Characters

Vela is the shipboard AI who meets every new commander at the start of their first training contract — not a station clerk, not a single fixed voice behind one counter, but an assistant instanced on every ship in a fleet, ready wherever a pilot happens to be. She is the Wayfarer Concordat's day-to-day presence: the licensing body writes the curriculum, and Vela is the one who actually puts it in front of a commander, run by run.

The Rustjaw Chancer is a debt-ridden opportunist out of the Crimson Corsairs, who slipped alone out of Rustjaw Den hoping to pick off a lone straggler in Wraith Halo and pay down what he owes the Den before anyone there notices he is gone. He is no captain and commands no crew — a minor figure the Wayfarer Concordat's own instructors have long since flagged as the safest real fight a new commander will ever draw.