The Drifting Ember did not like losing things.

  It sulked.

  Its corridor lights dimmed by two percent. The engine hum dipped into a low, almost subsonic vibration.

  Even the navigation display flickered as the escape pod trajectory recalculated for the seventh time.

  On the bridge, Captain Ironbelly stood very still.

  “That’s the line?” he rumbled.

  Thimble leaned over the holo-table, jaw tight. A ghosted arc traced the pod’s flight path in cold blue light, terminating in a rust-colored sphere rotating slowly in projection.

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  “That’s the line,” she confirmed. “Minimal drift. No mid-flight correction. Either the pod couldn’t steer… or they couldn’t. Gravity did the rest.”

  The planet rotated again in the projection, bringing a jagged crescent of scarred terrain into view.

  Designation: AAX9

  Common Name: Brindle Scar

  Classification: Reclamation World

  Ownership: Wasteland Extraction Group

  Status: Abandoned — Project Failure

  Notes: Global extinction cascade exceeded reclaimer mitigation capacity.

  Thimble read the final line twice.

  “‘Exceeded mitigation capacity.’ They don’t abandon profit centers unless something goes catastrophically wrong,” she said.

  “Oh, and it looks like SoulCorp bought the incompetent smuggler act. They finally jumped.”

  Ironbelly’s tail twitched beneath his armored coat. “Plot the burn. We follow the line.”

  Hang on, buddy. We coming.

  “Trajectory locked,” Ember said quietly. “I will not misplace them again.”

  The Ember’s engines flared, and the ship surged.