A/N:

I don't know how many hundreds of hours I have playing this game, but I feel like it's time I've written a fanfic on it.

This story will use elements of the Captain's Edition mod(s) and other mods for FTL. Not all, but a few. As fun as those mods are, I still prefer the simplicity of what vanilla and AE FTL have to offer. In addition, there may be some breaking of game mechanics for the sake of the story, but hopefully this will be kept to a minimum to stay in spirit of the game.

Lastly, I'm nowhere near the sci-fi geek I ought to be to write a fanfic about a sci-fi game. But I'll try my best anyway.

-Akyuu no Joshu


"SECURITY BREACH DETECTED. PRISON-WIDE LOCKDOWN IS NOW IN EFFECT. ALL ARMED PERSONNEL REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS. ALL PRISONERS FOUND OUTSIDE THEIR ROOMS WILL BE - "

A few blasts of energy bullets splatters over the security console in the control room, silencing the robotic voice screaming over the PA system.

"We have less than ten minutes to reach the prison spacedocks," one of the pair of prisoners sporting a yellowish orange prisoner outfit and holding an AE-4 directed energy assault rifle stolen from one of the prison guards yells, kicking the dead prison guard inside the control room to make sure he isn't moving anymore. "C'mon!"

"Hold on, we have to override the spacedocks' service doors!" the other prisoner, putting down his R1-A2 railgun pistol on the top of the console, quickly gets to work typing on a touch-keyboard on the console.

"Huh? Wait, why? Those cruisers sitting in those docks are strong enough to bust through those doors by themselves! We don't have time for this, the security teams'll be right on top of our asses asap! You wanna get outta this shithole alive, don't you?!"

"Then fucking leave me and go join the others down at the spacedocks! If we're gonna escape from this place, I'd rather prison-break out on a ship that'll actually stand a chance to get us home instead of floating out there in the middle of space on ten percent hull integrity!"

The prisoner with the energy rifle grimaces. "Your funeral, dude. Meet us down there if you can!" he calls, hurrying out of the control room to join the dozens of prisoners overrunning the initial security teams to reach the spacedocks, where several Federation cruisers are docked on the service platforms for refuel and repair.

Alone in the control room, the remaining prisoner works quickly to grant himself access of the control of the service doors. His eyes flick back and forth urgently from the keyboard to the hologram screen hovering over the console, his fingers getting used to typing again from the past two years of being denied usage of any technological gadgets. But despite his rusty typing, the prisoner manages to override the security lockdown and open up the service doors. They should be open by the time he reaches the spacedocks.

The yells and shouts of the backup security teams arriving on scene alerts the prisoner, and he knows he can't stay in the control room for much longer. Picking up his stolen R1-A2 rail pistol to defend himself, the prisoner dashes out of the control room and runs down the metal corridors being illuminated by flashing red alarm lights all along the ceiling. They'd spent the last year or so carefully studying and memorizing the layout of the prison: dash right, take the next left, keep going straight until you hit the T-intersection of the halls, and then take another right and keep going straight until you see the service elevators that take you straight down to the service spacedocks.

The sudden appearance of a squad of Federation prison guards to the prisoner's right just as he is about to reach the service elevator lobby catches him off guard, but the prisoner performs a combat roll forward to escape the energy bullets fired at him. His heart pounding, he slams his palm onto the elevator call panel, and to his good luck, one of the elevators that have not been used opens up behind him immediately. He dives in and repeatedly slaps the "close elevator doors" button until the doors close, just in time, too, right as the guards storm into the service elevator lobby and catch a glimpse of him disappearing behind the elevator doors. The doors shake with the impacts of energy bullets thudding against it, but there is little that energy ammunition of rifle caliber can do to pierce through four-inch reinforced titanium steel.

Reaching the spacedocks, the prisoner emerges to find himself witnessing the final moments of a brief but fierce firefight that has taken place in his absence. Just as planned, the service doors are now open, and the breathtaking scenic view of the northern side of a lush, green and blue planet floating in a star-studded black abyss presents itself. But now is not the time to be sightseeing; the prisoner pockets his railgun pistol, stoops to pick up the dropped AE-4 energy rifle from the hands of a dead prison guard in front of him, and vaults over the railing to slide down to the dock platforms, where four Federation cruisers are docked, their repairs and servicing only recently being completed. Three of the ships are the new Federation Cruiser Type C's: one of them is the older Type C-1, and the other two are the newer Type C-2s. The fourth ship is the aged but venerable Federation Kestrel, the same type of ship of the famous Federation Kestrel that single-handedly destroyed the flagship of the Rebellion.

"Heads up, more fatties inbound from the elevators!" the prisoner yells as he tumbles forward and gets to his feet quickly once he hits the platform. The term "fatty" is the prisoners' nickname for the prison guards, who have been infamous for their frequent eating habits during their patrols and thus have been the butt of many jokes among those behind bars. The surviving prisoners, alerted by his call, face towards the direction of the service elevator lobby with their energy rifles raised as the prisoners who were former pilots clamber into the four cruisers to start their engines. The prisoner himself enters the nearest cruiser he can reach, and as soon as he steps foot inside the cruiser, his prisoner buddy from the control room speaks over the intercom,

"I've got the piloting controls, we need to charge the FTL! Get on the engines so we can make that baby charge faster! It's at the stern, go!"

The prisoner heads to the engine room, following the directions labeled on the walls. He can hear the sharp reports of AE-4 energy rifles and EPM-1 energy carbines screaming at each other in the spacedocks, as the prisoners outside cover their comrades attempting to hijack and assume control of the Federation cruisers. Sitting down at the engine console, the prisoner drops his rifle on the floor and boots up the computer to get to work charging the FTL for their new ship. The engine exhaust gears of all four cruisers are warming up, emitting bright purplish-red fumes as their FTLs are nearing safe deployment levels.

"It's almost done! Wolf, go outside and tell our boys to board the cruisers! We're gonna be airborne in thirty!"

Wolf dashes out of the engine room to the side hull entrance that he has used to enter the ship, and keeping his head down once he emerges, he slides over to a small squad of prisoners taking cover behind large metal crates that once carried spent FTL cells for recycling.

"We're good! C'mon, we gotta go, we gotta go!" Wolf yells over the engines of the cruisers that are growing louder and louder. The prisoners flash him a thumbs up, and they shout at their surviving comrades to fall back to the cruisers. The prisoners board the cruisers, shutting the doors behind them, and the engines scream, their exhaust fumes blasting and creating pillars of high-temperature gases that scorch the spacedock platforms behind them. The surviving guards attempt to fire at the ships with their rifles and carbines, but knowing that they're just wasting their time, the sergeants bark orders to their guards, and the guards swarm the platform, capturing the wounded prisoners on the spacedocks who are still alive. The ships pull away from the docks, sailing out through the overridden service doors and out into the artificial atmosphere of the orbital prison station.

"We're not out of it yet, they're gonna use the prison's defense systems to try to shoot us down on our way out!" Wolf's pilot calls to the other pilots of the hijacked cruisers. "Wolf, we don't have time to power this ship's weapon systems to defend ourselves while we ditch this place! You gotta work those engines like you've never worked 'em before!"

Wolf glances at the monitor of his console, his heart pounding in his neck.

No weapons, no way to defend themselves, and no choice but to run away. He's been in this situation so many times before that he's surprised he's still alive after all that. And now, yet again, he finds himself in another situation exactly like before.

The console is estimating a 30% probability of dodging incoming attacks. Seeing that the engines aboard this ship has Level 3 engine power, and seeing that he's never been thoroughly trained in engine usage before, the pilot up there in at the port must be an experienced pilot. Either way, 30% chance is a decent chunk of luck to get themselves out. So long as they don't hit the piloting or the engines...

"Brace, brace!" the pilot yells over the intercom, and their ship shudders terribly, the distant sound of crunching metal shrieking from somewhere on the ship. "Fuck, that was a goddamn Breach missile, and they took out our sensors! You two in Shielding, get over there and put out those fires, we don't have any door controls on board!"

The dull popping sounds of burst lasers and heavy lasers punching against the shields of the ships can be heard, but the sounds fade away slowly as they fly further into the outermost layers of the artificial atmosphere.

"Shit, they just took out that Federation cruiser next to us...I think Macky 'n his boys were on that one, poor bastards, they just took a couple heavy lasers to their engines. Nothing we can do for 'em now," the pilot says. "FTL in ten!"

Wolf works madly at the engine console. Damn thing, it won't charge the FTL any faster if he tried.

"FTL Drive is online, thrusters engaged!"

The FTL exhaust pipes glow white, and the surviving three vessels disappear from the prison station's atmosphere into the dark, starry horizon of deep space.


In Earth year 2199, the human race developed sophisticated enough technology to make space travel within their own solar system possible, and throughout the 23rd century, the solar system saw an extensive, perhaps even aggressive, colonization by the human beings. As long as it wasn't a gas giant, every single solid astronomical body in the solar system was colonized and developed - even on Pluto. Not to mention, thousands, if not tens or even hundreds of thousands of orbital space stations were constructed and set into orbit around every single planet in the solar system, for utilities anywhere from remote research facilities to purely vacation suites. But as wonderful as human technology had become, space travel beyond their own solar system was risky at best, and human researchers, scientists, and engineers across the solar system sought to invent and construct a new space-travel technology that would take the human race beyond the boundaries of their own solar system. Such was the zeitgeist during those days, as the motto "we must break out of our galactic cage!" resounded from the boiling surface of Mercury to the icy plateaus of Pluto.

The humans found out that their little motto during the 23rd century, for better or for worse, was to turn out to be ironically true, for the key to their galactic cage would be provided to them, not developed on their own. During the first opening decades of the 24th century, rumors were spreading throughout the solar system about sightings of aliens appearing and disappearing mysteriously in various places throughout the system. The first such sighting was at the Northern Hemisphere of Jupiter, near the Agireda Research Station #17, whose scientists on board snapped incredibly detailed photos of the alien cruiser seemingly sitting randomly about three miles in front of the station. Many of these sightings were not like sketchy UFO sightings of the 20th and 21st century; these sightings left no doubt in most humans' minds that it was time for them to encounter alien lifeforms visiting them from the far corners of the universe. But so far, whoever or whatever these aliens were, they'd yet to show themselves.

They finally did in Earth year 2352, when an entire fleet of alien cruisers suddenly showed up in Earth's atmosphere over Paris, France. These aliens, much to the humans' surprise, didn't come to conquer them, and they weren't quite what the humans were expecting either. What greeted the President of France was a small team of...robots. Well, technically, sentient beings made of nanobots that gave them the appearance of robots, but not quite robots. The explanation is complicated, to say the least. They greeted the French President with fluent French, having spent a small part of those decades since they were first sighted learning about human languages by listening into human radio transmissions and inter-planetary communications. From there, they greeted the United Nations, the overarching interplanetary government body that governed the human race, and the humans officially formed an alliance with the alien robotic/organic species known as the Engis.

The Engis explained that in human time, they had invented a method of universal travel by means of a special propulsion system known simply as the "FTL Drive" some 4000 years before their first contact with the humans. To this day, no one is really sure what the acronym "FTL" really means, as the Engis have never specified such information themselves. It seems perhaps even they are not too aware of it themselves, but because it is not a matter of importance to them, the acronym's full name is lost to history forever. Regardless, armed with the knowledge and capability to produce FTL Drive engines en masse, the human race was finally able to break out of its cage known as the solar system and stepped into the frontier of intergalactic space travel.

As it was likely that the humans who would venture forth to pioneer the human push into the unknown depths of the universe would likely break off on their own and require a government to control them, away from the grasp and rule of the United Nations, the UN back home on Earth officially mandated the establishment of the Universal Human Federation, or simply the Federation, in Earth year 2360 to be in control of all human colonies that would be created as a result of the human venture into deep space. By the end of the 24th century, because the Federation's power was naturally directly proportional to the number of colonies that had been created and inhabited because of the astonishing rate at which the humans explored the universe, the Federation had grown so large and powerful that it no longer needed to heed the United Nations' directions and thus broke off as its own independent entity and governing body in Earth year 2401. The United Nations promptly cut all ties with the Federation, essentially excommunicating all humans outside the boundaries of the humans' home solar system. Whether or not political bodies have the power to excommunicate people is another contention of debate entirely.

Thus, for a peaceful century, the Federation ruled over all human colonies and human-inhabited space sectors in the universe beyond the home solar system's borders. The Federation humans went on to encounter six more alien species, other than their ally Engis: the warlike and aggressive Mantis, the fierce and territorial Rockmen, the wise and sometimes chaotically good Zoltan, the sly and manipulative Slugs, and the oxygen-draining and metal-hungry Lanius. They fought with some, formed alliances with others, and avoided some more.

But on Earth date April 24th, 2507, the Rebellion broke out. Consisted of mainly military, para-military, and ex-military forces of the Federation, the Rebels were led by a small group of Federation dissenters who disagreed heavily and heatedly with Federation leaders on Federation policy, especially legislative policy of treating all species living under the influence of the Federation as equals. Put simply, those dissenting leaders of the Rebellion were human supremacists, as the age-old human concept of racism had evolved with the changing times to become a form of intergalactic discrimination of other species as well. They objected venomously to the appointment of alien species to important Federation posts, the allowance of members of alien species to become high-ranking military officers and generals and admirals, and the prevalence of alien species intermingling with humans and vice versa, but because the first century of the Federation's existence had brought too much prosperity to the humans of the Federation for these dissenters to have their voices heard adequately, they bided their time, and after a century of waiting, their time came on that day when a huge scandal within the top echelons of the Federation was discovered. The scandal involved several of the top-name Zoltan, Engi, and Slug, and Mantis officials of the Federation government, who were allegedly attempting to buy out several of the civilian sectors at Galaxy 0629, one of the first galaxies discovered by the Federation and had long been a fond homeworld for the humans of the Federation. This was the opportunity the dissenters needed to muckrake enough hatred for the alien species from enough of the human population to finally build up a large enough force to secede and threaten to destroy the Federation from the inside out.

From 2507 to 2511, the intergalactic civil war between the Rebellion and the Federation raged. Because the Rebellion's leaders were able to take with them a large majority of the Federation's military officers, engineers, and researchers, they were able to quickly produce a slightly superior force to the Federation's remaining military, and the first year of the war proved that the Rebellion refused to be quelled easily. If anything, 2507 proved that the Federation could not afford to treat this like some planetary rebellion in a distant sector - this Rebellion would be sure to destroy what their predecessors had worked to construct. Fueled by this fear, the forces of the Federation fought back desperately, holding on against the onslaught of the Rebellion, but by the time the war neared the end, it was estimated that up to 92% of the Federation's starting military was either destroyed, docked for repairs, or incapacitated. The Federation was down to only three major fleets, and the Rebellion would surely find them, and once they did, the war would be over, for by that point, the Federation would have no more effective military.

Then, in the first month of 2511, a single Federation Kestrel cruiser intercepted a data package from a Rebel squadron in Civilian Sector 1922, in the outskirts of the Trikassi Galaxy. That data package contained crucial information about the Rebellion, that the core of the Rebellion's military strength was vested into a single ship simply known as the Flagship. If there was ever a weakness to the far superior forces of the Rebellion, it was the Flagship - it was the communications headquarters of the entire Rebellion, and it housed the leaders of the Rebellion themselves. While it was the single strongest warship ever constructed in galactic history, if it were to be destroyed, the Rebellion would never fully recover because of how much that Flagship was a crutch to them and their military power and coordination. The captain of that single Kestrel cruiser, the Kestrel itself at the time a retired cruiser type that had to be recalled back into active service to replace lost Federation fleets, made it his mission to travel back to Federation Sector 500, where the final fleets of the Federation were in hiding from the Rebel fleets. Thus was created the legend of the humble and famous Kestrel cruiser that had no name and its valiant crew, who allegedly battled their way through eight straight sectors by itself, an unheard of feat of luck, perseverance, and courage, and single-handedly defeated and destroyed the Rebel flagship. For maximum irony, it was confirmed that the crew of the Kestrel were made up of a human captain and pilot, a Mantis guard, an Engi doorman, a Rockman engine operator, a Zoltan shield operator, a Slug sensor operator, a Lanius weapons operator, and even a Crystal refugee of the mysterious and enigmatic Crystal species, the mother species to the Rockmen.

The day that the Rebel Flagship was destroyed, Earth date November 21st, 2511, known as the Battle of David and Goliath (nicknamed the Battle of D&G for brevity's sake) marked the mass exodus of the Rebel forces. Convinced by the Federation's surprising but massive underdog victory at the defeat of the Flagship, the Engis and Zoltans renewed their historic alliances with the Federation and poured in reinforcements and funding to help the Federation finish the fight, and empowered beyond their imaginations, the fleets of the Federation hunted down the remainder of the Rebel forces to the furthest corners of the Federation. By 2513, the only options for whatever Rebels were still around were to venture beyond Federation territory into the even deeper depths of the universe, where other alien species might prey upon them and destroy them, or capitulate to the Federation forces and submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the Federation. Most chose the latter.

And such was the situation of Major Wolf Skot'Alaker, a human pilot and captain of a Hassiah-Class Rebel Heavy Cruiser during the Rebellion. At the time of his capture, he was one of the few surviving members of the original roster of Federation military officers who seceded from the Federation to join the Rebel cause - a status he still maintains. He was brought to Thlarian Correctional Station in high orbit over Oppenmain, a mid-size planet in Civilian Sector 5002, a fringe sector, and there, along with fellow Rebel survivors, he was imprisoned for the past two years. He and other Rebel prisoners brought from all over Federation space from where they were captured were kept there, not knowing what would become of them or what the Federation leaders would end up deciding to do with them.

So instead of waiting around with the possibility of the death penalty being chosen for them, the Rebel prisoners decided to choose their own fate. They spent those two years carefully planning their escape, and on Earth date May 2nd, 2515, their operation has been finally put into motion. Their mission was to escape, first and foremost. What comes after that, no one really knows.


The three hijacked Federation cruisers warp to the FTL beacon, and to their crews' relief, they find it unoccupied as they'd hoped. They use this breathing room to direct power to the weapon systems that are available and wait for their FTL drives to charge once again.

"Everyone on board, come to the central control room so we can talk things over, chop chop," the pilot of Wolf's cruiser calls over the intercom, so Wolf gets up from his seat, leaving his AE-4 directed energy assault rifle standing up against the wall next to his chair in front of the engine console to head for the central control room. It's the universal nickname for the ship's lounge that ship crews frequently used for crew meetings, for relaxing, and for sleeping in emergency cases. He meets with the twenty or so other former convicts who have participated in their daring escape plan to break out of the prison station, not including the pilot, who joins them last.

"'Eyyy, a'ight, settle down, everyone," the pilot, Wolf's prisonmate who had a cell right across from him in the prison wards by the name of Maverick Polonsson, whom everyone called "Mack" for short, for about a year, calls out, getting the men's attention. "First things first, let's see who didn't make it..."

"Kalldoris 'n Jameson didn't make it," one of the taller prisoners gruffly states.

"Neither did Abel."

"We had ta leave Zalaaqy behind. He told us to leave him, wasn't gonna make it either way."

The other prisoners take turns listing off the names of their comrades they knew didn't make it with them.

"So about twenty of us, huh..." Mack sighs grimly. "Well, you know the drill...moment 'a silence for our brothers-in-arms..."

All the escaped prisoners snap their backs upright, slap their left arms tautly next to their sides, make fists with their right hands, fold their arms, and beat their chests twice in quick succession before raising their arms in the age-old traditional human salute of their right hands in front of their foreheads. This is - or was - the standard salute of the Rebellion, used for anything from saluting a superior officer to honoring a fallen soldier. They hold the salute for a minute before Mack the pilot dismisses the salute.

"A'ight, enough mournin', all of us knew that not everyone was gonna make it out to begin with. Now that we're here though, we can't ever forget that they were the ones who died so that we could get out, understand?"

The rest of the men yell back, "URAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Good, good. Now, we gotta figure out where the hell we're goin'. We'll take this time while we're hangin' out at this empty beacon to know what everyone's plans are." Mack waves at Wolf at the back of the group. "Wolf! Wolf, c'mere for a sec!"

A bit miffed by the fact that Mack isn't addressing him properly, Wolf heads over to Mack.

"That's Major to you, Lieutenant."

"Not anymore. You do realize that both our ranks mean jack shit now? There's no more Rebellion to give our ranks meaning anymore. We're just another band of ragtag prisoners, nothin' more, nothin' less. The faster you get that, the better."

Wolf rolls his eyes but doesn't argue. From their late night conversations when the guards were off patrol duty, Wolf learned that Mack had been a First Lieutenant serving aboard a Zal-Class Light Cruiser as a pilot in the venerable Second Interception Fleet, one of the Rebellion's most feared and highly skilled combat task forces. So technically, if the Rebellion was still alive somewhere in Federation space, Mack would be Wolf's subordinate, but Wolf knows that Mack's words are true. If there is no Rebellion to give meaning to their ranks, it's not like the Federation will reinstate a the pre-war rank of a former Rebellion officer, who now happens to be an escaped convict.

"So? What do you want?"

"You said you were the weapons operator aboard your vessel during the Rebellion, right? No one's got quite anywhere near as much weapons training as you do; go to the storage and the weapons bay and see what this ship's armed with. I didn't have time to check, too busy gettin' us outta the prison.

"Right..."

Wolf trudges away, leaving the men to sort out their plans. As for himself, Wolf doesn't have any particular plans in mind. His own family members, his parents, two younger brothers, and uncles were fierce Federation loyalists, and the moment they learned of his defection, they disowned him, so it's not like he could go back to his family. They probably wouldn't even recognize his existence by now, and they definitely didn't care whether he was still alive or dead. Literally the only reason why he ever bothered to break out in the first place was because he didn't feel like being locked away forever in a backwater prison in the middle of nowhere. He himself was a quiet man with little words most of the time, but just because you don't like to talk much doesn't mean you aren't loud in other ways.

Long story short, Wolf knows he's probably going to become a wanderer, or perhaps even a pirate. Better than living the rest of his life as a wanted convict, if anything.

The doors to the weapons bay opens, granting him access. Someone had already booted up the weapons console, so he sits down and initializes the weapons menu, from which he can access information about the weapons loaded and installed on board. All combat-worthy ships and vessels in existence, so long as they are destroyers and cruisers, have a standard four-space modular weapon system, on which any piece of weaponry can be installed and freely switched around the four weapon hardpoints on the ships at will. Some ships have only three, most notably quite a few of the Mantis cruisers, and the secret Federation Stealth Cruiser that was developed for the Federation courtesy of the Engis. Wolf had even heard rumors about some hyper-specialized Engi cruisers that had only two in order to maximize their drone output, since the traditional Engi war theory revolves around a keen focus on drone weaponry.

No weapons show up as registered and installed. Wolf rolls his eyes. Whoever was servicing this Federation Cruiser clearly didn't install the weapons. Just great.

But since this is a Federation Cruiser, there must be an auxiliary weapons system on board somewhere. All Federation Cruisers have either an Artillery Laser or Artillery Flak Cannon auxiliary weapon system installed on board, the latter being much rarer because of the higher cost and complexity of the auxiliary Flak Cannon design, but Wolf has had experience combating both types of the Federation Cruiser during the Rebellion. The ones with the auxiliary Flak were scary to fight - any ship with a Flak Mk. II gun was scary to fight, considering that those things murdered shields as easily as popping bubble wrap. Hopefully this particular cruiser they've hijacked has the auxiliary Flak on board.

Since nothing is installed yet, Wolf gets up from the weapons console and heads to the storage of the ship to see if there are any weapons compartments containing usable weapons. He doesn't have any big hopes, but it's still something to check just in case, because any weapon is better than no weapon. Making his way to the storage, Wolf turns on the lights to the storage and takes a look around. To his relief, he spots two shiny white, rectangular crates that he recognizes as weapons crates. He inspects their labels.

One of them he recognizes as the good old Burst Laser Mk. II. A great weapon - for just two weapon power, the Burst Laser Mk. II gave you three shots, and in the hands of a capable weapons operator like Wolf, it could fire just under every ten seconds. Wolf remembers his service aboard his own vessel, the Musketeer, which was armed with two Burst Laser Mk. II's. Those days were fun. At least now, he's got a familiar friend that's found a way to meet up with him again.

But the other weapon system is a weapon Wolf's never seen before. Something called an "Artillery Laser Mk. I". Whatever it is, it sure sounds powerful. Wolf opens up the metal crate to see if he can find a manifest or any papers or electronic data storages that hold information about the weapon. Finding none, Wolf knows that the only way to find out about this new weapon is to install it into the weapon system and have the console identify its description for him.

Exiting the storage, Wolf follows the directions on the corridor walls of the ship to navigate his way to the Auxiliary Weapons Bay, a special system room that, to his knowledge, exclusive to the Federation Cruisers because of their design to include an auxiliary weapon system independent from the Weapons Bay. Upon finding it and entering, Wolf boots up the small console. The consoles of Federation cruisers' auxiliary weapon systems aren't constructed to be like the consoles of standard weapon bays, which could be operated by crewmen to optimize weapon lock-ons and thus decrease weapon cooldown times, but instead they are only there to keep the auxiliary weapons system online and constantly recharging.

The auxiliary weapons system, again, is something Wolf doesn't recognize. Instead of the usual Artillery Laser or Artillery Flak Cannon, instead, this ship is armed with something called the Artillery Hull Missile System. According to the description provided by the console, its operation and cooldown times are like the normal auxiliary weapons systems, but instead of firing flak or a laser beam, it fires a barrage of four hull missiles randomly at various ship rooms, dealing tremendously more damage if the missiles hit systemless rooms, or ship hull. Apparently it has its own ammunition replicating system built into the system.

Wolf returns to the central control room to report his findings, but the men have since dispersed, and only a few of them are still lounging around there.

"Lookin' for Mack? He went back to pilotin'," one of the prisoners calls, hearing Wolf enter through the automatic doors. Wolf immediately turns on his heel and exits, redirecting his path straight for piloting. As told, he finds Maverick sitting at the pilot's console, mapping out directions on the star map.

"No weapons currently installed on the weapon system, but I did find two weapons in storage. In addition, the auxiliary weapons system for this cruiser looks like it's functional."

"Nice," Mack replies, not turning to look at Wolf. "Which weapons? And what's the aux weapon system?"

"A Burst Laser Mk. II, and something called an Artillery Laser Mk. I."

"Never heard 'a the latter, sounds like it'll be pretty cool."

"The Auxiliary Weapons system is called the Artillery Hull Missile System."

"Hm, don't recognize that either. Has the Federation been workin' on upgrades to their ships 'n weapons?"

"Maybe. We've been in prison for two years without contact with the rest of Federation space."

Wolf watches Mack finish mapping out their path through the star map.

"What's the plan?" Wolf asks.

"Everyone's got homes in this sector," Mack explains. "We're gonna drop 'em off at a black market hub beacon that we've heard about from the guards at the prison, and the boys can find their way back home. Me, on the other hand, I've got other plans. I didn't ask you about yours - what're you up to?"

Wolf shrugs.

"Not sure. I've got nowhere to go, so...I don't know what I want to do, or what I should do."

"Good, then I'll ask you to follow me. I'll need some help, since I don't think I can pilot this ship alone without anyone else manning the systems."

"Why, what're you planning to do?"

Mack grins.

"Go back to Earth. I'm gonna give the Federation a Rebellion they can't do anything against."