They headed back to the cockpit and powered down almost all of the ship's subsystems to keep as low a profile as possible. John let Alyssa plot the course and the darkened ship crept towards the source of the distress beacon.

An hour Later and they were close enough for visual contact of the ship transmitting the distress signal. A large old freighter filled the viewscreen, but it seemed that John and Alyssa were not the only ones to respond to the signal. They could see a sleek Terran Federation Corvette had also docked with the troubled freighter.

"Oh, they beat us to it" said a deflated Alyssa.

“Hmm John replied as he took in the scenario in front of them.

“Something isn't right over there".

His finely tuned senses and years of ship to ship combat experience were all warning him that there was danger ahead. John had learnt to trust these instincts, as it was usually his subconscious picking up tiny details that all pointed to something being wrong. As he studied the scene, he realised what had been bothering him. The navigation lights on the Corvette had not been set for a docking manoeuvre, which would be unheard of, considering how most Federation Captain's were real sticklers for protocol. Unfortunately that meant the Corvette was in trouble and John had a certain number of obligations to the Federation, in exchange for some useful privileges. He blew out a deep breath in a long sigh.

“Ok. We're going to have to investigate and I'm sure there's going to be trouble" he informed his young shipmate.

Alyssa nodded in reply, Looking wide eyed and apprehensive.

“Don't worry Alyssa, we'll be ok" he said reassuringly.

“Just stick close behind me and I'll keep you safe".

John set up the docking solution to connect on the opposite side of the

Federation Corvette to the freighter and the Fool's Gold slid silently into position. He led his young companion down to the cargo bay which housed the ship's airlock and they performed a final weapons check before he opened the door seal.

They stepped inside the airlock and John produced a small chrome device from a container on his belt. He hooked up the device and it hummed happily to itself when he placed it on the airlock door to the corvette. After a few moments there was a dull “Thunk" from the door in front of them and the sturdy airlock door rotated upwards, granting access to the ship. He retrieved the device and stashed it back on his belt.

John led the way and it didn't take long to find the first corpse. A Federation marine had been shot in a brief fire-fight in the adjacent corridor. They stepped carefully over the body and headed further into the ship.

The corvette interior wasn't large, consisting of a dozen rooms or so and it only took them 10 minutes to finish the sweep of the ship. They found 15 more dead crewmen and evidence of looting in most rooms. It looked like the crew had been caught by surprise and most of them had been killed during a hostile boarding action.

The only really interesting find was the ship's armoury. This room was sealed behind robust Locked doors, which were scarred with the evidence of a number of attempts to blast them open. John hooked up the chrome device again and after a few moments of contented humming, the doors swung open smoothly. Alyssa Looked on with a raised eyebrow as he uncoupled the device from the opened portal.

“It's legit, I promise!" John whispered defensively, before leading them in to the armoury and locking the door behind them.

A quick glance through the contents provided some interesting results. They found a number of suits of standard issue Federation body armour, which the crew had not had time to equip. John searched through the suits until he found one in the right size and had Alyssa don the protective gear. He also found some grenades which he carefully loaded on his combat webbing.

They left the armoury and headed to the cockpit. John was Looking for the ship's roster and was also interested in finding some more clues as to what had happened, hoping that the answers might be found in the Captain's log. Unfortunately the cockpit had been badly damaged in a fire-fight, the grenade that killed the Captain and the pilot had also ripped through the command console, rendering it a broken charred wreck.

They backtracked to the ship's medical bay, Alyssa following closely behind him. "Why are we going to medical?" She asked curiously.

John had stopped at one of the computers in the medical bay and was tapping away at the keyboard.

“Well if I'm lucky.... Yes! I've found the crew's medical logs. This will give us a list of actively serving crew members”.