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was only a stone's throw away.
    Soon I exited the area of weak radiation, leaving it behind.

Chapter Two
     
     
    The Founders' Station. Cargo docking area
     
    I f I thought that today's troubles were over, I would have to think again.
    I cleared the tunnel without any additional hassle. It ended with a weak force field. A vacuum lay beyond it.
    I only had enough chemicals left to ensure seven minutes' worth of breathing but I wasn't sweating it. There were plenty of them on board my ship.
    I walked through the shimmering curtain of the power field and froze, speechless. My Condor towered proudly above the ruins of the dock. Its stealth mode was off, and the ship's board systems failed to answer my query.
    Mechanically I switched the scanner on. It didn't register the ship's signature. It was as if someone had run all the batteries dry.
    I cursed the Outlaws under my breath. Still, time was an issue. I studied the nearest structures and, having detected no danger, decided to go for it.
    A hundred-foot abyss lay between me and the ship. In a well-calculated leap I kicked myself away from the station, floating through space. My heart thumped, measuring out the seconds. Below to my right lay the panorama of the ancient docking facilities. I could see the landing pads and the dark outlines of vacuum docks next to the oblong mouth of the transport hob oozing darkness.
    The Condor's outline grew quickly until it filled my entire field of vision.
    I grabbed at a landing support to kill my momentum and slid under the ship's belly. Still no contact with the board systems. I had to use the emergency hatch which was fitted with a simple hand mechanism.
    The cockpit was dark. All the control modules were dead.
    What kind of day was this?
    I did a quick scan of the equipment. All the batteries were flat. But the worst thing was, I received no response from the reactor block!
    So I had to climb out again. I walked around the ship. Only then did I notice that the emergency gate of the reactor module — the one serving to eject the power unit in case of critical damage — stood wide open.
    I took a peek inside.
    Empty. The power cables had been neatly detached, the cooling system circuits shut down.
    Would you believe it? Someone in my absence had breached the force shield, hacked the emergency codes and pilfered the freakin' reactor block!
     
    * * *
     
    When I returned to the cockpit, I was so wound up I kicked the antigravity seat. It made me feel better.
    Well, now I had to go and look for it. I opened the emergency supplies and replaced the life support cartridges and micro nuclear batteries. The nanites still sealed my helmet which was good news because I didn't want to change into a light onboard suit with its admittedly weak protection.
    Now weapons were a problem. The integrated pulse guns didn't work. I rummaged through the stores Ralph had left me when I'd bought the ship off him the day before but only found a snub-barreled pulse assault rifle.
    I checked its stats.
     
    Damage: 9
    Firing speed: 3
    DpS: 27
     
    Way not good enough. To go looking for my reactor with something like this was asking for a respawn. The mobs I'd studied earlier started with Armor 200+. If you did the math, I needed at least 10 bursts of fire to make a hole in the weakest of them.
    It wouldn't work. So I had to go out again. The ship's network was dead, power was down, not a working device in sight, but with a little help from a toolkit I managed to prize open the launch tube diaphragm and produce a small recon probe.
    Its independent power supply was fine. Such a shame I couldn't contact our other guys: the distance between me and the asteroid belt was too great. But it gave me an idea. I activated the probe and set it a task. The machine winked its micro engines at me and began gaining altitude (in respect of the station), transmitting the picture and scanning the frequencies the Outlaws normally used to communicate.
    Yes! I had a signal.
    Obeying