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Through the endless void the Vagrant fled.

When will this ever end? Thought Encheta Shimoa. He and his crew had been franticly trying to elude the Nomad Battleship for weeks, using asteroid fields, nebulae, and anything else at their immediate disposal to escape their foe. What had meant to be a month-long mission to chart two new systems found deep in the Taus for mineable resources had turned into a mere two weeks of charting, with a three-month long wild goose chase through several unknown systems. Somehow, they had managed to survive, hurtling toward any gravitational anomaly they could find and blindly jumping through jump holes before properly scanning to check whether they were perfectly aligned or not. So far, they were lucky.

***Running is fruitless. Your people steal our rocks. Your demise comes.***

“Shut UP ALREADY!!” Encheta yelled in exasperation.
The whole bridge jumped at the sudden outburst, and Encheta grimaced. Everyone was on edge, including him.

Out of all the Nomads in existence, we just had to come across a Keeper.. He thought for the hundredth time. Little was known about these ancient ‘protector’ beings, except for the fact that, unlike normal Nomads, they could ‘speak’ by implanting thoughts and the perception of voice directly to the human brain through a way of telepathy. There were also rumours that the Outcasts worshipped them in a sort of cult-like fashion, thinking they were gods.. The fools.

From this recent encounter, Encheta deduced that Keepers are significantly stronger than their younger counterparts as well. In the beginning the Vagrant, a fully equipped IMG battlecruiser, engaged the Keeper head on, but nothing – plasma and energy fire, chemical warheads, even the tachyon charge from the ships’s main cannon – managed to dent the being’s dark and wrinkled, yet still eerily blue hide. After only 2 minutes of engagement, Encheta knew that fighting was hopeless. The only way to survive was to flee. Since then the Keeper followed just beyond passive scanner range, constantly sending tidings of death to every unfortunate soul onboard.

“Captain..”, the navigation officer said warily.
Encheta didn’t know his name as the young man was only recently promoted. Marcus, the previous nav officer, could no longer take the stress of being lost in space with Keepers and, like his 2IC and the 62 other crewmembers before him, took his own life. Now they were down to but a skeleton crew, not that the ship was fully crewed in the first place…

Encheta turned his head to the new officer and motioned for him to continue.
“Uh.. Are you sure that there’s a jump hole where we’re going? I mean, I’d understand if our navpoint was in an asteroid field of significant gravitational mass or-”
“Just trust me” Encheta replied, cutting him off mid-sentence. The officer hesitated, as if wondering whether he should say something else, but decided not to and turned back gloomily to his HUD. It couldn’t be any clearer – morale was at rock bottom.

Encheta knew the bridge’s concern about his decision. Jump holes in open space were incredibly rare, theoretically requiring an event that creates huge gravitational disturbances, like a star going supernova or a black hole, for them to open. This system – as far as they could tell – had had no experience of such cataclysms. Furthermore, the Vagrant had already entered the system through a jump hole in open space – a system having two jump holes like this was unheard of.
Nevertheless, Encheta was adamant that this particular anomaly was a way out. He had a gut feeling, and in his whole career they had never been wrong. However, this was no ordinary situation..

*** Death is imminent. You shall not be saved***

Once again the Keeper spoke, and the whole crew cringed at the unblockable voice. Encheta checked the time on his persocom – a small cranial implant capable of storing small programs and information to relay back to the user when prompted. Only a matter of hours remained in finding out whether his hunch was right or wrong. Until then, the Vagrant and its crew will have to keep toughing it out.

“Sir! The anomaly is now in scanner range!” piped the Scanners Op, bringing everyone out of their reverie.
Thankfully, the Keeper had stopped talking for over an hour, much to the crew’s relief. Had it stopped its pursuit of the Vagrant, or was it still lurking behind them? Encheta didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to go out of his way to find out either.

“Initiate scans, but stay in passive mode. Bring all information up on main holodisplay.” Encheta replied while putting a memo in his persocom that he really needed to remember the names of all these new bridge members.

The holodisplay in the centre of the bridge flicked and spluttered into life, showing row after row of cascading numbers.

“Estimated time ‘til anomaly identification: One minute forty-five seconds..” The scanner Op. informed, typing furiously on the touchboard in front of him. Encheta could not take his eyes away from the display of ever scrolling figures. His reputation, no - his life, along with the others on his ship was at stake. It was the longest minute forty-five seconds of his life.

After what seemed an eon of waiting, a small beep sounded from the main console. The display immediately changed to an image of a fiery, green-white orb, along with general statistics and space/time distortion factors.

“Identification confirmed. The anomaly is a class-5 traversable jump hole.” The scanner Op. concluded, slumping back in his chair as the rest of the bridge erupted in celebration. Things were looking up.

“Hey! We’re not out of the ion storm yet folks, we still have to find our way back home remember.” Encheta warned. It was the truth, after all.
“Is the jump hole aligned?”
“We don’t know for certain unless we do a full analytical scan, but there aren’t any noticeable fluctuations from what I can tell.”
“That’s good enough for me. That Keeper is still in this system somewhere. While it doesn't seem to be on our heels anymore, I don’t want to hang around and find it. Take us in slowly and stay alert when we jump out.”

With a bright flash, the Vagrant exited hyperspace and into a thick, green nebula.
“Status report!” Encheta barked, as the warning bells sounded around the bridge.
“We have seventeen minor hull breaches throughout the ship captain. The most likely cause is from micro-particulate matter during jump hole transit. Looks like it wasn’t as stable as we thought it was.. Internal reports indicate a decrease in right fin stabilizer efficiency, reducing ship maneuverability by five percent, no other systems damage found.”

Encheta flinched. The hull breaches had only been ‘minor’ due to the Vagrant’s sheer size. Had they attempted the same thing in a freighter, critical damage to the power array or engine reactors could have occurred, ultimately splaying their molecular remains throughout the entire system. However, considering they played this version of Russian roulette several times previous, to only get damage now was not that bad.

“Make sure our charts are updated accordingly for the stability of this jump hole, and next time make sure we don't bust through as quickly as we did here. Take us out of this nebula Zac. We need to figure out where we are.”
At least he managed to learn his new Nav officer’s first name before the jump…

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“Uhhh… Cap’, you’ve got to take a look at this..”

Before Encheta could say so, the main holodisplay was changed to one of the ship’s external cameras. Through the dense fog of the surrounding nebula, row after row of derelict ships could be seen.

“They’re… Outcast design Sir..” Said the Scanner Op, clearly shaken by the discovery.
“There’s hundreds of them… and not only Falcatas – so far I’ve also found a couple dozen bombers and even a gunboat. But that’s not the weird thing - every ship’s power array has been manually shut down, and there’s not one life sign in any of them. Apart from weathered hulls, no external damage can be found on any of them. It’s like.. they were left here.. on purpose…”

Encheta remained impassive, though he did understand the operator’s worries. If the Outcasts are able to abandon this many operational ships…

“Don’t worry” Said Encheta, as reassuring as he could.
“We’ve probably stumbled across a cache of their mothballed ships. By the looks of their hulls, the weapons on them are so old I’d doubt any of these’ll dent the right side of a Starflier.”

With a brief chuckle, the bridge around him slowly relaxed. He looked harder at the display in front of him. Is that a pilot in that cockpit? Can’t be… There are no life signs aboard any of them… Damn, I wish there was a way to see inside better, but shining a spotlight would only make the tinting darker…

“Captain.” Said Zac, sounding rather hopeful.
“If that’s the case, should we send some people out to salvage that gunboat? Even if it’s old, we may be able to scrounge enough parts to repair the stabilizers on the right fin. It would help if I need to do some tricky maneuvering..”
“I’d like to, but we should keep going.” Replied Encheta.
“We’re still don’t know where we are, and who knows whether that Keeper is still chasing us and has found this jump hole yet. No, we have to find another route home as fast as possible with no hanging around.”

With a quick “Yes Capt’n.”, Zac swiveled his chair back to face his Nav console.
“Ok, bringing engines up to fifteen percent. Taking us the shortest estimated route out of nebula..”

Encheta finally took his eyes away from the main holodisplay and forced himself to look around the bridge. A new gut feeling had arisen inside him as he fought with himself to look unconcerned. Something was terribly wrong, yet he couldn’t understand what. Throughout his whole career Encheta’s feelings were never this confusing. It was imperative that they find a route home fast, or something, something he did not know or probably like, was soon going to happen.

As the Vagrant idled forwards, the deep green mist of the nebula slowly thinned, until vast open space could be seen once more. One by one with a soft beep, each of the ship’s more sensitive scanners came back online, no longer interfered by the cloud’s electromagnetism, heat and gamma radiation. In the distance, two planets, each orbited by a single moon, revolved around their resident star and could be easily seen. While in the background, the dark shadow of a medium sized dust cloud was barely visible.

Once again Encheta queried the time on his cranial persocom. It had taken them longer than expected – just over fourteen hours - to navigate out of the nebula cloud. Fortunately though, the Vagrant’s gravitonic scanners (one of the few able to function within the nebula) had not detected any fluctuations near the jump hole, indicating that the Keeper vessel had yet to come through to give chase. During this time much of the crew were also able to get some much needed sleep, blissfully uninterrupted by the cold words of a Keeper’s voice. He himself however did not, as his upsetting gut feelings stubbornly refused to go away.

Encheta turned to Carlos, the Scanners Op, who was ready and waiting for a new set of orders.
“Alright, you know the drill. Conduct a general system scan and attempt to pinpoint any gravitational anomalies. Afterwards, relay the information you find to the main holodisplay.”
“Yes Sir!”

Once again, the Scanner Op’s hands moved like wildfire, and the HUD before him sped with hundreds upon hundreds of rows of numbers. Encheta was impressed at the intense speed at which Carlos could process the information before him. For Encheta, the text was moving so fast he couldn’t read it, let alone understand it.

As he was wondering whether Carlos also had a persocom specially programmed to enhance data management, an unfamiliar beep came from the Scanner Op’s station. The officer faltered, confused at the unexpected figures before him, and soon stopped typing altogether. Not believing what he was seeing, Carlos cleared his screen and began to repeat his initial scans again. Within minutes, the same, unfamiliar beep sounded, and the same unexpected information appeared on his screen.

“Uh, Sir. From what I’m getting from my IR scans here, it appears that the orange planet on the far side of this system is inhabited.”
“What?” burst Zac from the other side of the bridge.
“If that’s the case, we should be able to find out where we are with our current Nav charts!”

Without consent, Zac immediately commenced a search on his own display, and Encheta’s heart stopped. Only now did it finally hit him – there were only two possible places where they could possibly be.

Encheta opened his mouth to order Zac to stop, but it was already too late. The HUD ceased flickering, displaying only one result on its final display. Within seconds Zacs face changed from hopefull glee to absolute terror.

“Christ… We’re in Omicron Alpha…”