "You're not saying…"
"I was part of the op that downed the first one using the Stonehenge railgun array, then I shot down the other."
He shot down the other? There were two of these dreadnought-sized things, and he shot one down? With what? A fighter? Mila shifts her tongue, finding her mouth dry.
Trigger resumes, heedless of the stares. "Every nation saw weapons like these and decided they needed something bigger, something worse."
Lars whistles low. "And fighters flew through all this bullshit without shields?"
"Most didn't return home," Trigger grimly confirms. "The tech wasn't totally infallible. Both Excalibur and the Hresvelgr were destroyed by a merc known as Cipher, employed by one of Belka's neighbors. His title of "Demon Lord" was well earned. If not for him, Belka might have spilled out and overtaken the Osean continent in the Belkan war of 1995, which began when Belka came to face economic collapse. Their neighbors were carving up their territory through international courts. So Belka started a war. Their technology made their start strong, then the Allied Forces adapted, pushing back. On the sixth day of the sixth month of the year, 1995, Belka detonated seven nuclear weapons along their own border to halt the Allied advance."
Mila's insides go cold, and her joke about how this is the most she's ever heard Trigger talk at once dies on her lips. Looking around the room, she can see that she's not the only one who feels ill.
Jodie's eyes are almost bugging out of her head.
Lars's face is screwed up into a scowl, and his hands come together in a silent prayer.
And Eli, who looks the least disturbed, still leans back a little, as if distancing himself from the words.
Trigger heeds none of it and continues in the same even tone.
"The war ended, but the technology spread. Belkan scientists scattered across the world. Every nation wanted their own superweapon, and Belkan minds were too happy to give them. Stonehenge, with railguns the size of buildings. The Arkbird, an orbital spacecraft that could launch kinetic strikes or deploy laser systems. Megalith, a facility that would use missiles to redirect asteroid fragments in orbit, turning them into kinetic weapons. Some built as weapons, others misused. Hard to confirm Belka's involvement with some, but I have hunches."
He glances at Nidhogg's circular avatar, watching like some kind of demonic eye, but the AI remains silent.
"That's insane," Mila breathes. "Why would anyone do that?"
"Because your neighbor has one," Trigger says simply. "Someone builds a counter-weapon. They build a counter to the counter. It never stops."
He continues through the timeline with the same detached precision. The Continental War. The Circum-Pacific War. The Lighthouse War.
"By 2019, we had the world's first Space Elevator. Erusea captured it, turned it into a fortress. They deployed drones designed by Schroeder, a Belkan scientist. The mass-produced drones fly circles around the average pilot. The specialty ones? These drones learned from combat data, pull 30-G turns, carry directed energy weapons. Humans can't compete."
"Thirty Gs?" Eli's cybernetic eye whirs. "And I'm guessing with no inertial dampers since they're from your primitive shithole. Were they made of nothing but trinium?"
The human (that's a fun word, Mila thinks to herself. Hueman) stops to consider Eli's question. "Trinium, half the weight of aluminum, twice the strength of titanium?"
Eli slowly nods, his unspoken 'duh' obvious.
"No," Trigger shakes his head. "Trinium was never discovered on Strangereal, along with a few other materials. The drones were just carbon composites and aluminum."
"Boss, that's… A hard one to swallow." Lars declares with a frown. "Anyone with any kind of material know-how can tell you that anything that can fly that hard in standard atmo would burst like a pinata without something to bring the Gs down. How did they manage to make something like that?"
"Belka," Trigger shrugs.
Jodie twitches.
The man takes note, and turns his head to Nidhogg. "Nidhogg, do you have any demonstrations available?"
The holographic avatar pulses. "ACCESSING MEMORY. FLIGHT RECORDING - EASTERN WIND - MAY 17TH, 2019 AVAILABLE. WARNING! NO FLIGHT TELEMETRY DATA AVAILABLE DUE TO DELETION. RECORDING ONLY. BEGIN PLAYBACK?"
"Play it."
The rec room's holoprojector flickers, then expands to fill the wall. The image is crystal clear despite being from a cockpit camera. There is sky above, green below, and smoke columns rising from what must have been an airfield moments ago.
"PLAYBACK BEGINNING," Nidhogg announces as the footage starts.
Mila leans forward, expecting standard combat footage. What she sees instead makes her stomach drop.
Five contacts appear on the HUD, climbing fast from a burning airfield. They move wrong, too sharp, too sudden, like someone forgot to tell them about physics.
On screen, the view banks hard left as the first drone screams past, pulling a turn that should have ripped its wings off. The G-meter in the corner spikes to 9, holds, then drops as Trigger rolls inverted to track it.
"Holy shit," Jodie breathes. "Look at the G-load."
The drone ahead suddenly reverses direction. It's not a turn, but a complete vector change that has Mila's brain hurting trying to process it. One moment it's fleeing, the next it's charging head-on, machine gun already firing.
The view tilts, sliding between the bullets with millimeters to spare, and the gun pipper settles on the drone just as it tries another impossible maneuver. Trigger's own gun lets a stream of rounds rip, and the drone is gone in a blast.
Four drones left. They attack as a unit now, weaving patterns that overlap and intersect, creating a net of fire. The footage becomes a blur of motion. Roll, pitch, yaw, throttle, as Trigger threads through gaps that shouldn't exist.
"That-a boy, Trigger!" A proud voice sounds over the radio of the recorded fighter. "That's what we like to see!"
The G-meter is having a seizure. 7, 11, 8, 15, 9. Numbers that should mean unconsciousness or death.
"How is he still conscious?" Jodie asks, gripping the table edge.
"It's just practice," is all Trigger says, watching his past self work. "You all will be able to learn it, too."
On screen, two drones attempt a scissor maneuver, crossing paths to trap him. The view pulls into a climb so violent the camera briefly skips. When it clears, he's above them, inverted, already firing. One drone explodes. The other breaks hard right, directly into where Trigger apparently knew it would go.
"Fox two," Trigger's voice, the same hard tone he used with the pirates, says, just as a missile rockets out from under the camera.
The drone goes to dodge, twisting to bank away, but is too late and explodes into debris.
"You're predicting them," Mila realizes, watching the remaining two drones try increasingly desperate evasions. "Reading their patterns."
"They're machines. They have patterns." Trigger leans back and crosses his arms, seeming bored as he watches himself at work. "Even learning algorithms have preferences."
The last two drones split up, their AI seeming frazzled and indecisive with such stiff resistance, and it's their undoing. Two other jets, their IFFs reading Brownie and Clown, chase the drones right into Trigger's maw.
It's small, and she almost misses it, but Mila catches Trigger's eyes lingering on the little blue square labeled "Brownie" with…
Is that melancholy?
"All bandits eliminated," the recorded voice of an AWACS announces. "Nice work, everyone."
The recording ends. The rec room is silent except for the hum of the ship's systems.
"That was..." Mila starts, then stops. What can she say? That was impossible? Insane? Beautiful?
"Standard mission in the Lighthouse War," Trigger finishes for her. "That was my second assignment under Mage Squadron after the war began."
He continues, moving to the Eursean drones, a spoofed IFF, and a fateful mission to frame him for murder to try and be rid of him, then to his harrowing months with Spare Squadron, the LRSSG, and everything beyond, listing impossible missions like weather reports. Taking down the Arsenal Birds, sinking the submarine Alicorn with its nuclear railgun, threading the Space Elevator to shoot down a pair of super drones and halt a transmission that would doom the nation of Osea, all delivered deadpan.
…Except for when he recounts duels with a man named Mihaly Shilage.
Never has Mila heard such emotion in Trigger's voice. He takes on no extra volume, but the edge, the sheer focus of it feels like a spike of ice to the chest.
The emotion that colors his tone in murderous red?
Hate.
The tale is brief, and bereft of details and boasting, but it seems to last for hours. Mila finds herself exhausted just listening, but is unable to do anything but pay full attention.
"The end of the war convinced the Osean brass that they needed a new war deterrent," Trigger starts the final part, and for some reason, dread fills Mila's heart. "They put me in the X-03S Stratos Wyvern, a hybrid jet fighter and spacecraft designed for all scenarios. And that wasn't all. They planned to unveil something new alongside it - The Stratos Deployment project."
Mila doesn't miss how Trigger's fighter shares a name with this deployment thing.
"Doctor Schroeder, the same man whose drones nearly ended us, escaped prosecution for his part in the war by putting his mind to use for Osea, and the Stratos Deployment system was his brainchild." Trigger's frown returns. "Using it, fighters could cross impossible distances through short-lived wormholes. It was in the name; deploying fighters, deploying me, anywhere, anytime. I saw the political game, but I didn't expect the second part."
The pieces start to come together for everyone.
Trigger turns his head to look at Nidhogg's avatar once more, expression stoic, but Mila can see it, the hint of frustration, of betrayal. "The Wyvern had an AI on board, disguised as a threat prediction program, and its job was to gather data to use in an Osean drone program."
Dang it. Mila hates it when bad gut feelings are right.
The full scope of the betrayal falls on Eli first, and the talons on the end of his fingers tear into the armrest of the couch he sits on. "Your military felt like they didn't get enough out of you, huh?" He states more than asks.
A small smile finds its way to Trigger's usually stony visage. "Some sort of error occurred with the first public demonstration of the Stratos Deployment system, and next thing I knew, I was in deep space, just within sensor range of a dogfight," he says, turning his eyes to Mila.
The mink really hopes her blush isn't showing through her fur, because it feels like it is. Something she can't name in those dark eyes is making her heart race.
"Lars."
The dog jumps at being addressed so suddenly, jostling Eli in the process. "Y-Yeah?"
"You asked, back at that refueling station what I was hoping to find as a spacer," Trigger finally looks away from Mila to the largest member of Strider Squadron.
"Yeah, I guess I did." Lars nods slowly. "You said you didn't know."
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Trigger's smile grows a little more, almost to something Mila would call a full, real smile. "I do now. What I want most in life?"
He leans back, eyes looking towards the ceiling, and perhaps, Mila thinks, beyond that and into a sky just for his own eyes.
"What I want is freedom. If you all want some, I'm happy to share."
Once Trigger recounted his own story, the floodgate for questions opened wide, and everyone wanted to know more. They were there for hours, asking this and that, and for so much that Nidhogg had to step in to start answering when they got to questions Trigger couldn't answer.
Mila glances at the corner of her display where a small red indicator pulses steadily. Nidhogg is keeping watch alongside her. The AI hasn't spoken since she took watch, but she knows it's there. What it's thinking, she can't even begin to imagine.
Mila sighs, rubbing her eyes. Trigger had been honest with them. Laid it all out, even the parts that clearly pained him. His government using him, recording his every move to build better killing machines, the frame-up that sent him to a penal unit, the way Nidhogg had been forced on him without his knowledge, and how he figured out the AI was there.
'And he still trusted us enough to tell us,' she thinks, warmth blooming in her chest at the thought. 'He could've kept quiet. We'd never have known.'
A soft chime from the console draws her attention. Scheduled sensor sweep. She leans forward, fingers dancing across the controls to initiate the passive scan. Returns start painting themselves across her screen, showing…
Nothing.
Mila stretches in her chair, her spine popping in three places. Three hours of staring at nothing is getting to her. She glances at the pulsing red indicator in the corner of her screen.
"Hey, Niddy? Mind keeping watch while I stretch my legs for a bit?"
The indicator flashes brighter. "DESIGNATION: NIDHOGG. NOT 'NIDDY'. REQUEST: USE CORRECT DESIGNATION," it grounds out from the console speakers.
Mila blinks at the screen. "It's called a nickname. You know, something friends call each other?"
"PARAMETER "FRIENDSHIP" NOT APPLICABLE."
"Uh-huh." Mila rolls her eyes. "Anyway, can you watch the sensors?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
"Great. And Niddy?" She grins at the screen. "You really need to loosen up."
"REQUEST NOT APPLICABLE. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY APPEARS OPTIMAL."
Mila groans, slumping forward to rest her forehead on the console. "It's an expression. It means relax, be less formal, maybe try to have some fun?"
A pause. Then: "LEXICON UPDATED. NOTICE - PARAMETER "FUN" NOT APPLICABLE."
"Of course it isn't," Mila mutters, standing and heading for the bridge door. "You know what to do if anything shows up."
"ACKNOWLEDGED."
The walk to the rec room is short, but her nose tells her someone's cooking before she even gets there. The scent hits her as the door slides open: loproot and cheap protein, drowned in what someone optimistically thinks is enough knock-off Hajiti spice to cover the smell.
Eli sits at the table, a disassembled rifle spread before him with black parts in neat rows, and off to the side is a power pack so big that it looks like it should be slotted into a vehicle mounted gun. He's cleaning the barrel with a rag and quite a bit of care, but Mila's eyes are drawn to the stock propped against the table edge. Tally marks cover nearly every available surface of the black steel stock, scratched in with a claw in groups of fives. There must be over a hundred.
On the couch, Lars has his feet up, a beer in one hand and his eyes glued to the holoprojector. On screen, a dramatically lit tiger woman clutches her chest.
"But Ramon, I can't marry you! Not when I'm carrying your evil twin's clone baby!"
Lars gasps, hand flying to his mouth. "No! Claudia, how could you?!" He cries, even more stricken than the actors on screen.
Mila has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. The big, tough merc who can probably bench press her fighter is completely invested in what looks like the trashiest soap opera in the galaxy. It looks like something her mom would love.
In the galley alcove, Jodie stirs a pot with one hand while consulting her datapad with the other. She looks up as Mila enters, wooden spoon pausing mid-stir.
"Hey there. Find something on the sensors?" Jodie asks, a hint of concern creeping into her voice.
"Nope, still a whole lot of nothing," Mila replies, sliding onto one of the stools at the galley counter. "Just needed to move around a bit. Nidhogg's watching things."
"You left the AI in charge?" Jodie's eyebrows rise as she sets her datapad on the counter. "Didn't Trigger say not to rely on it too much?"
"It's just for a short break. Besides, it's probably better at staring at empty space than I am." Mila sniffs the air and tries not to wrinkle her nose. "What're you making?"
"Loproot stew with lab-made protein chunks," Jodie says with a sigh, giving the pot another stir. "Added some Hajiti spice blend to try and make it taste like... well, anything really. Here's hoping the next payday lets us get something better than glorified prison rations."
"My abuela's hot sauce could fix that right up," Lars calls from the couch without looking away from his show. "Little bit of that and you won't even remember what loproot tastes like. I still got some in the fridge."
Jodie whirls around, pointing her wooden spoon at him like a weapon. "Your abuela's sauce made even a living brick like Trigger sweat through his flight suit last night! I thought I was gonna die when that war crime hit my tongue! I'm not subjecting myself to that chemical weapon again."
"I didn't mind it," Eli comments, still focused on reassembling his rifle with practiced movements.
Jodie turns her glare to the back of his head. "Oh sure, why would a bird care about enough capsaicin to kill an elephant? Must be nice not having functioning taste buds."
"I have taste buds," Eli replies flatly, lifting his reassembled rifle and aiming at a distant wall through the boxy scope with his organic eye. The left eye, his cybernetic, glows yellow and unfolds around the metal socket, showing off four separate lenses that slowly rotate around the center one. "They're just not weak."
"Weak? I'll show you weak when I-!"
Mila tunes out the brewing argument, glancing around the rec room. Someone's missing from this little domestic scene. "Hey, where's Trigger?"
"Captain's quarters," Lars answers, finally tearing his eyes away from the screen during a commercial break. "Said something about balancing books and looking at our finances. Been in there for a few hours."
"Poor guy," Jodie mutters, turning back to her pot. "Nothing worse than staring at numbers and realizing you can barely afford loproot." She glances over at Mila. "Actually, can you go get him? Dinner's almost ready, such as it is."
"Sure," Mila hops off the stool, already heading for the door. "Save me a bowl?"
"Like anyone's gonna fight you for slop like this," Jodie calls after her.
The captain's quarters are cramped but functional, barely larger than a walk-in closet with a narrow bunk, a fold-down desk, and a terminal that looks like it survived several wars. Trigger sits hunched over the glowing screen, numbers and charts reflected in his dark eyes.
This undocumented mission has given him some precious time to slow down, collect his thoughts, and take a pace that isn't breakneck, so no matter how dull the work before him is, he savors it.
The Libret Confederation PMC registration came through an hour ago, and now Strider Squadron is no longer a collection of freelancers, but a legit PMC. The Trade Union team account went live minutes later, and he's already transferred most of his personal credits over as starting capital, along with fifty-thousand from Eli and another thirty-thousand donated from Lars.
His fingers move across the keyboard as he reviews his research. Standard merc teams of specialist size, that is under ten members, run 70/30 payment splits. Seventy percent to the team account for operational expenses, thirty percent personal cut. Fair enough for most, but Trigger adjusts his own contribution to 85/15. He doesn't need much. Never has.
A new spreadsheet opens, and he begins categorizing their needs.
Short Term (Next 2 Weeks):
Food (real food, not rations)
Ammunition reserves (energy packs, missiles, kinetic rounds for Lars)
Medical supplies (hypostims, backup bandages, basic surgical kit)
Fuel
Capacitor for the damaged flak gun
Water Recycler inspection
Hygiene supplies
The food is a given. He knows not everyone can resist palate fatigue as well as he can, and Mila would probably be complaining within the week if he didn't plan to spend towards something enjoyable to eat after a job. Besides, nothing tanks morale like poor food. Ammo is also another given. He's been sparse with his missiles thus far, and can stretch his supply, but Lars' ship using 20mm kinetic ammo is going to be a drain.
Trigger pauses at the medical supplies line, thinking about the hypostims they already have. Fascinating technology, really. Back on Strangereal, battlefield medicine meant tourniquets, morphine, and hoping you made it to a field hospital. Here?
Hemopax, synthetic blood in a self-injecting cartridge that bonds with any blood type and carries oxygen better than the real thing. One jab and you've bought someone an extra liter of blood, maybe two. He's seen the specs. The synthetic cells even break down cleanly after 72 hours, no rejection risk.
Then there's Mendacyn-X, the green ones. Nanogel that reads damaged tissue at the cellular level and rebuilds the worst of the damage in under a minute. It's not perfect, it can't regrow limbs or fix catastrophic organ failure, but for bullet wounds, burns, blast trauma? It's the difference between dying in the field and walking away with a scar. The fact that it's suspended in a bio-neutral, antibiotic gel that prevents infection while it works is just showing off.
'The medics back home would have killed for this tech,' he thinks, moving down to the next set of items on his list.
Medium Term (Next 2 Months):
Proper tool set for Jodie (diagnostic equipment, plasma cutter, molecular bonder)
Shield generator upgrades for the Cinder (name?)
Navigation database updates
Two maintenance drones minimum (backup for Nidhogg)
Armor patching compound
Crew comfort items (entertainment system, exercise equipment)
Fighter maintenance parts inventory
What tools Jodie could squirrel away on the Haul-o-Rex to Tantalus will be fine for now, but if the air force taught Trigger anything, it's that you do not make your crew chief's life harder than it needs to be. Once all the critical items are addressed, he's taking Jodie to a hardware store and telling her to go wild.
The maintenance drones give him pause. It still bothers him, relying on automated systems after everything he's seen, but the practical reality is that five people can't run a corvette efficiently. In the event that Nidhogg is unavailable, disabled, or destroyed, they need the extra hands, even if they're mechanical, and robots are the low-risk, low-investment solution until the crew fills out more.
At least civilian bots are stupid by design. No learning algorithms, no combat protocols, just one speciality and the rest of the programming taken up with generic tasks. Moving boxes, cleaning, manning their designated station, and nothing else. Safe and predictable. Nothing like the nightmares Schroeder built.
Still, he makes a note to ensure any drones they buy can be manually shut down. Hard switch, not software. Paranoid? Maybe. But paranoia has kept him alive this long.
Long Term (6 Months):
Established supply contracts
Safe house arrangements in major ports
Intelligence network access
Autodoc? Hire medic at least.
Proper stealth coating for mothership
Eventually, a proper carrier or frigate
VR training suite installation
Trigger pauses, adding another line:
Team legal representation (for when things go sideways)
Because they will. They always do.
Trigger stares at the line about getting a proper carrier or frigate again, tapping his finger against the desk. Is it even worth upgrading the Cinder beyond basic functionality? They're not keeping this rust bucket forever. It's a stepping stone, nothing more.
His research over the past days has shown him dozens of better options. The Javelin-class is reliable but outdated. There are newer vessels from the same shipyard the Libret navy uses, Freeform Solutions, with better power-to-weight ratios and standard loadouts. Sovereign Reach's nationalized weapons developer and shipyard, Sovereign Research, builds assault carriers that they'll sell to anyone for the right price. Even civilian yacht manufacturers are putting out armed "executive protection vessels" that could work with modifications.
Or...
His thoughts drift to Nidhogg's database. Buried in those files are schematics for things that rained terror on the people of his home. The Hresvler, the Arkbird, the Aigaion, all of them would be a force to be reckoned with, even here and without modification. Nidhogg even has plans for super craft that never made it to production, such as the Arsenal Bird-like Spiridus.
With the right shipyard, the right engineers, the right amount of credits... they could build something unique. Take his home's aerospace engineering, adapt it for space, add shields and modern tech. They could create something that would make even established navies shy away.
He adds another line to his long-term goals:
Research custom shipbuilding options (discreet inquiries only)
The thought of Star Fox's Great Fox flashes through his mind. If a small merc team could field something that impressive, what could Strider Squadron eventually manage?
He pulls up their current balance. Just shy of a hundred-thousand credits. Great for one person living planetside, a pittance for a team of five with ships to fuel and supplies to stock.
Trigger minimizes the spreadsheet and switches to another tab, where dozens of news articles and market reports paint an increasingly grim picture of the Griath system, where one Mr. Farworth wants Strider Squadron to shadow him.
"GRIATH COLONIES REPORT CRITICAL SHORTAGE OF ELECTRONICS - CIRCUIT BOARDS - CPUS" reads one headline from three days ago. The article details how the drop in trade traffic is causing serious decay as manufactured device and machine parts dry up in the system. Everything from water purification systems to agricultural monitors are starting to fail as the months roll by. Without replacement parts, infrastructure is failing cascade-style.
Another report shows market data. The price of basic electronics has tripled in six months, medical equipment is going for ten times standard rates, and even simple items like data storage drives are becoming luxury goods.
He scrolls further. "UNREST IN JUNPEI COLONY AS ELECTRICAL RATIONING BEGINS." The article says the colony power grid is failing, and only critical services are being allowed all-day access to the grid as power plants begin to fall behind their maintenance quotas. The accompanying footage shows shouting rioters surrounding a government building with guards forming a dour-faced wall. Someone throws a bottle that shatters on an officer's head, and screams erupt as the guards level their guns and fire stunbolts into the crowd.
The political situation is even worse. Griath sits right on the knife's edge between Libret and Sovereign Reach territory. The reports are careful with their language, but Trigger can read between the lines. Sovereign Reach is using the crisis as an opportunity, sending "humanitarian aid" that comes with military advisors. The Libret Confederation responds with their own "peacekeeping forces."
Neither side officially acknowledges the skirmishes, but the casualty reports tell a different story. Fighters destroyed. Freighters caught in the crossfire. A Libret patrol "lost to navigational error" in disputed space.
And like vultures to carrion, scavengers are circling to take advantage of the chaos. The Salvager's League has increased their presence by 300% to scoop up choice derelicts, according to traffic reports. Pirates are hitting supply convoys weekly. Protection rackets are springing up on every major trade route. The notice boards are thick with warnings about highwaymen demanding "transit fees" and bandits masquerading as rescue ops.
Trigger pulls up the profile he'd compiled on Farworth. The old badger isn't just some random merchant, he's a card-carrying "Preferred Associate" of the Trade Union, complete with the platinum membership benefits. Someone like that doesn't venture into a warzone without good reason. If Farworth is willing to risk Griath, the profit margins must be astronomical.
It's a powder keg waiting for a spark. The kind of environment where a small, skilled team could make serious credits... if they're smart about it. Escort jobs will pay premium, protection contracts will be desperate for takers, and if things really go south, evacuation runs could set them up for months.
Dangerous? Absolutely. But danger pays, and they need the money.
He bookmarks several job postings from Griath-based companies, already calculating costs versus potential profits. This could be exactly what Strider Squadron needs to establish themselves.
A knock at the door breaks his concentration.
"Come in," Trigger calls without looking up from the screen.
The door slides open and Mila pokes her head in, blonde hair falling over one shoulder. "Hey, dinner's almost ready. Jodie's threatening to serve it with or without you."
"I'll be there in a few minutes," he says, already moving to save his work. "Just finishing up."
Instead of leaving, Mila slips inside and peers over his shoulder at the terminal. The Griath articles are still visible, along with his half-finished supply calculations. "Wow, that's... a lot of planning. Did you ever have to do something like…" she gestures with a hand towards the ship around them "...this before?"
Trigger pauses, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Once," he says quietly. "After the Battle for Farbanti. Wiseman was killed by Shilage, and all the communication satellites were destroyed. Cut us off from command completely."
He can feel Mila's attention sharpen behind him, but she stays silent.
"Wiseman was our company commander. Always level-headed, always knew what to do. Would have taken charge of logistics once we lost contact with central command, but..." Trigger feels his face pull itself into a frown. "With him gone, it fell to me. Had to keep the original Strider and Cyclops squadrons equipped and fed while we operated behind enemy lines. Two squads of pilots and their support crews, all trying to wage war with whatever we could scrounge."
His fingers resume typing, saving files for later. "This is easier. Just five people and a few crafts to manage. Back then, every decision meant someone might not eat, or wouldn't have ammo for the next sortie. Had to make choices that weren't liked, or weren't the best. We suffered for them."
The admission hangs in the air between them. Trigger closes the last window, but stiffens when a pair of arms wrap gently around his neck and shoulders. A soft, furred cheek presses to his neck.
"You kept them alive," she says gently into his ear. "That counts for something."
One of his hands rises, fingers splayed just enough to lace with a more slender, claw-tipped set near his shoulder, but halfway, it hesitates, dropping back to his lap.
"I suppose," he mumbles, standing slowly and shrugging her off. "Come on."
The rec room smells marginally better when they arrive, though that might just be Trigger getting used to the scent of over-spiced loproot. Jodie is setting bowls around the table, the stew steaming despite its unappetizing gray-brown color.
Trigger eyes the furniture arrangement with displeasure. The fold-up chairs they'd found in a supply closet look like they might collapse if Lars sneezes too hard. One already has a bent leg from supporting the big dog's weight. He mentally adds 'proper furniture' to his growing list of necessities.
"Finally," Jodie says, not looking up as she ladles out portions. "Was starting to think you'd fallen asleep at your desk."
"Fame and fortune does not come without tired eyes and spreadsheets," Trigger replies dryly, taking his seat carefully. The chair creaks ominously.
Lars pauses his soap opera (Why is that horse man crying over a tiger in a hospital bed?) and ambles over. "Smells better than yesterday's rations at least."
"That's a low bar," Eli mutters, but he's already reaching for his bowl. His rifle, now reassembled, leans against the wall within arm's reach.
"Hey, I'm working with what we've got," Jodie protests, sitting down with her own portion. "When we get to Griath, first thing I'm buying is actual spices. Maybe some real meat. Griath is a farming system, right?"
"Real meat?" Mila perks up. "Like actual muscle tissue? Not vat-grown?"
"Don't get your hopes up on that, not until we're paid by Farworth," Trigger cuts in, stirring his stew absently. "I've been reviewing the situation in Griath. It's worse than the news makes it sound."
That gets everyone's attention.
"The Trade Union's gate tolls have choked off affordable supplies, and it looks like an overturn from the Libret government will take weeks. No processors, no replacement parts, nothing technical. System isn't made for manufacturing, and infrastructure's failing system-wide with too few imports." He takes a spoonful of stew, finding it bland but fine, then continues. "Sovereign Reach is moving in under the guise of offering aid. The Libret's responding with their own forces. Neither side admits they're shooting at each other, but the wreckage says otherwise."
"Ay, sounds like a mess," Lars says, putting a few dabs of nuclear-red sauce in his food and offering the unmarked bottle to Mila, who cringes and shakes her head.
"It is," Trigger admits. "Pirates, salvagers, protection rackets, everyone's moving in. Escort jobs are paying triple standard rates. Emergency evacuations, even more. And Farworth?" He pauses. "He's Trade Union preferred. Platinum level. Someone like that only goes into a warzone when the margins are astronomical."
Eli leans forward slightly, a grin growing on his face. "I'm liking the sound of this. You crunch the numbers yet?"
"A team that knows what they're doing could make six months of operating capital in two weeks." Trigger meets each of their eyes. "Dangerous, yes, but we could put the money to good use, and this is exactly the kind of environment where small teams thrive. Too fast, too fluid for the big mercenary companies, too hot for regular freight escorts."
"Plus," Mila adds with a grin, "we've got Trigger. I bet half those pirates will run the moment they see what he can..!"
"ALERT: UNKNOWN VESSELS DETECTED."
The conversation dies instantly. Nidhogg's voice booms from the ship's speakers, its red indicator pulsing urgently on the wall projector.
"CLASSIFICATION: ONE CORVETTE-CLASS VESSEL, TWO FIGHTER ESCORTS. BEARING: 127 MARK 4. TRAJECTORY INDICATES APPROACH TO NAVCOM BUOY 4421-B. SPEED: LOW. EMISSION SIGNATURES: LOW. DISTANCE: 1,000 KILOMETERS TO BUOY AND CLOSING."
Everyone freezes, spoons halfway to mouths.
"Nidhogg, visual on screen," Trigger orders.
The rec room's holoprojector flickers to life, replacing whatever drama Lars had been watching with a real-time feed from the Cinder's sensors angled towards them. For a few tense minutes, there is just the buoy, then a shape begins to crawl out of the distant black. The image resolves into a small corvette, maybe sixty meters long, half the size of their own ship. Two fighters circle it in lazy patrol patterns while it closes in and holds position near the buoy.
"That's a Vagabond-class," Jodie identifies, squinting at the image. "Civilian model, probably retrofitted. Popular with small freight companies... and pirates."
They watch in tense silence as a hatch opens on the corvette's belly. A figure in an EVA suit emerges, tethered to the ship, carrying what looks like industrial equipment tethered to his belt. The suited figure fires small thruster jets mounted on their lower back, propelling themselves slowly toward NavCom Buoy 4421-B.
"Whats he doing?" Mila blinks.
The answer comes as the figure reaches the buoy and ignites a handheld plasma cutter. Even at this distance, they can see the bright flare as the tool bites into the buoy's hull.
"Son of a bitch," Lars mutters. "There is someone busting it on purpose."
Eli's cybernetic eye whirs as it zooms. "Hey, robot," he addresses Nidhogg. "You got the specs for a buoy like this? What is he cutting into?"
The AI silently pulls up another window, showing a rough blueprint of the NavCom brand buoy, and Jodie spots what Eli is getting at instantly.
"There's nothing but the ass-end of a non-critical panel in that spot," Jodie rubs her chin with a lop-sided frown. "Is he just cutting randomly?"
Trigger watches the display for another moment, cataloging details. The corvette's weapons are locked forward and idle, and the fighters are maintaining standard patrol intervals. They're not expecting trouble.
Perfect.
"Whatever they're doing, they shouldn't be," he says quietly. "Marceti was right. Someone's out here getting up to no good." His eyes narrow. "Strider Squadron, prepare to launch."
