5 Days Later...

"Extracting," Sabatine reported, wincing for a moment as the inside of her eyelids were stretched over her entire head. The RCS Viceroy slid into the sidereal universe after its four day voyage. Sensors reported they were within a light second of the Bromley Belt, which was a damn fine piece of astrogation on Micha's part. Sabatine rubbed her eyes as she reviewed the sensor returns. Bromley was a minor mining system in the Raleigh Stars notable only for the iridium it produced. Iridium was an ultra dense ultra heat resistant metal which served for, among other things, the high drive thruster linings of starships. It was rare enough that its refining was profitable though in this case unpleasant. Bromley was a moon of a gas giant that rejoiced in the name of MXD-41. The giant's gravity had trapped an asteroid belt of unusual mineral wealth, which had lured humans to an otherwise unprofitable system. Bromley itself was an ice ball, its few settlements located around geothermal vents which sank deep into the worlds core, small starships collected asteroids, or blasted them appart in orbit and then hauled the rocks back to Bromley where industrial smelters reduced the rock to the marketable ore. Often enough the miners were family operations, a few extended households operation a couple of leaky tubs and installing a refinery in a crater in the ice sheathed surface blasted by a meteor. 

"Multiple contacts ma'am," Ottis piped up, following procedure even though all the officers were no doubt studding the sensor feeds now they were back in sidereal space. Following the incident at their last planetfall Ottis appeared to be making an effort to smarten up, or perhaps the training at the academy was finally kicking in. Perhaps to the realisation that his crew wasn't going to leave him hanging had improved his outlook. Sabatine glanced sideways to where Kaiden sat at his console, monitoring the ship. They had spent most of the past five days in each others company, she had been surprised that Micha had set him to the anchorwatch as well, given the Captain's usual attitude towards the aristocracy, but Kaiden hadn't complained or sulked, merely done his duty as effectively as he could. Things could still grow tense between them, particularly as they settled into their new roles, but she no longer felt the flare of anger when he walked into the room she initially had. Of course this made her all the more aware of the shame she felt for her own part in the aftermath of their break up. In some ways she missed the anger, it had at least been easy to categorize.

"Mostly tramps, five hundred tons or less, one heavy ore mule, two thousand ton Marie Delgado out of Cofkan's World," Sabatine reported. The called up the sailing directions on Cofkan's World and was unsurprised to discover it was a world in the Sack Cluster, a group of worlds in which the Alliance and Cinnabar had little interest. The third rate power of Novi Svirdlosk claimed loose sovereignty over it, but Sabatine would have been surprised if anyone on Cokfan's World had ever hear of Novi Svirdlosk.

"Any sign of the pirates that were reported Sir?" Ottis asked looking hopefully towards Kaiden. That was the nominal reason for their village, though in truth it was more to keep mobile and provide a difficult target for a sudden Alliance incursion, but Sabatine couldn't blame the boy for being eager at the chance for action.