Kael accepts a low-status ore convoy that leaves during the worst Ashgate debris tide. Senn earns helm by proving...
Iron Hallow left dock badly.
The carrier's first meter of motion tore a scream from the port-side mooring collar, and Senn Orbit threw both hands over the helm cage before the old mass could yaw into the fuel gantry. Warning lights ran down the bridge pit. Not battle lights. Worse: invoice lights, the kind that turned every unnecessary burn into debt.
"Counter-thrust?" Kael Veyr asked.
"If you want to buy another fifty tons of cryo-slush, sure," Senn said. "Or you let the tug pull, vent two degrees of attitude, and accept that your grand warship handles like a drunk warehouse."
Tavia Renn stood behind them with the crew compact slate and the Ashgate convoy contract. "The vote approved departure, not humiliation."
"Humiliation is fuel-efficient," Senn said.
That earned a strained laugh from the helm crew. It also steadied hands that had been too tight on dead controls.
On the forward screen, four hazard-ore barges waited beyond Lumen Docks with beacon spacing already drifting out of insurance tolerance. Their captain called in with a voice full of doubt. "Iron Hallow, confirm escort range. Your registry still shows weapons locked."
Kael opened the channel. "Confirmed. We provide mass cover, sensor watch, and lawful defense cone management. We do not fire first."
"That is a fancy way to say you brought no guns."
Orin Vale's rough voice came from the back of the bridge, where he had been leaning near a manual weapons panel nobody had authorized him to touch. "Guns that fire illegal make lawyers rich and crews dead."
Kael turned. "You are not on the crew roll."
"No. I am on the unpaid witness roll from yesterday's auction bar." Orin held up both hands. "But I know old carrier arcs, and your cone is pointed like a broom closet."
Tavia's eyes narrowed. "He does not touch weapons."
"He can talk," Kael said. "For free."
Senn brought Iron Hallow into the convoy lane with a long, ugly coast that made the deck vibrate under their boots. The carrier moved like a city deciding whether physics was worth obeying. Behind them, Lumen Docks shrank into repair lights and bank towers. Ahead, Ashgate Lane glittered with debris, old cargo skins, and ice flashes where bad pilots had once trusted clean maps.
Juno Pax called from sensors. "Debris tide is early. Beacon Three is already blind for twelve seconds per sweep."
The ore captain snapped, "We paid for escort, not weather reports."
Tavia muted the outgoing channel with one finger. "If they panic and break formation, insurance dies."
Kael looked at Senn's projected route. The standard path used two correction burns before Beacon Three. Senn had drawn a thinner curve that rode the carrier's mass through a drift shadow.
"How much fuel?" Kael asked.
"Saves thirty-six tons if nobody screams," Senn said. "Costs us pride and five minutes."
Tavia lifted the compact slate. "Route change. Crew vote."
"We are in motion," Kael said.
"Then speak quickly."
He faced the bridge crew, not the screen. "Standard path spends fuel we do not have to look professional. Senn's coast keeps return margin alive. It also puts us close enough to debris that Juno's sensors matter and one bad correction dents our patch. I recommend the ugly path."
Mara Quell came over engineering comm. "The port patch tolerates ugly better than heroic."
Juno added, softer but clear, "I can cover Beacon Three if the barges hold spacing."
Votes came in fast. Not unanimous. Enough.
Tavia marked it. "Ugly path carries."
Kael reopened the convoy channel. "Ore convoy, adjust to Iron Hallow's wake shadow. Beacon spacing tight. If you drift, we spend fuel towing you back and bill it personally."
The ore captain started to object. Then Senn rotated the carrier's huge body across the debris shine, and the nearest barge's hazard alarm dropped from red to amber inside the shadow of Iron Hallow's armor.
"Copy wake shadow," the captain said, suddenly less proud.
That changed the convoy. Barges that had been edging away tucked close. The old carrier became cover, not a punchline, and the defense cone on the navigation display widened around ships that had doubted she could move at all.
Then Juno's sensor board chirped in a tone Kael had not heard during drills.
"Distress beacon," she said. "Inside our legal cone. Registry squawk says medical skiff."
The forward display painted a weak pulse ahead and starboard, right where a rescue turn would drag the convoy out of Senn's fuel-saving curve.
Tavia looked from the pulse to Kael. "If we ignore real distress, Freeport buries us."
Senn's hands hovered over the helm cage. "If we chase it, we burn the return margin."
Orin stepped closer to the arc display, eyes suddenly sober. "And if it is bait, the shooter wants you to turn your locked guns toward empty dark."
Kael watched the pulse repeat, too neat against the debris tide. Iron Hallow's first convoy had reached Ashgate Lane, earned its formation, and found a distress call sitting exactly where legality became a trap.