Elara limped through the upper ring markets with her jaw clenched so tight her teeth ached, trailing flecks of blood and shimmering blue ooze in her wake. The elevator from the Warrens had been a coffin for the first few seconds, until the crowds thinned and the stink of human desperation dissipated. If she ever made it off this rock, she’d burn her clothes and her memories in the same fire. She pulled her arm tight around her ribs and tried to look like just another addict.

  Karn stalked a half-step behind, silent in a way no minotaur should be. His suit, which had started the morning glossy and sharp, now hung in tatters, the lapels scorched and one horn tip still caked with blackened blood.

  The chimera, X-37, or whatever the hell it was—shifted into something resembling a dog but still had Karn’s horns so it didn’t help as much as it thought it did.

  They’d dunked it in a bucket of antiseptic and sprayed it with nanoscrub but the thing still reeked of copper and engine grease.

  The air up here was cooler, all HVAC and fluorescent hum, a far cry from the methane-choked soup of the Warrens. Elara’s head throbbed, a steady, insistent pulse. She stopped at a row of vidscreens lined up outside the dockmaster’s office.

  “We need a ship,” she said, voice hoarse. She dug into her jacket, pulled out a credit stick. “And not one flagged by SoulCorp or the Syndicate. Something unregistered. Something dumb.”

  Karn grunted. “You want to check the listings?”

  “Got any better ideas?”

  She jabbed the stick into the terminal, ignoring the side-eye from the bored, rubber-gloved clerk. The screen flickered to life, scrolling through pages of departures, arrivals, bribes, and threats. She filtered by destination, then by crew count, then by the likelihood that a ship’s captain wouldn’t ask questions or recognize her face.

  Most of the ships left today were Syndicate, SoulCorp, or the kind that would sell you for scrap before you finished boarding. She scrolled to the bottom. One listing stood out: a medium corvette, registered out of some backwater rim station.

  Ship: Drifting Ember; B-class Corvette

  Captain: Ironbelly; No other information.

  Cargo: Miscellaneous salvage and livestock

  Departure: -00:14:42

  Destination: No other information.

  “Perfect,” she muttered. “Assuming they don’t murder us on sight.”

  Karn loomed over her, his breath rumbling in her ear. “You sure we can trust—”

  “Nope, but we’re going anyway,” she said, and closed the listing.

  She turned, ready to drag Karn and the anomaly all the way to the Ember’s loading dock, when she caught it—a cluster of holo-screens in a shop window, all tuned to the same channel. Elara’s face, grainy and blood-spattered, blared across the feed. Bulkhead bodycam footage, she realized with a jolt. Really? She watched herself bash through a knot of gangsters, then flee the scene with a minotaur and a shifting black shadow in tow.

  She yanked her hood up and ducked behind a row of vending machines. “Shit. They put us on the feed.” She pointed at the screen, where a slow-motion replay zoomed in on the anomaly, its form flickering between canine, feline, and something with too many limbs.

  Karn watched, his nostrils flaring. “They know about it,” he rumbled. “Means we can’t bluff past the checkpoints.”

  She studied the footage, “Syndicate posted a bounty, no doubt hired by the company.” She risked a glance at the dock listings again. The Drifting Ember was still docked, but not for long. They needed on that ship. Too large of a crew to hijack it. Not enough time to stowaway unless they could find an airlock and EVA suits in the next 30 seconds.

  Karn was already moving, ridiculous horned dog close behind. Elara kept her head down and followed, every muscle screaming. They couldn’t afford to get caught, not now, not with that gods-damned thing in tow. And it was a rookie move, having an unsecured conversation. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, on the rhythm of the crowds, on not thinking about what would happen if she failed.

  The docks were a mess—too many bodies, too many eyes. She kept her head down and steered them toward the utility tunnels, away from the main thoroughfare. The passage was dark and stank of ammonia and old stim breathers. She scanned each junction, half-expecting a SoulCorp kill team at every corner.

  Elara and Karn huddled in the dim light of the utility tunnel, their faces illuminated by the flickering holo-screens in the shop window. As the grainy footage replayed, their eyes widened in shock.

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  Elara’s heart raced as she recognized the unmistakable visage of Captain Ironbelly—his pic was on the manifest—with his formidable black fur and piercing eyes, displayed prominently on the screen. He looked as intimidating as ever, his expression a blend of focused determination and gruff authority. The way he moved, even in the footage, radiated an almost predatory grace, a reminder of his lethal prowess.

  Beside him was an elf Elara didn’t recognize—silver-white hair, too clean for this station, too deliberate. Violet eyes that didn’t track the chaos so much as calculate it. The kind of mage who didn’t waste motion. She wasn’t flinching. Wasn’t rushing. Just flicking controlled bursts of light like she’d done this a thousand times and was bored of it.

  The overlay tagged her: Vaeris Grimleaf. Bounty attached.

  Elara’s eyes skimmed the numbers. Vaeris’s was higher. Ironbelly’s matched theirs exactly.

  That wasn’t random.

  Someone had posted their bounty first—then mirrored it on the captain. Publicly. Loudly.

  Not just hunting.

  Making a point.

  Elara exhaled slowly. Great. Now they were politically interesting.

  She met Karn’s eyes.

  He’d seen it too.

  Not a coincidence. Not random.

  Someone wanted this loud.

  Elara tore her gaze off the screen.

  No time to unpack that.

  If Ironbelly was burning dock space and wearing the same price tag as her, the whole station was about to turn feral.

  “Move,” she muttered, already stepping into the shadows.

  The screens kept replaying her face behind her.

  It felt like they were watching.

  Elara’s gut clenched as the distant whine of blaster fire echoed through the docks. She pressed herself flat against the wall and peered past a pallet of some type of melon. Through the webwork of load-bearing struts and exposed cooling pipes, she glimpsed a flash of movement—dozens of feet pounding across the deck, shapes darting between the warehouse shadows. The screams sounded unplanned and way too close together; not a coordinated kill squad, more like a panic stampede.

  Someone cried out, short and wet, then the whole concourse erupted in noise. Karn dropped to a knee behind her, his nostrils flared as he steadied his breathing.

  Elara gritted her teeth. The first wave of hunters came into view: some burly ex-military types, a couple of twitchy locals with modded arms, and a hunched figure in a ripstop cloak with a skull mask. They weren’t SoulCorp, and they sure as hell weren’t Syndicate’s best. The way they jostled and shoved, these were freelancers, idiots with more violence than sense. They were so busy tripping over each other’s bloodlust, they barely noticed the quarry they chased.

  She wiped her nose and left a smear of red across her sleeve. “Got another one in the tank?”

  Karn flexed his hands until the knuckles cracked. “One,” he said. “Then I’m horizontal in about three minutes.”

  “That'll do,” she said, and stared at the shifting dog-thing. “Stay close to Karn and don't eat anyone good.” The creature's myriad of eyes blinked once, slow and deliberate, then slunk along their heels.

  Elara squinted through the smoke.

  Ironbelly was a black wrecking ball in the middle of it—plasma pistol in one paw, compact slug-thrower barking in the other. He didn’t dodge so much as commit. Vaeris moved at his shoulder, cloak snapping, flicking violet darts over it without looking. Two more brought up the rear, one of them carrying a barely conscious comrade slung across his shoulders.

  Alive. For now.

  That would change the second these idiots figured out teamwork.

  “Move,” Elara muttered, and broke cover.

  The concourse was a kill box—overturned cargo skids, crossfire lanes, nowhere clean to run. Two bounty hunters in enviro-suits fired from behind a grav-sled, too focused on Ironbelly to notice Karn until he hit them.

  The first round sparked off his chest. The second flattened against his forearm, burning hide. He didn’t slow. Karn ripped the rifle free from the shooter, sprayed both, then snapped it in half.

  Elara slid into a wall terminal, jammed in her data spike, and jacked into the Edge’s dock net. Old Navy surplus interface. Ugly. Solid. She punched in the override she’d lifted earlier and started un-spooling the mag-locks.

  “Hurry up,” she muttered at the progress bar crawling like it had all the time in the world.

  Ion rounds chewed the deck near her boots. Static buzzed in her fillings. She hunched lower and kept typing.

  Behind her, the chimera lost patience.

  It melted.

  Then it tripled in mass. Limbs everywhere. It bounced off the wall, ceiling, crate—then dropped onto the skull-masked hunter in a wet collapse of motion. Screaming followed. Then less screaming.

  Good.

  Ironbelly saw the gap and took it, vaulting debris like gravity was optional. Vaeris was already moving for the airlock, hands carving light into suppressive bursts that forced the flankers down.

  “Come on,” Elara hissed, slamming the final command.

  Across the dock, blast doors crashed down with a bone-shaking boom, sealing off the next wave behind reinforced polysteel.

  Karn was slowing now. Horn-glow flickering. He planted his hooves anyway.

  “One more,” he growled.

  Lightning tore out of him—forked, bright, hungry. It chained through the clustered hunters, snapping them down in a staggered collapse.

  The thunderclap rolled through the dock.

  Silence followed.

  The ones still breathing decided the floor was a fine place to stay.

  “Go!” Elara barked.

  Vaeris yanked the airlock lever. The doors split open.

  Boots clanged on metal as they flooded into the Drifting Ember’s cargo bay.

  As soon as everyone was in, Elara and Karn found two ion cannons—dropped from the cargo bay's ceiling—pointed right at their faces.

  “Easy, Thimble! They helped us!” Captain Ironbelly yelled at the guns. They cycled down and rose back up into their holes.

  Elara spat blood and grinned. “You can pay us back with a ride out of this system.”

  “Deal, but you all stay here till we get gone.”

  “So, you can space us if you feel like it?”

  “Now you're gettin' it.” With that, he spun his heels and headed for the bridge.

  The airlock slammed shut behind them.

  Elara leaned back against cold bulkhead steel and let herself breathe once.

  Then the ship lurched.

  ***

  When they got to the bridge, Thimble was already in her gyro rig, visor perched on her head, ready for the next fight.

  “Ember! Burn it outta here!” The captain yelled as he jumped in his own rig. “Vaeris! Get to the Mage Chamber! Don't worry, Ember keeps it maintained! Thimble! Did Ben and Thorn make it back? Please tell me you're tracking them!”

  “They're close and I'm guiding them along,” she replied through the helmet comms.

  “Dammit, what'd they do? Stop for tea?”

  “He's trying his best! You leave him alone!”

  “Well, he'll have to try harder before they figure out how to open the fucking door!”