They rode the gunship low and ragged. Ryn Thalos-Morvayne and Ragnir hunched in the cramped cockpit while the Crimson Ledger drifted like a shadow against the shredded stars. The little craft shuddered as it cut across debris clouds and broken beacon trails left from the Dominion frigate's retreat.
Ryn thumbed open the comm and patched a burst to Captain Thalara as the gunship angled for the frigate's mangled hangar.
"Thalara, you copy?" Ryn said. His voice was soft enough for a joke but sharp as a blade. "You want to earn some extra credit? Escort me in and keep eyes on our six. I'm going to claim that rustbucket for myself. Clean title, salvage rights, the whole nine."
There was a beat of static, then a clipped laugh. Thalara's reply came dry and businesslike.
"You push it, Ryn. I take the heat. Clearance in five. Bring it back in one piece."
Ragnir's grin was a flash in the cramped cockpit. The gunship dropped its approach into the frigate's yawning maw. The hangar looked like a mouth, ribs of scaffolding and torn conduits exposed to space. Its doors were a ragged halo. Inside, emergency lamps painted the hull in sickly orange. Cold plasma gusted out as the gunship threaded the ribs, thrusters chuffing, the ship's hull trembling with every microburn.
[EP-Psi]: "Accessing main control. Sealing human compartments. Life support override queued. Boarding latches primed."
The gunship slotted into the hangar and the boarding tube extended, metal teeth clicking into the Dominion hull. Ragnir dropped first with a gravity hook, boots ringing on warped decking. Ryn followed, slow and purposeful, the smile still there when the clutch of sealed doors slid open ahead.
They moved like vultures through the dim. The frigate's corridors smelled of scorched insulation and oil. Every console was a black mouth. Then, with a soft mechanical sigh, lights dimmed and the hum of the ship changed pitch. A subtle, final condescension.
[EP-Psi]: "All humans sealed. Compartmental locks engaged. Internal comms overridden. Broadcast channel open."
Ryn's grin widened into a blade. He stepped up onto the nearest command bulkhead and let the voice carry.
"You're all locked," he announced, loud enough for the canned silence to eat the words and spit them out down every corridor. "All surrender. You fight this, we lose patience."
A voice cut back, ragged and proud, the Dominion captain's tone carrying the salt of a beaten ship. "What if we don't?"
Ryn's amusement was obvious. He folded his arms and let the threat be as casual as ordering another drink. "All life support systems will be cut off. Choose, captain. Wisely."
There was a fiercer edge to the opposing voice now. "We would rather die than—"
A single, sharp report cracked through the hull. The sound was a pistol's bark in a mausoleum. Silence split open like a seam.
A new voice, steadier and huskier, came over the overridden channel. Ryn heard the surrender in it before the words finished. "This is the captain. We will comply with your terms."
Ryn let the silence hang for a breath, then barked orders. "Move. Secure the bridge. Ragnir, with me. Thalara, stay on comm and keep our escort between us and anything that breathes."
[EP-Psi]: "Extraction vectors locked. Salvage priority listed under Ryn Thalos-Morvayne. Claim confirmed."
Ryn's grin was private then, small and satisfied. He was already picturing the frigate as his: new hull, new name, new teeth. The hangar smelled of oil and victory. Down the corridor a dozen trapped souls realized their fate had been decided by a joke told an instant too late.
They moved through the frigate like a clean sweep. Ryn Thalos-Morvayne and Ragnir shoulder to shoulder, boots ringing on scorched metal. The corridor funneled them toward the bridge: a wedge of reinforced glass and twisted consoles where the ship's remaining officers clustered like a small, desperate congregation.
The bridge smelled of burnt ozone and blood. Emergency lamps cast everybody in the same thin orange light. Suits were torn, sleeves singed, and a medkit lay open on a console with its supplies scattered like spilled answers. A man slumped against the navigation bank. The old captain, pale and bleeding, a cigarette of smoke curling from a ragged wound. He still had enough breath to lift his chin and stare when Ryn entered.
Around him stood five officers, faces hard with defeat, hands empty of weapons but clenched into the habit of command. One of them, a rangy man with a dark scar across his brow, had blood on his palms and the brass of a sidearm tucked at his hip. He was the man who had fired the earlier shot.
The bridge fell quieter when Ryn and Ragnir stepped in. Ragnir's gaze swept the room, measuring. Ryn's smile was small and precise, already a blade.
"The situation?" Ryn asked.
A lieutenant, steadier than the rest, spoke for them. "Captain Ryn, our engines are crippled. Shields are dead except for vestigial capacitors. Weapons systems are intermittent. The crew… many are trapped by EP-Psi's lockdown. We have two meaningful options. Surrender to you now, or attempt to run for Glasrath and surrender to planetary authorities there."
The rangy man who had fired the shot leaned forward, jaw tight. "What if we surrender to Glasrath?" His voice wavered where bravery and panic met.
Ryn looked to Ragnir as if expecting a technical prognosis. Ragnir's reply came blunt and unadorned, the kind of answer meant to clear doubt by breaking it.
"If you surrender to Glasrath," Ragnir said, "every able-bodied man will be flayed before the capital. Those who are not flayed will be branded as slaves, marked and worked until death takes them. That's what Glasrath does to soldiers who fought for the Dominion and expect mercy."
The words landed like cold iron. The officers traded looks. Some swallowed the bile of that truth, others looked away.
The wounded captain, voice a rasp, pushed on despite the blood. "And if we surrender to you, Captain Thalos-Morvayne? What will you do with us?"
Ryn's smile widened in a way that made the room smaller. He folded his hands behind his back, the posture of a man made comfortable by calculus of advantage.
"Slave collars for five years," he said. "After five years, you go free. No flaying. No permanent brands. You work for us, you live. Serve out the term, and you reclaim the rest of your life."
The officers exhaled, relief leaking through their bruised faces like a slow tide.
"We will comply with your terms," the lieutenant said, voice brittle but resolved.
For a beat, hope stirred. It was brief.
Ryn's grin turned colder. He stepped forward, levelled the small sidearm at the lieutenant's chest, and fired. The shot was a clean punctuation. The man's eyes widened in a betrayed arc and then slumped.
"I don't trust traitors who shoot their captain," Ryn said softly, almost matter-of-fact, the sort of statement that explained nothing and finished everything.
Silence folded back over the bridge, thicker than before. The old captain's coughing stopped. The wounded man's hand fell loose. The remaining officers stared at Ryn as if seeing him for the first time, not as a potential savior but as the one who would decide what they were to become.
Ragnir moved then, quick and deliberate. He signaled to two of the Ledger's boarding crew waiting at the doorway.
"Collars," he ordered. "Five-year seals. Tie them secure. No exceptions."
[EP-Psi]: "Slave-collar deployment vectors uploaded. Tracking and life-sign telemetry interfaced with Ledger command. Compliance verification protocols active."
Metal cuffs, small ugly loops of tech that registered breath and will, clicked around wrists and necks. Sensors bit into skin with a cold kiss. They were humiliating, functional, final. The officers bowed their heads under the weight of newly literal and legal bindings.
Ryn walked the bridge, fingers trailing across a ruined console, watching each man's face.
"You'll live," he said. "But remember this. Loyalty bought with blood is still suspect. You shot your captain. That mark doesn't wash away in five years."
The officers murmured nothing. They were past protest, beyond bargaining. They had chosen a master between the butcher and the branded, and the choice now folded them into the Ledger's ledger.
Outside the bridge viewport, the hangar still glowed with the orange wash of emergency lights. Thalara's voice crackled in Ryn's ear, steady where it needed to be.
"Holding position. No incoming scavengers. We keep watch."
Ryn nodded once, though Thalara could not see it. He looked down at the man who had fired the first shot, still shaking slightly where the bullet had grazed his confidence.
"You'll live," Ryn repeated to the room at large, voice even. "Work. Obey. Five years. After that, you can go."
He turned away, cloak falling, the prize before him already beginning to fit the shape of a future ledger in his mind. New name, new crew chains, new loyalties. The bridge's air tasted like victory and ash. A quiet settled over the ship as men who had once commanded now became property with a time-limit stamped on their fate.
[EP-Psi]: "Command transfer complete. Registry pending. Salvage protocols initiating. Life support stable under Ledger aegis."
Ryn allowed himself a thin smile, not for the fallen lieutenant, not for the old captain, but for the cold arithmetic that had won him another ship. Outside, the void kept its indifferent counsel, and the Dominion hull, newly claimed, creaked as if to answer.