Blue Star Enterprises

LOCATION: AURION PRIME

SYSTEM: AURION

DATE: 2400

Vitor kept his head down and did his best to blend into the crowd as he moved through the busy transport terminal. Ever since the Navy cut him loose, his life had gotten much more complicated.

It started off innocently enough. A few inquiries as to what his plans were after the military, but Vitor wasn't dumb enough to take those at face value, not with his past. The entities sending those were probing him for information. They wanted to know if he was willingly going to turn over all the classified information he had been privy to or if they needed to do it by force.

He had seen it a thousand times during his stint in Special Operations before signing on with Fletcher's black ops program. The only real difference between those two teams was that special operations got medals and recognition when they succeeded while Black Ops got assigned more work and maybe a pat on the back from Fletcher for a job well done.

Not that he was complaining. Vitor had accomplished more in the five years he had been on Fletcher's team than the decade he had served in Spec Ops. The ability to ignore red tape and deny they were involved sped up the process of eliminating threats to a significant degree.

The problem was, someone on the disciplinary committee had remarked about his role in Black Ops. The seemingly offhand comment would have gone ignored by most, but the people with true power had quickly picked up on it. And now Vitor was trying to get off the planet before those special interests caught up with him.

That meant leaving behind anything that could be used to track him, including his Navy issue Qcomm transceiver. He also couldn't stop to access his messages, although, he had seen Kane's before he finished hurriedly packing. Seeing the man's name coming across his terminal had been quite a surprise but not nearly as much as the contents of the message had been. Kane's message had been brief but Vitor couldn't risk replying to it in case people were monitoring his connection.

He knew the Qcomm network wasn't as secure as the company that owned it made it out to be. The transceivers also sent regular radio pulses to maintain their status. Anyone with half a brain could track those.

That wasn't all he left behind though, even his clothes had changed. He now looked like just another low-level nobody, blending in with the crowd.

He hoped it would be enough to get him to a few remaining allies and the ship that was waiting for him in this terminal.

Vitor was three-quarters of the way through the terminal when he caught a reflection in a large glass display. He had been keeping tabs on people following him, but this was the first time he had seen at least two of the same people since he last checked.

It might be nothing, they could just be heading his way, but from the way they walked and kept glancing his way, he didn't think that was the case.

He coughed to cover his hand movement as he slid it into the large pocket at the front of his hoodie. Vitor would have loved to have the hood up to cover his face a bit more, but that would have made him stand out even more.

His hand gripped the small flechette pistol inside the pocket. He would rather spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering these two men than be carried off to some corporate black site where they would extract every last iota of information from him before making him disappear.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that though.

Vitor rounded the final corner that led to the launch pad where the ship was parked and almost stopped.

In front of the pair of doors was a group of people arguing with his former Chief Engineer, the Marine who Kane had subdued in the power armor, and six more of his former crew.

Relief flooded his mind as he picked up his pace and hurried over to the two groups. He needed to smooth things over before his former crew and the only allies he thought he had left decided to fight it out here and now.

One of the ship crew spotted him, and everyone turned. Vitor simply nodded and jogged up to the group. "I'm being trailed," he stated.

The words ratcheted up the tension in the group, but they were all trained individuals. A side glance back showed that the two people following him simply kept going, not turning down this hallway. They must have realized they had been made.

Vitor breathed a sigh of relief and turned to his former crew. "While I am pleased to see the lot of you, why are you here? And how did you even find out I was going to be here?"

Chief Engineer Parson cleared his throat. The man still had minor scarring from the extensive injuries he took aboard Dawn, but the Medical staff at Eden's End had done their best to remove any lingering damage. He was certain the Navy wouldn't have done even half of that before discharging the man for honorable service. "Scott told us where to find you."

Vitor chuffed at that. He should have known Vice Admiral Fletcher was keeping an eye on him. "You left out the part of why you're here, CE." Normally he didn't call people out by their rank, he tended to run a pretty lax ship when he was still a Captain, but sometimes you had to in order to get people's attention.

"Well, Cap- Vitor, We all received honorable discharges either for injuries suffered or for other reasons," the man glanced over at the Marine, who simply grunted.

"I told my commander he could shove it where the sun don't shine after he refused to allow me to testify on your behalf, Captain," the Marine stated, not shying away from his former title like the CE had.

"Anyway," Parson continued. "Scott reached out to each of us. Said you might need some backup. He also said to keep an eye out, he might ask a favor from you."

Vitor just shook his head. "Figures. I guess I should introduce you to my other friends."

"Is that what we are now, Vitor?" a tall dark, and dangerous-looking woman asked.

She was pretty as well, but Vitor would never be dumb enough to call her that to her face. The woman, a former paramour of his, considered being called pretty, beautiful, or any such nonsense like that a grave insult to her talent. And she was talented. An ace pilot, a deadly bounty hunter, and a force to be reckoned with.

The woman was honestly too much for him to handle, which is why she was a former paramour, instead of a current one. "We really don't have time to get into that," he said in annoyance, earning a grin from the woman. "Crew, this is Kaela Voss. She's the Captain of the ship we'll be taking."

"I hope you all have something of value," the woman purred. "I don't hump passengers for free."

Vitor groaned at the woman's purposeful choice of words, which only made her laugh and encouraged her even more. Before she could go on, or the Marine got any ideas, he spoke up. "I'll cover them, Kaela, we need to leave. I doubt those were the only two corporate headhunters here."

The woman tsked but relented. "Fine. Everyone grab your shit and get aboard, the Kyuubi No Kitsune waits for no one."

Vitor had looked up the meaning of her ship name the first time she told it to him right after she bought it. It apparently meant a nine-tailed fox in an old dialect of Japanese. That only made him spend more credits to look up what Japanese was, and what significance a nine-tailed fox had in that culture. He wasn't surprised by what he found, the description fits the woman to a T. He was also pretty sure she picked it just because she knew people would be forced to spend credits to actually look it up. She liked to do stuff like that.

The Fox, because he refused to call it by the ridiculous name she had given it, would technically be considered a large corvette, except it wasn't armed. The STO barely handed out licenses to large mercenary companies to go around in armed ships, they certainly wouldn't do that for a bounty hunter with a crew of six.

"Since I didn't expect additional passengers, we all get to hot bunk, isn't that wonderful!" Kaela said enthusiastically. "You can hot bunk with me if you like Vitor," she turned to him and winked.

Hot bunking was the term used for when two people would share a cot, one got day shift, the other night. It wasn't the worst conditions he had experienced aboard a ship though. He once had to triple bunk, where three people shared and each got eight hours. If you weren't up at that exact minute so the next person could sleep, you were getting unceremoniously dumped out of that bed.

"Pass," he said as he trudged up the narrow ramp of the ship. Vitor had no interest in rekindling his relationship with the woman and she knew it. She was just putting on this show to make him uncomfortable.

"Spoilsport," she said with a pout.

"I'll bunk with you," Parson said to Vitor.

Vitor nodded, even though Parson still seemed uncertain of how to address him now that he wasn't a Captain anymore. Hopefully, the man would get over that.

The crew piled into the available rooms, which had two beds each and were quite cramped even before anyone entered them. It certainly wasn't luxury accommodations, but it beat ending up in corporate hands.

He quickly stowed the few items he brought along, mostly clothing, and made his way to the bridge. Although it was small enough that it could be called a cockpit and nobody would call you out on the terminology.

"So, loverboy, where we heading, hmm? You were awfully tight-lipped in your correspondence. I suppose that's to be expected considering the two goons who followed you. Is that problem going to chase us the entire way?" That last question was a rather pointed one.

"Maybe," he said with a shrug. "It depends on how badly the corporations want me and possibly the rest of the crew with me." While most of them probably didn't know shit about the classified systems on Dawn, that wasn't true for Parson. Vitor suspected Fletcher knew Parson would be a target and ensured he made it out of the corporation's grasp without issue. He doubted Parson would have made it to the gate otherwise. He didn't have Vitor's training and experience, and even that almost wasn't enough.

"Not ideal," Kaela frowned. "We can deal with that if it happens. Your destination?" she asked again.

He gave her the name of the system and she plotted it into her computer before her frown deepened. "You sure you want to go there?"

Vitor nodded. "Get me there, and you'll get paid. I'll even throw in a bonus if you don't harass my people."

She chuckled. "That's no fun, but fine. I can play nice for a few months. I hope you know what you're doing though."

"Me too," he said as he patted her lightly on the shoulder before exiting the bridge. As much as he would like to head straight to Eden's End, he didn't want to get Kaela mixed up in his problems any more than she already was, nor did he want anyone outside of his crew to know exactly where he was heading, which is why they were going to Epsilon Indi first.