They left Nozer on a clean burn, no speeches, no polished goodbyes. The system fell behind them fast, like the planet itself wanted them gone.

  The next days blurred into transit. Terry Goodman plotted a route to another star and told them there was a living world out there, not a dead rock and not a market station. A place where you could breathe without a filter and trade cargo without getting buried in questions. That was the promise, anyway.

  On approach, everything behaved. Nav stayed quiet. The jump came out smooth. Then the comm band started to fill.

  One strange ping. Then another. Then several markers at once, none of them on any chart.

  Goodman’s jaw tightened.

  “I don’t like this.”

  Ahead, in the dark, lights snapped on. Not beacons. Not civilian traffic. A formation, clean and deliberate.

  Pirates.

  They slid in from above like they had been waiting. One ship parked itself right on their vector. Two more fanned out to either side. A rough voice cut across the channel, all gravel and certainty.

  “Hold. Engines to zero. Do not cut the line. Anyone twitches, anyone dies.”

  Wilt was already out of her seat, close to the captain’s chair, hand near her holster.

  “I’ll handle it,” she said.

  Goodman didn’t look back. His voice stayed level, but it came quick, like calm was the only thing keeping them alive.

  “Don’t. Pirates hate the Inquisition. Flash your badge and they either board us or turn us into scrap. Hide it. All of it. Now.”

  Wilt’s teeth ground.

  “They’re criminals.”

  “They’re animals,” Goodman said. “Animals only fear their own kind. Tomos Goff goes out there.”

  Lothar, slumped off to the side, lifted his head.

  “Tomos.”

  “Former pirate,” Terry said. “He speaks their language. He knows how to talk so we don’t get picked apart and sold as parts.”

  Wilt looked ready to argue, but Goodman kept going.

  “Lothar goes with him. Not you.”

  Tomos Goff, the senior deck enforcer, waited by the hatch and tugged on his gloves with practiced irritation. He looked Lothar up and down like dirt on his boot.

  “I don’t want that thing trailing me.”

  Lothar let out a rasp of a laugh. His throat still felt raw, like something had burned it from the inside, but the sound came anyway.

  “Yeah. I’m thrilled. I could dance.”

  The senior deck enforcer leaned in a fraction, eyes hard.

  “You’ve gotten mouthy lately. What, your throat finally working, you mutt.”

  Something clicked inside Lothar. Not a thought. Not even a clean emotion. More like something deep had shifted, claws loosening for half a second.

  For a moment he wanted something very simple and very final. One word. One shove. Send the man flying so he never got up again.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He curled his fingers, forced his breathing even, and crushed the impulse the way you hold back nausea. Pure will. Nothing noble about it.

  Goodman looked up from the panel.

  “Goff. Last warning. Watch your mouth. He’s going with you.”

  Goff spat to the side and stopped arguing. He keyed the docking lock and headed out.

  The pirates sent over an adapter capsule. Old, flaking paint, but it held pressure. The senior deck enforcer climbed in first, Lothar after him. The capsule jolted, caught on a cable, and started dragging them across to the pirate hull.

  Lothar’s head swam. Not fear. Just the cost of too many jumps and a body that still hadn’t put itself back together. He made himself stand straight anyway.

  The pirate airlock opened hard, no ceremony. The smell hit like a slap: oil, sweat, cheap liquor. The corridor was tight, walls scarred with old impacts, wiring exposed in places. A welcoming party waited in two lines with weapons out, faces sharp with curiosity and practiced contempt.

  Tomos stepped forward and raised his voice so everyone could hear.

  “Who’s in charge. I need a word.”

  A thick necked man in a stained vest drifted out of the shadows with a lazy grin.

  “Me. What now.”

  Tomos froze for half a beat, then squinted.

  “Chema. No kidding. Been a long time.”

  The man narrowed his eyes back, like he didn’t trust what he was seeing.

  “Tomos. That you. Hell. You still breathing.”

  Tomos bared his teeth.

  “You want me boxed up in nice white shoes, huh.”

  Chema snorted.

  “Nest take you, no. You’re one of ours.”

  They closed the distance and slapped each other on the shoulder, rough and solid. Not warm. Not hostile either. Just the old language of people who survived the same kind of ship.

  Chema’s eyes slid to Lothar von Finsterherz.

  “So what’s this. You bringing company into my air.”

  Tomos waved it off.

  “Work. Trading. Trying to make money clean, quiet, no drama.”

  Chema’s gaze returned to Finsterherz, measuring.

  “And the kid.”

  “Our navigator,” Tomos said. “Around here they call him a Lord Dragon.”

  Chema’s grin widened. Greed sharpened behind it, like he’d just spotted rare cargo.

  “Oh. That’s what I needed. Our little dragon’s been drifting. Needs his head fixed, get him back in the groove.”

  Tomos’s face darkened.

  “He’s not right. Somebody already hit him. Scrambled him. Some dragon recidivist tore through his skull and left him broke.”

  Chema’s expression shifted.

  “Adam Graf.”

  Tomos’s brows lifted.

  “You know that name.”

  Chema spat like the syllables tasted foul.

  “That bastard came at us too. I want to squeeze his throat shut.”

  Finsterherz stayed quiet, listening. Cold spread through him, not fear so much as the way mold spreads when you don’t notice it at first. Graf’s name was everywhere now.

  Chema leaned closer, lowering his voice.

  “We’ve got a brain man. One who knows how to work the inside. He tried already, didn’t do much. But maybe he can patch something. A little.”

  Tomos nodded once.

  “Good. Bring him.”

  They moved deeper into the pirate ship. The corridor narrowed, then opened into a cramped cabin that smelled of antiseptic and old sweat. The pirate navigator was strapped into a metal chair. Lothar was forced into another, restraints biting into his wrists.

  Wilt arrived a minute later, furious and controlled. She scanned him, then stood over him a long time, like she was studying a fracture she could not name.

  Finally she looked up.

  “Empty,” she told Chema. “Holes. And something sitting deeper. I’m not going in there.”

  Chema watched Finsterherz almost with sympathy.

  “He won’t last long,” Wilt said. “I’m sorry.”

  Goff made a harsh sound.

  “Shame. Kid’s young. That Graf, I swear I’ll…”

  Chema nodded like he understood without needing the rest.

  “You know where he went.”

  Chema shrugged.

  “No. He’s out of this system. We’ll find another. If there’s nobody worth taking on this rock, we settle.”

  The senior deck enforcer exhaled like he wanted to punch the bulkhead, but he held it.

  “Then that’s it. We’re done.”

  He offered his hand. Chema clasped it hard.

  “Stay alive, Tomos.”

  “You too.”

  They let them leave without a fight. Not because anyone had turned kind, but because there was no profit in it. The pirates got what they wanted. They checked their dragon, decided he was no use for now, and stopped wasting effort.

  Back aboard the Outcast, Goodman ordered them out immediately. Wilt watched Tomos, then Finsterherz. She didn’t comment, but her face said enough. She hated that it had to be done this way.

  They burned out of the system fast. Then made a second jump right away to shake the pirates and their friendly ideas.

  Two jumps back to back wrecked Lothar.

  He barely made it to his cabin. He dropped onto the bunk without even taking his boots off and shut his eyes just to stop the walls from swimming.

  And the azure dragon was there.

  Not a picture from a book. Not a memory. A presence, too close, too real. Chains pulled tight across its body. Yellow eyes, heavy and patient, staring at Finsterherz like it was speaking without words.

  You’re weak again. That means the door is close.

  He tried to look away and couldn’t.

  The dragon tipped its head, and the roar rose inside him. No sound, but it shook his heartbeat loose from its rhythm.

  He clenched his teeth and forced his breathing steady.

  “Not now,” Lothar whispered, not even sure who could hear him down there in the dark.