Detective David Clark sat at his desk, still reviewing evidence in the case of the Morgan assassination. The police had swept the room three times and couldn’t find a single piece of DNA to lead them to their killer. If they’d found a blaze pistol in Morgan’s hand, the case probably would have went down as a suicide. Something about this case bothered Clark, though, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

A series of disks were found on Clark’s desk, and they were taken in as evidence, although no one expected to find any evidence on them. Clark slipped one into his data-pad and looked at the contents. Pictures of his family, thought Clark, as he removed the disk. He slipped in a second one. More pictures of his family. One doesn’t usually find a politician with a heart. He grabbed the third disk and thought: Third time’s the charm, without knowing how right he actually was.

One file was on the third disk -- William Morgan’s personal journal. Clark opened the file and examined it. The first entry was dated five years ago, and he scrolled down to a more recent one. The word “Omega” caught the detective’s eye, and he began to read...

Alert klaxons began to blare once again in the cockpit of the Goliath. “Battle stations!” Duke Bullwhip yelled into his comm-unit. The entire crew took to their battle stations and all of the Marauder Wing fighters were launched.

Chris Quinn, Mike Pearson, Daniel Wright, Stephen McNamara, and Jack Lawrence all launched in their respective fighters. Quinn, the squadron leader, took control of the situation. Into his helmet’s comm-unit, he said: “Four, Five, and Six, you’re with me. We’re going to take Needle’s Turncoat from the front. Everybody else, take care of the fighters, and take the Turncoat from behind. Its engine emissions will hide you from the scanners long enough to disable. Let’s go!”

Chris Quinn pulled on his flight-stick and placed his feet on his rudder pedals. Gripping the trigger of his blaze cannons, he went looking for trouble with the Turncoat called ‘Needle’ Edwards.

The Turncoat’s blaze cannons fired powerful bolts of red blaze energy at his small Krait, but the fighter’s maneuverability gave him the power to weave in and out, while still inflicting damage upon the larger warship. His blaze cannon’s slowly ate away at the Turncoat’s shields, while the other fighters in Marauder Wing flew unnoticed behind the Turncoat.

Having defeated the less-experienced renegade pilots, the three Kraits (piloted by Wright, McNamara, and Lawrence) were hidden by the emissions of the Turncoat’s engines. This blind spot, which is known only by a few, is the Turncoat’s biggest weakness. Chris Quinn, a former renegade, knew all about it. He’d explained the entire plan to the fighter squadron beforehand, and, now, it was time to see if it worked.

“I see the engines,” said Lawrence. “If we fire at them, the ship can’t move, right?”

“Yeah,” replied Daniel Wright. “And, if we do it right, the engines explode, disabling the rest of the ship. C’mon,” he said, “let’s move in.”

Hidden in the emissions of the engines, the three Kraits unleashed all the power that their blaze cannons had. Within half a minute, a pillar of fire roared up through the back-end of the Turncoat. The engines had exploded, the ship had shut down, and Marauder Wing had won.

There were cheers over the comm-unit, but, an instant later, a second Turncoat hyperjumped into the system. Marauder Wing united and went after this new foe, leaving the disabled Turncoat to drift through the system.

Chris Quinn’s shields were badly battered from the fight against Needle’s Turncoat. He needed to return to the Goliath, because this new foe would surely kill him. One of its Kraits soared up behind him and began to fire blaze shot after blaze shot. Quinn tried to avoid them, tried to get to the safe-haven of the hangar bay, but his shields were soon gone, and he had nothing to rely on but his Krait’s paper-thin armor.

He removed his seat-belt and pushed the eject button. Donning a pressure suit, the pilot floated through space. The Krait exploded beneath him, and a lick of flame caught the leg of his pressure suit. The atmosphere began to leak out, and Chris Quinn could feel the icy cold touch of Death upon him. Quinn gasped for breath, but got none. His eyes froze into position (staring out at the vast universe). The pilot’s body floated through the Riomor system.

Marauder Wing had taken a beating against Needle’s ship, and so had the Goliath. Duke had had enough of battling the renegades. When Marauder Wing was safely within the hangars, he pushed a button on his control panel. A hidden, illegal electron pulse cannon (EPC) revealed itself beneath the Goliath’s wing. A bolt of white lightning streaked across the system, and crashed through the shields of the other Turncoat.

It was instantly disabled. The battle was instantly over. The only problem with the EPC was that it drained all of the ship’s power for a period of up to ten minutes. Much like Marauder Leader, the Goliath floated lifelessly through the Riomor system...