Picket — Chris James

Picket duty was a punishment detail. Punishment for ramming an enemy destroyer in the battle for Catalina IV. Commander Ferna has no delusions about that. The Lesser Void was empty, a vast expanse of nothingness at the edge of our spiral arm. There were no Shoei here, there never were. A surveillance drone could have carried out this mission.

As the frigate, the CSS Fire Stalker, entered her third month of uneventful patrolling something appears the outer edge of their hyperspace surveillance envelope. Warily Ferna brings them closer, that it could be a trap had occurred to him.

What they discover is even more surprising. The Marine Convoy Vessel Rhesus Chariot. A vessel believed lost centuries ago, during a completely different war altogether. Lined up within her vast bulk are thousands upon thousands of hibernating marines. Most, but not quite all, dead.

Bringing them aboard will relieve more than just the tedium. Even after all these centuries, one of them still has unfinished business. There is somewhere he wants to go, and the Fire Stalker is the perfect vessel to take him there. Whether the crew agree or not.