Free Dark Space by Jasper T. Scott

spin. It was definitely an adjustment. Of course, he couldn’t say any of that.
    Ethan shrugged. “Guess I’m just tired, brua.” Brondi’s dossier on Adan had contained a list of more juvenile vocabulary for Ethan to work into his regular speech. He hoped it didn’t sound as strange to those who knew Adan as it sounded to him.
    Guardian Three smirked and looked away.
    An automated voice sounded inside the rail car. “Coming up on, Pilots’ Center. ”
    Gina rose from her seat to grab hold of one of the vertical bars which ran down the center of the rail car. Ithicus rose, too, and Ethan groaned as he levered himself out of his chair. His muscles were cramping from having been cooped up in a nova cockpit for so long.
    Gina looked him up and down and smiled. “You all right there, old timer?”
    “Just fine, thanks.”
    The rail car slowed to a stop, and Ithicus nodded to the doors. “Let’s go.”
    They spilled out into a broad corridor with subdued blue and white glow panels and shiny gray and black walls. Broad silver and gray pipes were tucked up against the ceiling and running down the center of the corridor. These were electrical conduits, water, sewage, and air ducts. Aboard fleet ships no one bothered to hide things away for aesthetics’ sake.
    The corridor was for the most part deserted, except for a janitor bot up ahead, polishing the floors with a monotonous whirring sound. They passed countless bulkheads and doors, all of which were labeled with black plates that glowed with bright blue descriptions: numbered simulator rooms, the officers’ mess, a rec hall called “The Basement,” which was roaring with a muffled ruckus from the men and women inside, and then came training rooms and lecture halls, followed by offices labeled with the names and ranks of various commanders to whom they belonged. The transpiranium panels in the doors of those offices and training rooms were all dark, all but one, whose golden light spilled weakly into the corridor. It was here that Guardian Three led them. The glowing door sign read, Lieutenant Commander Rangel . Guardian Three stopped to rap smartly on the door, and it opened automatically to let them in.
    They piled into the small office beyond the door and stepped up to a shiny white desk as the door swished shut behind them. Sitting behind that desk was a small man with an angular face and an intense blue gaze. Absent from that gaze was the usual spark of warmth which betrayed a person’s humanity. He was clothed in the typical black with white trim uniform of the fleet. The rank insignia on the upper left sleeve of his uniform was the characteristic gold chevron of a lieutenant commander with a silver nova fighter in the middle. Behind the commander was a broad viewport which showed a dawning blue-white slice of the planet Firea far below.
    Guardian Three, Ithicus Adari, stopped in front of the commander’s desk and saluted. Ethan and Gina gave their own salutes, to which the commander nodded and said, “At ease. Report.”
    Ithicus spoke first: “Four pirates jumped us at the Chorlis-Firean gate while we were waiting for repair crews to check out the gate’s comm relay. The array was riddled with holes from ripper cannons. The pirates were armed with the same. It’s a fair bet they took out the array. The pirates had established a temporary base on one of the asteroids in the Firebelt Nebula, no doubt to stand by and wait for one of our convoys. They must have taken out the comm array so we’d be deaf to hear any distress calls. Adan joined us at the start of the fight, and we managed to destroy two of the enemy fighters and clip another one before they ran. The pirates’ base was rudimentary, but sentinels recovered a small amount of useful equipment and supplies before demolishing it.”
    The commander frowned and began rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Good. Any signs of the pirates’ affiliation?”
    Ithicus shook his head. “They covered their