Chapter 2: What the Outer Systems Cost

The ship had a name once. She didn't use it anymore.

It was a Kree interceptor, third-generation, the kind designed for fast atmospheric insertion and extraction rather than the decade of continuous operation she had put it through. The hull had been repaired in eleven places with materials that were not designed for hull repair. The life support ran at seventy-three percent efficiency because the intake manifold on the secondary recycler had cracked eighteen months ago and the replacement part she'd harvested from a decommissioned relay station on Hala-7 was close but not exactly right. The navigation array had opinions about where she was that didn't always match the star charts. She had learned to average them.

She was running diagnostics on the port thruster coupling when the long-range array flagged the frequency.