2953-09-24 – Tales from the Inbox: Kel’s Secretive Friends 

As Traveler eased closer to the other ship on maneuvering thrusters only, Sadek Sherburn watched uneasily from his station on the command deck. Obviously, the craft’s control scheme was optimized for Kel’s use, but there had been enough space on the aft bulkhead for a small second console and crash-pad chair. It had been months since that set-up had been rigged, but still Sadek hadn’t quite gotten over his agoraphobia doing duty shifts under that great bubble of transparency. 

It was the perfect place to watch the docking procedure, of course; he could see along Traveler’s gracefully curving flank to the projection housing the airlock and docking machinery, and got a perfect view of how much larger that other ship was. Its sharp prow extended into the darkness far forward of Traveler’s curved nose, and the swell of its engine section didn’t begin until far aft of the aftmost antenna of Kel’s vessel. 

At least it was obviously a human-made vessel. For his first months aboard, that was a rarity; almost the moment they’d had a full crew, Kel had taken his ship deep into what was, theoretically, the un-surveyed Sagittarius Frontier. There, after some wrangling, they had taken aboard a cargo of translucent alien-tech strike hulls, built the same way as Traveler itself. The hope had been to ferry to Sagittarius Gate to sell them, but it hadn’t been that simple. Nothing profitable, in Sadek’s experience, ever was. 

A ship unknown to the computer had appeared out of the black in the outskirts of an anonymous star system, weapons hot and comms open. After a private conversation with its skipper, Kel had cheerily brought Traveler in to dock, apparently fearing nothing. 

The shock of docking reverberated through the ship. A moment later, Kel took his claw-like hands off the controls and activated the intercom. “Please report to port airlock.” He released the control with a double-jointed flourish and turned to Sadek. “I was not expecting my friends so far out from the Gate. But it is a good time to introduce you.” 

Just as Kel rose from his chair, innumerable lights on that great grim bulk they’d just docked to came to life. Sadek blinked, un-comprehending for a long moment. Those lights illuminated an eerily familiar insignia, a crown of gold set with black stars. Where had he seen it before? 

Unlike most vessels built by humans which used vertical lifts and stair-shafts to connect the decks, Traveler employed a revolving, diagonal chair-lift descending the aft dorsal midline. Kel took the first chair, and Sadek stared at the insignia a moment longer while the second one appeared for him. It meant trouble, he was certain. Almost everything about this ship did. 

Sadek rode the chair-lift down three decks, then got off and backtracked forward to the corridor that would take him to the airlock. Kel was already there when he arrived, along with the rest of the crew – the engineer Alicia Powers and the young tech Elliott Deadman. Deadman looked as if he had just rolled out of bed to answer the summons, and that was probably what had happened; he and Powers had long ago chosen to alter their sleep cycles so one technical spacer was awake at all times and one was on duty two shifts out of three. 

Kel rubbed his three-fingered hands together. “Friends. Shipmates. I ask you to be on your best behavior. The commander of the vessel that has come to meet us here tells me their masters have a business proposal for us from those who have done me kindness before. One that could not wait until we returned to the Gate.” 

“Who are they?” Alicia Powers had, of course, heard Kel refer to the obligations he’d satisfied before taking on the crew. Evidently sworn to secrecy, he’d not revealed much about this to anyone, not even Sadek, except to hint that the favor had been related to how well equipped his ship was, in its human-tech configuration.  

“We have docked with the vessel of war Cour-de-Lion.” Kel bowed his bulbous-eyed head briefly, as if in respect to the name, though it certainly meant nothing to him, being not even an Anglo-Terran word. 

Deadman, barely paying attention, suddenly stiffened. “You can’t be serious.” 

Sadek turned to the young man. “Is there a problem?” 

“The only ship I know by that name is Sovereign Security’s new light carrier.” 

Sadek winced. That was why that insignia had been so familiar. He turned to Kel. “So that’s how you got such a favorable deal when you got to the Gate with a crippled ship. You fell in with Sovereign.”  

“Why yes. They asked me very nicely not to publish this fact, of course. I have done so.” Kel turned his huge, milky eyes on every member of his crew. “I trust you will do also.” 

Sadek gritted his teeth. How could he begin to explain how much trouble that name meant, to one so alien to Reach customs? Sovereign Security Solutions was the largest and most notorious band of theoretically-legal hired guns in the Reach. They were on the right side in the War, but only because it was a rare chance to get big money contracts from the Confederated Navy. They were loyal to nothing but the bottom line, and were notorious for double-dealing. Here they were now, at the mercy of mercenaries who had none. 

Obviously, Sadek Sherburn did not keep the confidence of his employer, at least not forever. Sovereign’s interest in the dealings of Traveler and its crew are no longer a secret. Mr. Sherburn sent in an additional account to explain that yes, he and his mates had something to do with Sovereign’s new in-house-designed strike interceptor, a radical, translucent-hulled design they call the Blade Dancer, built mainly with licensed Savitri components. The Blade Dancer is supposedly as maneuverable as an Incarnation Coronach in the void despite being several times heavier (much of this weight being long-haul mission optimization features), and it incorporates an advanced metalens laser system for its main armament that theoretically can fire at almost any angle without the need for a turret. 

Within days of the public reveal, we had datasphere queries about the relationship of this craft to Kel’s people and their strange method of constructing starships. Evidently, those who knew Sadek’s contact information sent him similar queries. 

The events of this account are some months old by now. Sadek would probably not have dared to send this in closer to the actual events.