The Breakout Ship

The Breakout Ship has haunted me ever since that day we found it near Pluto.
Everyone is told that the Breakout Ship was an unoccupied alien spaceship found abandoned and drifting.
But that’s just not true.
I think the creatures on board would have given us all the technology they had, if we had asked.
But we killed them all, stole the technology and created the first of Earth's Grand Fleets; 'Expeditionary Fleet No 1'.

In the years following, the Expeditionary Fleets flew from Earth in all directions, desperately seeking signs of alien life.
No life was ever found, only the remnants of long dead civilizations.
But there was a bounty in the old ruins; Alien technology that could be duplicated and sometimes used for the greater good of mankind.
Sometimes.