Hayden stood from her chair when she saw the burst of energy from the Ella Fitzgerald collide with the shields of the runabouts that Epsilon Indi Station had sent out after Pressman. His plot thwarted, he’d killed himself and two Tarl, just after transmitting his ‘manifesto’ on a wide-band channel. Her heart sunk, but she was pleased at least that there hadn’t been any casualties among her own crew.

“Status on the runabouts?” she asked, turning to the operations officer.

“They’ve been damaged, but they’re not reporting any casualties. The station is sending out another pair to tow them back to dock, Captain,” Alesser reported. “Quick analysis of the blast shows that if the shuttle had landed, it would have been enough to cripple the Arcturus in the most optimistic simulations,” he added.

“Transmit the message he sent to us to Starfleet. Something about this doesn’t scream ‘lone wolf’ to me,” the captain said, before sitting back down in the command seat. “Now we have to turn to finding our own people.”

“Aye, Captain,” Alesser replied; his console chirping behind her. “The Hokule’a will be ready for departure in two hours. Starfleet is also deploying ships on a search pattern for the Janice Rand, but their distress beacon terminated when the Ella Fitzgerald was destroyed. Starfleet reports that the Rand’s escape pods were picked up a few lightyears outside of this system. It would appear that our crew are alone aboard the ship.”