Ep.#6 - "Head of the Dragon" (The Frontiers Saga) by Ryk Brown Page A

to monitor the movement of ships between worlds. In his current configuration, if detected, he would appear to be nothing more than a rock of insignificant size. Even a closer imaging from a nearby ship would show him to be an abandoned, outdated interceptor that had probably drifted in from outside the system. He would not be big enough to be considered a threat to any planet, and his trajectory kept him free of the shipping lanes so that he would not be considered a collision threat that needed to be dealt with. Another ship would have to be within visual range in order to determine his true nature and intent, and if any ship began such an approach, he could still power up and jump away within a few minutes.
    Of course, jumping away from deep within the system was the last thing Tug wanted to do. Not only would that immediately identify him as an intruder, but it would alert the Ta’Akar that the rumors of the mysterious disappearing ship were not only true, but that there was more than one of them. More importantly, it would alert them to the fact that their home system was easy to penetrate, and that would make this the last recon mission they would ever run through the Takaran system.
    Tug still had several hours before he would be within passive sensor range of Hellek. He only hoped his calculations of the orbit of Pallax were correct. If not, he would have to return for another pass in order to image the shipyards. As it was, this mission was already going to last more than twenty-eight hours.
    He checked the mission time on his data pad. In two more hours, he would be passing Hellek. After that, he would have to coast for another ten hours to reach his safe departure point well beyond the heliopause on the opposite side of the system. Unfortunately, the positions of the other worlds beyond the orbit of Hellek would make it impossible for him to examine them during this pass. However, he was reasonably certain those worlds offered little in the way of intelligence. There might be a few frigates out doing maneuvers in the outer reaches of the system, but there was nothing he could do about that now. His mission was primarily to determine the current state of the Avendahl.
    This type of recon was a true test of a pilot’s resolve. Tug remembered the patrols he and Max had flown beyond the borders of the Palee system. Max was his former wingman and lifetime friend who now went by the name of Travon Dumar. They, too, had spent hours drifting and scanning, looking for signs of ships traveling at faster than light speeds. They had both been younger men then, full of pride and arrogance, and ready to prove themselves in their cockpits. Tug had determined that their commanding officer had assigned them the boring task of deep space recon as a way of teaching them patience and self control. On more than one occasion, they had both performed maneuvers during training sorties that were considered dangerous and unwarranted. The fact that they had performed them flawlessly had not mattered to their superiors. They only saw Tug as the son of nobility who thought the rules did not apply to him, as well as his trusty sidekick who was willing to follow his arrogant leader anywhere. They had let him get away with his flight antics right up until he and Max were almost killed. That had been when the deep space patrols had begun.
    He had run them alone at first, as Max had still been recovering at the time. He had always believed he had been sent out alone because no one other than Max had wanted to fly with him. It wasn’t until later that he realized they were trying to teach him to understand the loneliness of deep space. He eventually did come to understand it, as it had taken Max several weeks to recover from his injuries.
    Since then, Tug had flown many missions by himself. He certainly could have used some company on this trip, but it was too dangerous a mission to ask another to risk it. His subordinates in the Karuzari had