Watching raider ships pour into the star system one after another, Colonel Sobek nearly felt like crying. He figured he must have offended the spirit of the universe somehow, and that from now on, he could kiss good luck goodbye.
Otherwise, how could an ordinary officer like him, who only wanted a quiet life and hoped for a promotion and fortune so he could restore his family name, end up saddled with an elite reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines? How could he nearly have been wiped out when a large raider force trapped him in a small star system near the Abyss Nebula? And how could the raiders have shown up again just three or five days after he'd finally relaxed and caught his breath?
Most of the raider ships that had arrived were battered wrecks, clearly fleeing the battlefield in disarray. But there were still more than a hundred of them, including two dreadnoughts.
He knew he was probably in the most dangerous situation of the entire reconnaissance mission. If the enemy discovered him, he had no chance of surviving.
Fortunately, his crisis-induced poker face kept him from actually bursting into tears. After a brief panic, the crew managed to calm down as well.
"Don't be afraid. The raider stragglers have probably retreated here temporarily to regroup," the experienced Captain Red Sand told everyone. "They're more panicked than we are. They're lucky they managed to get here at all; they won't have the presence of mind to search for us."
And that was exactly what happened. The orbital cargo depot where they were hiding lay behind the gas giant Modan IV. The enormous brownish-yellow planet stood directly between them and the raider fleet, blocking nearly all detection signals. If not for the obvious spatial disturbance caused by the dreadnoughts'