<div align="center">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/24/Logo_infinity.png)</div><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/6/6f/E59c7822b523eadd47a95df95b42839f.jpg)</div><br/>With a machine whir heavy radiation-shielding blinders sank low over the Dolly Dagger's nose. In the distance, the fitful white star Astraeus erupt in violent flares bombarding the pulverized planets of Hero and Leander in deadly radiation, and lit up millions of mineral-rich asteroids up and down the belt like nuggets of fool's gold. Within the cockpit, a dreamy light pulsed beneath the blinders. Asteroid dust and the scattered refuse of a thousand and one mining colonies pinged off the battered hull and echoed within its life-sustaining tin box.<br/><br/>For a crew of six the Dolly Dagger was just right. Three seats ringed the cramped cockpit for navigator, pilot, and communications officer to work in concert, though in the long voyage between bodies celestial two of the three often went cool. Ladders and hidey holes climbed the ship's artificial gravity between lower and upper deck, between expansive smuggler's cargo hold below and the human sweat of the claustrophobic quarters, untidy mess hall and misused medical bay above.<br/><br/>Two days in Dolly Dagger's wake the neon paradise of Hua Ling, Magnificent Dawn glittered, a Triad-run golden saucer retreat, casino, and brothel for asteroid miners. What pleasures were to be found there gradually faded into memory as the unpleasant business of another Druze mercenary contract would soon pull wage slaves back to the enforcer game, breaking mine colony rebellions and returning their riches to rightful corporate ownership. Mementos of Dolly Dagger's stay in luxury turned up here and there in pilfered towels bearing the gold Hua Ling emblem, a cozy new bathrobe, an ongoing mahjong game sprawled across a mess hall table played for uncashed chips and room service leftovers.<br/><br/>On weary Helicon Belt broadcast, the weekly episode of Starkiller Saga relayed along antiquated repeaters from colony to colony, continuing the story of a young man blessed with supernatural powers of the stars, cursed to hunt the Human Sphere's most heinous monsters.<br/><em>"Starkiller! Are you hit?"<br/>"Unng. Stay back. I have to burn the poison out. Starkiller Supernova!"<br/>"Whoa! It's so bright, like a solar flare!"<br/>"That's the power of fusion-kasting, Ms. la Lune. But tell me, how did the assassins evade our scan?"</em><br/>The signal interrupted then, broke into harsh distortion and static. It was a phenomenon unknown on Concilium Prima or Neoterra or the deep space hulk of Corregidor, but out in the untamed frontier pioneers faced intense radiation storms, pirate jams and phantom signals from depths unknown.<br/><em>"Runeworld."<br/>"It's only a myth, Starkiller."<br/>"I've seen it before in a dream. If the stories are true, it could be the salvation of the whole Human Sphere."<br/>"But only if we reach it before Hugo Macabre."<br/>"Precisely." </em><br/><br/>The quiet tap of litter against Dolly Dagger's hull intensified as the ship entered slag grounds of neomaterial mines, and explosively excavated particulate promised to add new scars. Thankfully, her mass driver cannons would prove more than capable of breaking up a sizeable threat, with a capable gunner in the seat.<br/><br/>A second wave of distortion hit the Dolly Dagger, worse than the last. Her diamagnetic gravity hiccuped and sent mahjong tiles scattering, bodies lurching, before returning to normalcy. The datasphere reoriented and flickered with misplaced images, crossed wires perhaps. The ship's firewall had been damaged in the process.<br/><br/>When the solar storm at last passed, Dolly Dagger's blinders retreated and the view of the Helicon Belt had become hopelessly turned around. Somehow, the ship had drifted off course and required correction.