Chapter 20: Hub Aurelia – The Open Hand
Day 114 – 05:00 ship time
Relative: 0.38 g continuous
Range to Hub Aurelia: 0.6 light-hours
Status: coast dark, drives cold, heat dumped
The trumpet stayed silent, but the ship hummed—a low, hungry chord. Five drives slept, radiators folded like black wings. Hearth-Hammer drifted invisible, a shadow among shadows, closing on the first name Voss had given them: Hub Aurelia – "the open hand" – where cargo changed owners and conscience was optional.
Karl floated in the blister, optics locked. Ahead, infrared resolved into structure: a wheel-and-spoke platform, 600 m diameter, rotating slow. Heat blooms dotted the rim—reactor cores being swapped like playing cards. Smaller craft buzzed around it: tugs, pods, shuttles with transponders muted. No warships visible, but weapons could hide behind polite hulls.
He counted heartbeats—forty-three—then keyed the comm. "All hands, suit-ready. We go in quiet. First goal: eyes on children. Second goal: cores. Third goal: burn the hand so it never closes again."
Responses came as mic-clicks—five affirmatives, one bot chirp.
Day 114 – 12:30
Approach under false skin
They had painted the hull matte-black days ago; now they added deception. Jun deployed a magnetic sail—scrap fabric coated with radar-absorbent film—towed 200 m ahead. To sensors Hearth-Hammer read as a drifting cargo bale, cold and dumb. Closing speed: 2 km/s, gentle enough to look like orbital decay.
Inside, the crew dressed in stolen Meridian coveralls, names ripped off, ranks falsified. Weapons stayed slung but hidden. Karl clipped the foil star inside his collar—close to the throat, where words came from.
Day 114 – 15:45
Docking under handshake
Hub Aurelia's control hailed on standard freight channel: "Vessel zero-seven-mark, identify cargo, request berth."
Jun answered, voice relaxed, comm-filtered to hide accent. "Freighter Garden Scout, cores plus stasis units, seeking private dock. Paying in advance." He transmitted a credit chip code Voss had provided—still valid, still dirty.
Approval came back: "Dock Charlie-Nine, outer ring. Follow beacon. No weapons on station. Comply or be vented."
Karl smiled the cut-smile. "Comply," he said, and meant nothing.
Beacon locked; the ship slid into a docking sleeve barely wider than the frigate. Magnets kissed; umbilical pressurised. Station gravity tugged—0.15 g, gentle, enough to feel ground under boots.
Day 114 – 16:10
First steps inside the hand
They cycled through two at a time—Karl and Miguel first, visors up, rifles hidden in tool crates. Corridor walls were painted soothing grey with corporate logos scrubbed off. Soft music played—synthetic strings designed to calm cargo and conscience.
A factor waited behind a glass wall—same type as Voss: tailored suit, cold eyes, smile like a scalpel. Name-plate read "Factor Lian." She gestured them toward inspection room, voice filtered through speaker. "Cargo first, payment second. Open crates."
Karl inclined his head, polite. "Of course. This way."
They led her back through the umbilical into Hearth-Hammer's cargo bay—now staged with dummy crates and two real stasis pods filled with weighted mannequins under frost-glass. Lian scanned, nodded approval. "Children units functional. Cores hot. Price?"
Karl's pulse ticked—forty-three. He met her gaze. "Payment in names. Who buys the children?"
Lian's smile faltered. "Above my clearance."
Miguel lifted the lid of a dummy pod—inside, not a child, but a cutting charge shaped like a core. He thumbed the primer. Red diode blinked.
Karl spoke soft. "Clearance just dropped."
Factor Lian reached for alarm—too slow. Selene stepped from behind stack, rifle muzzle on her temple. "Hands where conscience lives."
Lian raised hands, voice steady. "You'll never leave this ring alive."
Karl already moving—zip-ties, gag, comm-cuff. "We'll leave the way we came—through you."
Day 114 – 16:25
Hostile extraction
They dragged Lian into the ship, sealed lock. Station sensors read temporary pressure loss—routine for cargo shuffle. No alarm yet.
In the weapons bay they rigged her to a chair, gravity gentle, threat clear. Karl held the foil star in front of her eyes. "Every point a life sold. Start talking."
She talked—names, sectors, codes. Buyer hub interior map, guard rotation, child-hold location. She claimed ignorance of upstream, but downstream she knew: Section Gamma-4, 120 children, 40 cores, departure in 36 hours.
Karl felt ice climb spine. One hundred twenty.
He patched her voice live to the station intercom, broadcast on loop: "This is Factor Lian. Hub Aurelia is compromised. Lay down arms. Release prisoners. This is Factor Lian…"
Chaos answered—alarms screaming, lights snapping red. Somewhere distant, guards mobilised.
Day 114 – 16:40
Section Gamma-4
The team moved—five humans, one remote drone. They exited through maintenance shaft—zero-g, no cameras. Corridor by corridor they advanced, cutting charges on doors, lancing locks. First door opened: stasis pods—children floating, eyes closed, breathing slow. Tala checked vitals—stable, sedated. She whispered, "We're here to take you home," though no one heard.
They tagged pods with portable beacons, ready for tow.
Second door: cores stacked like gold bars. Miguel placed epoxy bombs, timer 10 minutes. Enough to disable, not enough to breach hull—children nearby.
Third door: guards. Three rifles up. Karl counted—one, two—rifle cracked, darts detonated. Two guards down; third fled, shouting. Return fire spanged off walls. Selene lobbed a flash-strip—white light, no sound. Guard dropped, clutching eyes.
They pushed deeper.
Day 114 – 17:05
The count
Pods stretched in rows—120 units, each labelled with barcodes, not names. Karl's HUD auto-scanned: ages 6 to 16, origins mixed, health fair. He felt the forty-three beat swell into one hundred twenty.
Tala worked fast—sedation reversal patches slapped on every pod, slow release to avoid shock. She whispered lullabies, voice calm, eyes wet.
Miguel planted charges on core stacks—enough to slag the lot, not enough to breach. Timer: 15 minutes.
Jun hacked the bay control, opened outer blast shutters. Outside, Hearth-Hammer waited, umbilical extended like a lifeline.
They began pod extraction—mag-tow sleds, two at a time, rolling toward dock. Children inside stirred, eyes fluttering, questions forming. No time for answers—only movement.
Day 114 – 17:20
Exodus
Station guards massed—heavy armor, plasma lances. Firefight erupted in corridor. Selene and Miguel held choke-point, darts cracking, epoxy bombs lobbed. Guard advance slowed by zero-g chaos and their own reluctance to damage cargo.
Karl towed the last sled—twenty pods—through smoke and sparks. Ayla's voice echoed in his helmet, recorded calm: "Count with me—one, two, three…" He counted aloud, steady, as he moved.
At 17:28 the final pod crossed the umbilical. Karl slapped the close paddle. Blast door sealed behind—locks welded by Selene's strip charge.
Day 114 – 17:30
Burn and break
They cycled into Hearth-Hammer, sealed lock. Drives already warming. Miguel hit ignition—0.18 g slammed them into couches. Umbilical sheared away. Station docking ring tore open like tin. Explosions bloomed astern—cores slagging, charges ripping Hub Aurelia's guts. Debris cloud glittered in red dwarf light—a funeral pyre for the open hand.
Factor Lian watched from brig chair as shock-wave hit—muffled thud, lights flickering. She said nothing, eyes finally showing fear.
Karl spoke without turning. "That was payment. Sleep tight."
Day 114 – 20:00
Head-count in coast
Bay converted to emergency dorm—pods stacked two-high, children waking, crying, laughing, vomiting. Tala moved pod to pod, meds ready, voice soft. One hundred twenty beats now echoed inside the ship.
Ayla floated aisle to aisle, handing basil sprigs, whispering, "You're home." Leaves became tokens—green against fear.
Karl walked the length, counting aloud—one, two… one hundred twenty… forty-three forgotten, new rhythm born. He touched the foil star in his pocket, felt the nutrient square inside—food for the hungry, promise kept.
He opened the log, wrote:
Day 114 – Hub Aurelia destroyed. One hundred twenty children recovered, zero casualties on our side. Buyer network wounded, not dead. Next hub waits. We are louder now—five hearts plus one hundred twenty echoes. Steel remembers, garden feeds, star leads forward. – Karl
Outside, the cluster still glowed red, but one ember had gone dark. Inside, one hundred twenty new voices learned to breathe without cages.
Forward, forward—until every hand is closed for good.