I stopped short when I heard the announcement in Loreville’s Central Business District. It was the same message I had heard on Port Olisar: “People of Stanton, a great injustice ….”. The rest went down in the noise again and could not be understood. Had the activists in Loreville hacked the system with the technology I had supplied?

I met with one of the activists. He told me that he didn’t know who the message was from, the activists weren’t. He also told me that there were more attacks on spaceships. Mainly on mining ships and transportation ships. Mining areas would now be partially monitored by sentinel satellites. He gave me the positions of some wrecks.

I wanted to investigate and see if I could find out anything. I wanted to know who was behind the attacks. So I flew to the first wreck.

Headlights came out of the cargo hold of the destroyed Starfarer. I wondered why when a bullet hit me in the arm. The force threw me back against the bulkhead. Fortunately, the other bullets missed me and whistled past me. I threw myself on the floor and pulled my gun. While lying down I looked around the corner and opened the fire. My attackers hadn’t expected that. I could turn them off.

They were pirates from the Xeno Threat group from the Pyro system. I wondered what they were doing here. In the Stanton system, the Dusters and Nine Tails were active, but not Xeno Threat.

I was warned. Something unusual was going on in the Stanton system. I had to be more careful and protect myself better. I got better armor. I entered the next wreck with my weapon drawn and ready to fight. I carefully walked through the wreck of the Caterpillar. Nobody was there. There was no trace of the cargo either. I found no evidence of the attackers.

The third wreck was also deserted. But I was able to secure some of the cargo. Among other things, drugs. I brought the loot to my Cutlass. How did it all fit together? Xeno Threat pirates, drugs in a Starfarer wreck that the attackers did not take away.

The best place to sell the captured drugs was Grim Hex. Perhaps I would get more information here why Xeno Threat was active in Stanton. So I flew to the pirate station in the asteroid belt of the Crusader Moon Yela.