The morning (or morning according to the clock. The sunless space outside the station perpetually looks the same) finds Trigger at the side of the Wyvern and leaning into the cockpit on a hoverlift, securing his possessions in the co-pilot seat.

  Clipping the seat harness around the duffel bag in the co-pilot's chair, Trigger jostles the whole bag, seeing what it would brush up against with a rough enough maneuver. Annoyingly, the bag has enough play in the bottom to tap the rear flight stick. Not something he needs while flying, and he already knows from the tech manual that there is no switch to disable the co-pilot controls. The plane just relies on the seat being unoccupied like most other two-seaters with redundant controls.

  He sighs. "Wyvern, disable rear controls until ordered to enable."

  There is a short beep from the front seat, and the panels before the co-pilot seat go dark.

  The mere idea of flying on a plane loaded with a phoney Eurasian pilot puts a horrid taste in his mouth, but he waited too long and now he's on a timetable. It's had ample opportunity to kill him and hasn't done so yet, so that offers a small measure of comfort.

  As soon as they finish the upcoming mission and land in Tantalus station, the ghost in his plane is getting interrogated, and if he doesn't like what he finds…

  "Excuse me, Trigger?"

  Looking over his shoulder and down to the dock floor, he finds Jodie, the mechanic from yesterday. Is she here to see him off?

  "Yes?" He asks, forgetting the thought of putting his fist through his HUD.

  The coyote scratches the back of her head with a sigh. "I hate to ask this, 'specially after I bothered you so much yesterday, but you're headed to Tantalus, right?"

  Trigger nods.

  After getting the mission specs, Trigger looked up their destination while Mila was giggling and looking at used fighter listings last night. The station they're headed to is a massive installation, one of the largest in Libret Confederation space.

  Tantalus Transport Hub is a disk-like station with a humongous twenty-five kilometer diameter, with six more five kilometer satellite stations connected to it like a hub with spokes. Millions make it their home, and it's smack-dab in the middle of Libret space, which is why so many Libret warp gates pointing in every direction are held there.

  Trigger was honestly surprised to learn that FTL isn't a solved, turn-key science here. Going faster than light in realspace carries humongous risks outside of lanes predetermined to be safe, and FTL is totally banned near garden worlds. No one wants a relativistic kill vehicle smashing into a planet with people on it. And you have to account for navigation drift, stress on ship components, core fuel, it's not easy.

  FTL isn't even that fast, either, not in the vastness of space. Most fighters flat-out can't do it, not having a warp core. Out here on the frontier, ships are lucky to be able to hit five lights a day, and the space-bending warp core that enables FTL sucks down energy like no-ones business. Advanced coreworld ships have the capability to move faster and the excess computation to find safe-ish routes for longer jumps, but wormhole gates painstakingly towed into place are still the only practical way to travel a great distance.

  And since the gates need fuel, maintenance, a crew, and are locked to their sister gate once activated, even they have limits. Thus, space travelers always have points where they have to slowboat it.

  "Trigger?"

  Oops. Right. Someone was talking to him.

  "Sorry. Was thinking," he says, looking back down at Jodie. "Say again?"

  "I said I wanted to give the Wyvern a once over before we leave," she says, cocking a hip and crossing her arms.

  Trigger feels an eyebrow rise. "We?"

  "Yeah," Jodie replies, giving a sheepish shrug and a quick glance at the ship like she's half-expecting it to bite her. "I talked to your pal Mila and she helped me charter one of the extra cabins on your client's hauler, which was swell seeing as how it's departin' sooner than any of the transports. I wanna give this bird an inspection when we land, too, and get some shields in it."

  Trigger tilts his head slightly, studying her. "You got a job lined up there?"

  "I will." She avoids his eyes for a second, the words coming quick. "Kalibo's been slow. Too slow. The work's either dry, under the table, or one breath away from liability. Tantalus has real docks, real stations. I want to fix ships that matter, not patch up scrap barges until they fall apart mid-jump."

  Trigger doesn't respond right away. He watches her posture — the set of her shoulders, the flick of her eyes, the way her hands keep shifting their grip across her elbows. There's more to it than just a job hunt.

  "Replaced my life support for free, ditching your job to follow me, insisting on more upgrades for my fighter," Trigger begins, raising a finger with each point. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Third time's a pattern… Or enemy action."

  Jodie flinches. It's not much, just a tightening of the jaw and a slight twitch at the corner of her eye, but it's there. "That a threat, pilot?" she asks, tone defensive, with a nervous waver, but not angry. More like someone who'd walked into a conversation she hadn't rehearsed.

  "It's a question," Trigger replies flatly, arms crossed. "One I'll have answered."

  Jodie lips press into a line, her eyes scanning his face like she's weighing what version of herself to hand him. Eventually, she exhales through her nose and shifts her weight, the bravado bleeding out of her stance.

  "You remind me of someone," she says, quietly now. "My uncle. Spacer, wouldn't give it up for anything. Raised me in engine rooms and pressurized suits. You know what did him in? Wasn't pirates in some daring dogfight, wasn't his body giving out after a life of adventure."

  She shakes her head. "Died to a stupid, preventable failure because someone skipped maintenance to make quota. They found him in a side lane, dead of asphyxiation because his life support quit on him." The coyote looks away, expression pained. "They laughed at him, for going out in such a dumb way. That's how everyone who knew him remembers him now, as a joke."

  Trigger's expression doesn't change.

  She continues. "So yeah, I made sure your life support wouldn't kill you. Because I couldn't not. And yeah, I'm hitching a ride on the same hauler you're watching, because it's the only one leaving soon and I need out of this rock before I rust in place. And if I'm pushy about upgrades, it's because I've seen how fast things come apart when someone isn't."

  Still, he says nothing.

  Jodie huffs and rubs her eyes. "But… you're not wrong. Part of me is following you." She looks up at him, earnest and a little ashamed. "Not because I'm spying or scheming. Just… gut instinct. I see the way you move, the way you look at people. You're headed somewhere. Maybe not on a map, but… somewhere. I wanna see where."

  Trigger's brow softens slightly, just a fraction.

  "Anyway," she adds, looking away. "Figured I owed you the full version. Do what you want with it."

  He studies her a moment longer, then nods once, slow. "My funds are still limited. Find budget shielding when we land."

  That makes her blink, then laugh in pure relief. "Well, don't sound so excited about it!"

  Trigger then gestures with his chin, down towards his jet. "Rendezvous with the client is in an hour. Hurry up."

  She salutes with two fingers, grin still lingering. "Yes sir, Captain Paranoia."

  Completing the last of his preflight checks, Trigger makes sure his IFF is in order and transmitting, then radios out to the station traffic controller. "STN-Kalibo Traffic Control, MVF Stratos Wyvern requesting departure clearance."

  The radio crackles. "MVF Stratos Wyvern, this is traffic control, one moment," the person on the other end trails off. "MVF Stratos Wyvern, outstanding docking fees are zero, you are cleared for takeoff. Transmitting the takeoff vector now."

  Trigger's HUD flashes, and the circular landing pad under him shudders before beginning to turn, facing the Wyvern towards the hanger door.

  "Received," Trigger sends back, flipping a switch and getting VTOL mode ready.

  "Safe travels, Stratos Wyvern."

  The radio clicks off, and Trigger eases his throttle up, lifting the Wyvern off its landing pad with the same gentleness of someone picking up a freshly-hatched chick. Tilting the plane forward, he passes through the atmospheric shielding, making goosebumps briefly break out over his skin as the Wyvern's engines go from roars to rumbles he can only feel, not hear. The weightlessness isn't strange, not after the amount of dives he's pulled, but a quiet plane without any blaring warnings is like a grim-faced base commander walking towards you with a clipped pace. Will he pass by? Is it you he's after? No way to tell until it's too late.

  Trigger doesn't let it bother him for long and switches out of VTOL mode, extending the Wyvern's wings and pointing the engines forward again. With a pulse of thrust, he's off to the rendezvous point.

  A few minutes later, the station is just a speck in the distance, and his HUD beeps, letting him know he's arrived. Lazily flipping the Wyvern rear-first into its own prograde, an engine pulse brings Trigger to a stop.

  Looks like he's the first one here.

  He doesn't need to wait for long. His radar pings, and Mila's signature makes its way towards him. Her mail truck of a fighter eases to a stop a few dozen meters away, and his comms beep with a hail.

  "Look at mister go-getter," Mila grins, her face projected on Trigger's canopy. "First one at the meeting point. Excited?"

  "Not really," he answers honestly.

  Mila's face falls. "Trigger, c'mon! This is our first op as partners! You're supposed to say 'Yes! I'm super excited to spend time with you, Mila!' or something like that!"

  When Trigger doesn't dignify her with an answer, she crosses her arms and huffs. "I bet you get invited to a lot of parties, don't you?"

  "Professionally," the airman answers back calmly. "I do wakes and bar mitzvahs, too. Deposit is non-refundable."

  The mink girl's sour face breaks and she giggles, making Trigger's lips twitch. Then his radar pings again.

  Four signatures, coming in at a sedate pace.

  Turning the Wyvern to get a visual, Trigger spies four bulb-like fighters with two nacelle-mounted engines each, flying in formation. They turn wide, halting a hundred meters away.

  "You two with the Haul-o-Rex's bravo wing?" A male voice asks from one of the bulbs over an audio-only channel. His voice is crisp and professional, and considering the uniformity of his team, they're likely not amateurs.

  "We are!" Mila confirms. "You guys are alpha wing?"

  "Yes. Ready to trade verification."

  "Sending!" Mila taps a few keys on her console.

  After a moment, the four fighters change to a friendly blue on Trigger's HUD, and alpha wing goes silent.

  "Geez…" Mila makes a show of checking her HUD after about ten minutes. "Where is the rest of our wing? We were supposed to have two more fighters. They're not going to run late and force us to do the work of a full team, are they?"

  'Just another day in the office, then,' Trigger rolls his eyes behind his helmet.

  As the clock ticks down to the Haul-o-Rex's arrival, two differing radar signatures close in, and Trigger watches as they approach.

  The first looks more like a gunship than a fighter, with two front protruding arm-like wings flanking a spherical shaped cockpit. The sides of the arms sport large maneuvering thrusters, and are tipped in coaxial gatling guns. The underside of the ship has another gatling gun mounted on a turret base, letting it spin. It's quite bulky, with thick armor plating, and a single large engine in its rear.

  The second one is much sleeker, with a rough delta shape overall. The cockpit isn't readily apparent, but Trigger makes out sleek glass colored black like the rest of the ship near the rear and just over the twin engines. A pair of coaxial guns are recessed along the top armor panels, and the underside has what looks like another, larger cannon running along the entire belly of the craft.

  Opening the pair of incoming hails, two new faces stare at Trigger and Mila. To get a better look, the airman raises his visor.

  In the one-man gunship, the scowling face of a rottweiler meanmugs the man and mink. He looks a bit cramped in his cockpit, with his broad shoulders almost out of frame.

  The feed from the delta-shaped fighter is a bit darker, which only makes the glow from eagle man's cybernetic left eye more prominent. His organic eye, a sharp yellow, focuses on Trigger in particular with annoyance.

  "Great, an ape," the eagle releases a long-suffering sigh. "How long until he tries to shoot one of us in the back, I wonder? Ten minutes? Fifteen? We can even flip a coin, see if it's gross incompetence or just malicious shitheelery."

  "Hey! You shut it!" Mila jumps to Trigger's defence with a scowl darkening her visage. "If you're so worried, then why be an antagonistic dickhead and paint a target on your ass?"

  The eagle clicks his tongue. "I ain't worried, greenhorn. Not a shit-flinger in the galaxy I can't out-fly, I just ain't looking forward to the paperwork after I send him to hell in self-defence." He shakes his head, ruffling the white feathers of his head. "If you trust an ape, then you're more stupid than you look, tubesock."

  Mila's face becomes murderous. "Fuck you!"

  "Ho, this rookie has some bite to her!" The rottweiler says, his sneer breaking into a laugh. "I was a bit worried you were gonna be one of the ones who just cowers and goes 'yes sir, no sir, I'll polish your knob if you save me, sir' types." The dog then turns his attention to Trigger. "Nothing to say, tough guy?"

  Inwardly, Trigger sighs. 'Looks like another mission where I'm annoyed for the whole duration.'

  "It's polite to start with names when you meet someone," Trigger responds coolly.

  "Eh? You're on some real bullshit, ain't you?" The eagle narrows his one eye. "Monkey is all high and mighty, pretending like he's got manners. The name is Eli. Keep it out of your mouth. Try not to crash into the client or any asteroids… Or do. I don't care."

  With that, Eli closes the channel, not sticking around long enough to hear any names.

  "Asshole!" Mila rages, the insides of her ears red in anger. She slams a fist down on her console. "Where does he get off saying all that?!"

  "Don't be too hard on 'em," the still unnamed dog waves a hand dismissively. "I worked with Eli before. Said he turned merc because of the Andross bombing in Corneria City years ago. I never got the full story, but I can guess it's not pretty."

  Mila's anger eases, but doesn't fully go away, her face still stuck in a frown. "That doesn't excuse what he said."

  "Depends on who you ask," the dog shrugs. "I'm Lars, by the way."

  "Mila," the mink introduces herself, still fuming a bit.

  "Trigger," Trigger says simply.

  Lars smirks. "Trigger? Kinda pretentious, asking for names then giving a callsign. Whatever. Trade me IFF codes."

  A moment later, Lars' MVF Aggressor and Eli's MVF Revived are registered as friendly, and Lars closes his connection.

  Mila huffs and crosses her arms. "This one can't be over soon enough."

  Silently, Trigger agrees.

  It takes the client, Farworth, some time to get his hauler out of Kalibo-III and make his way over to his escorts, but once he arrives, his doberman XO wastes no time barking orders and getting everyone into formation. Alpha Wing takes position around the hauler itself, while Bravo Wing flies a few hundred meters ahead, except for when they need to ride in the Haul-o-Rex's FTL wake, then they pull back and form up around the nose.

  The route to Tantalus isn't terribly complicated. An FTL jump down a well patrolled lane, some 'rough terrain' where they'll fly subluminal, then a gate to the midway point, where they'll hunker down at a fuel stop for a rest. One more gate and a final subluminal leg later, and they'll arrive. The whole trip is expected to take a little under three days, accounting for the stop and assuming about sixteen hours of flying for the other two days.

  Eli pushed himself to the front of Bravo Wing's formation without so much as a by your leave, and Mila nearly blew a gasket over it, stopped only by Trigger telling her to let it go.

  Thus began a very long day. One Mila couldn't handle without keeping her comms open with Trigger, chattering away. Thankfully before he could say "Mm-hmm", "Interesting", and "I see" a hundred times each, Jodie joined in from her place on the hauler and took hold of Mila's attention.

  "I noticed your Sparrow was in good shape despite being an older model," Jodie says, addressing Mila. The coyote's video feed shows little of the room behind her, but Trigger is sure the cabin is cramped—walls probably close enough to touch on both sides, with no windows and only the soft hum of the hauler's machinery for company. "Guns looked like they're off a second gen Yorcha-P. You do that install yourself?"

  Mila laughs, a short bark over comms. "No way! I suck at ship repair. I got this junker for cheap and flew it back to my home planet praying it didn't come apart at the seams."

  It looked worse before? Mila's fighter already looks like a rattling bucket held together with tape, prayers, and gumption.

  "My best friend Cathy is a whiz, though, so I asked her to fix it up," Mila continues. "The laser was toast, so we took my Sparrow to a scrap yard, dug through some spare parts, and she made it all work."

  Jodie whistles, eyebrows raising in her feed. "How'd she get around the power draw issue? Yorcha-P's have a power cell twice the size of a Sparrow's. Your fighter should almost black out every time you pull the trigger."

  "I dunno. I should probably ask…" Mila trails off. Her voice loses some of its brightness. On-screen, her smile falters, and she glances to the side like something just behind the cockpit window has caught her attention. Her ears lower.

  "After I tell her I'm sorry, that is."

  Jodie frowns. "Sorry? What for?"

  "Cathy didn't want me to be a spacer," Mila admits. "She said it was too dangerous, and she didn't want me to get killed out in the middle of nowhere by some drunken pirate, or a malfunction, or just some stupid mistake. I told her I was doing it no matter what she said. We got into it. Tempers flared, voices raised… I said some things I really shouldn't have. Stuff that ruins friendships."

  Silence passes between them for a beat—just engine hum, the occasional ping of a telemetry check.

  "We haven't spoken since," Mila finishes quietly.

  Trigger watches her silhouette dip a little in her seat, like the guilt has physical weight. He doesn't speak, but his fighter banks just slightly closer to hers—a formation adjustment no one comments on, but one Mila seems to notice. Her tail flicks once.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "She ever try to reach out?" Jodie asks after a moment, gently.

  "I think she did. Once or twice," Mila says. "But by then I was already off-world and bitter and pretending I didn't care. That I didn't need her."

  Trigger frowns, rubbing his thumb across his flightstick as he listens. "Call her when we arrive at the fuel stop."

  Both Mila and Jodie start, not expecting him to speak after hours of silence. "Trigger?"

  "Don't set yourself up for regrets you can't fix," he orders more than says. "I mean it."

  "Trigger! Help me-!"

  "Alright, he's taken the bait and is on my rear! Get him, Trigger!"

  "I mean it," Trigger repeats, his voice quiet, but no less sharp.

  Mila gulps. "I won't," she promises quietly. Before the lull in the conversation can grow uncomfortable, Mila speaks up again. "Hey, did you guys see that Star Fox got a new member recently? Some kind of fourth or fifth degree telepath," she asks, moving the subject to something less gloomy.

  That piques Trigger's interest. "A… telepath? As in, a mind reader?" He asks, frowning slightly.

  Aliens, AI, and now mind readers. What's next? A planet overrun by dinosaurs?

  "Yeah. Star Fox is being tight-lipped about their internal affairs, as usual, but rumor says she contacted Star Fox for help from the other side of a whole system!"

  "A whole system, really?" Jodie raises an eyebrow and flicks a pointed ear, unconvinced. "Suuuure."

  "Either way," Mila says, brushing past the sarcasm, "she's on the team now. That's huge! Do you know how rare that is? Star Fox is the best there is, and they've only ever had six members max before. This new girl brings them up to seven!" She grins wide, her eyes shining as she brings her hands together in hope. "If they're taking new members, then maybe even I can join one day!"

  "So eager to leave me behind?" Trigger smiles faintly.

  The mink girl stutters. "N-No! Don't look at it like that! I was just saying that-!"

  Trigger leans back slightly in his seat, ignoring Mila. "I've never met a telepath," he admits.

  "Trigger! It's mean to tease me!" Mila cries, going unheard.

  "Well, there ain't a ton of psychics around of any type, so that's not a surprise." Jodie says as Mila crosses her arms and grumbles under her breath. "I only know one. The elderly neighbor lady I knew when I was a girl was a telekinetic type, but she was only a first degree or so. Used her powers to take out her trash and tidy her garden after her arthritis got bad. She was never strong enough to get into any of the orders or anything."

  That gives Trigger pause. There are other types as well?

  "Most of them don't advertise," she continues, voice skeptical but not hostile. "And anyone claiming to be able to reach across a star system with their brain is probably selling you something. I heard Lylat High Fleet Command keeps a fifth degree telepath on some flagships for when they gotta send a message out to someone quick, but even those guys have some hard limits on their reach. A whole system is like… I dunno, a sixth degree, and when was the last time anyone saw one of those?"

  "Well, if she is, then it's fitting that she's hanging out with the best," Mila says after uncrossing her arms.

  Mila and Trigger's comms beep, and Jodie's connection is forcefully cut, halting any further exchanges.

  "Attention all escorts! Radar has picked up unknowns on the path ahead, one frigate and possible fighters, and they're not responding to general hails! Haul-o-Rex is declaring a yellow alert. Alpha Wing, be ready to cover a retreat. Bravo Wing, increase stand-off distance to fifty kilometers and be ready to engage!" The hauler's XO barks.

  "Acknowledged, Haul-o-Rex," Alpha Wing's lead responds, he and his wingmates closing their formation around the client's ship.

  "Understood," Eli says his first word in hours, keeping his message audio-only. "Bravo Wing, on me!"

  "Who made him wing lead?" Mila huffs.

  Trigger doesn't fight it. It's not the place for it right now. He just moves into the six o'clock position.

  The four fighters all push forward with the Revived on point as the client and Alpha Wing lag safely behind.

  A few tense seconds pass as the Haul-o-Rex and its escorting Alpha Wing adjust course. Then—

  "Merchant vessel! Power down and prepare to be boarded," a harsh, filtered voice snarls over an all-band broadcast. "Don't resist!"

  The pirate signal cuts out just as a dozen contacts flare into view—mismatched fighters streaking in from the shadow of a drifting planetoid fitted with a comm buoy. Behind them, a bulky, scarred frigate lumbers into sensor range.

  "Red alert! All wings, defensive posture! We're breaking away!" the hauler's XO barks.

  The Haul-o-Rex's engines ignite with a sudden burst of light, the freighter lurching into a full retreat. Alpha Wing puts themselves between the friendly frigate and the hostiles as it begins a long arc away from the ambush.

  Trigger's hand is already moving.

  Click. The Wyvern's weapons bay hums open.

  Click. A whole missile volley is armed.

  Beep-beep-beeeeee! Eight locks.

  "Trigger, what are you—?" Mila starts, too late.

  The 8AAMs scream off the rails in a tight spread, their smart guidance pinging off the closest pirate craft. Eight fighters scramble, four twisting into sudden evasive rolls, panic fueling their reflexes.

  The others aren't so lucky.

  One vanishes in a flash of light and disintegrating hull, another shears in half as both engines detonate. A third spirals out, a wing blown off and its canopy shattering into frozen vapor. The fourth takes a hit dead-center—but a flickering shield blooms at the last second, absorbing the brunt. The blue barrier then shatters like glass, leaving the fighter exposed.

  "Damn it, monkey! Wait for an order!" Eli snaps. "Bravo Wing, weapons free! Keep them off the client!"

  The MVF Revived lunges forward, its sleek frame peeling off a high-G roll. The recessed cannons atop its spine erupt with tight, rhythmic bursts, chasing one pirate wingman away. The eagle pilot rushes his chosen prey down, not letting up for a moment.

  Lars grunts over the line, his voice rough. "That's how we're starting? Fine by me."

  The Aggressor's arm-mounted gatlings spool up, loosing a brutal hail of rounds that blankets space in kinetic death. The rest of the surviving fighters scatter, one slow one taking a dozen slugs to the shield, which flares and nearly fails.

  Mila dives in beside Trigger, the Sparrowhawk's engines flaring. "That was insane!" she shouts, voice exhilarated despite herself. "Three down instantly!"

  Trigger doesn't answer. His visor dims slightly as his targeting HUD refreshes.

  The fingers around the flightstick lose feeling, the lights and sounds of his HUD turn into sensations as real as touch, as real as skin. The vibrations of the hull, the flare of exhaust through vectoring nozzles, even the subroutines ticking silently through the Wyvern's battle computer, all of it filters into his body like a second nervous system.

  Eventually, even the beat of his adrenaline-filled heart fades to nothing.

  Then, pilot and vessel are no more, and there is only Trigger.

  "Watch my rear," he orders Mila, then pushes his engines to full throttle.

  The Wyvern blurs forward, skating across the void on a flare of ion fire. His crosshair drifts toward a twisting target and snaps red.

  The muon cannon fires.

  The enemy ship detonates mid-roll, its spinning fuselage catching the bolt clean through the side. Shield or no shield, the particle cannon obliterates it.

  Trigger banks hard and cuts throttle for a second, letting another pirate scream past him into his sights. His lock-on tones flare; he thumbs the missile release.

  A double pair of AIM-9z missiles streak from his belly. They loop wide, then curve sharply in. The pirate's evasive corkscrew reeks of hesitation, and he stalls under the pressure. One missile slams his shield, and the second goes right through it as it fails. The enemy vanishes in a white pop of pressure and flame.

  A third, heavy fighter dives in right from the front in a joust far too daring for the pilot's mediocre skill, its nose guns flashing.

  Trigger rotates ninety degrees, lets the shots pass just under him, and kicks the Wyvern into a snap turn as his foe shoots past. As the enemy tries in vain to turn back around, Trigger is already behind him.

  The muon cannon pulses twice.

  The bolts shear the pirate in half.

  Three more down.

  A fourth pirate, faster and more cautious than the rest, arcs in behind Trigger's tail. The lock-on tone begins to chime, and Trigger readies a post-stall flip to shoot a muon bolt right into the fool's cockpit for daring to try him.

  But a burst of blue energy tears through the bogey's port side. The hostile fighter jerks, then careens sideways, venting flames. A second blast rips his wing clean off, and he spirals away, lifeless.

  Mila's voice crackles over the comms. "Got 'em!"

  Trigger allows himself a brief exhale, his eyes locked on the next threat. "Good girl."

  He totally misses the blush that erupts under her yellow-furred face.

  Eli grits his beak as another burst of fire forces him to roll and break line-of-sight with the pirate that was in his crosshairs.

  "This is getting ridiculous," he growls, kicking the thrusters into a violent lurch. More fighters than he'd expected, and none of them breaking like they should. Cocky bastards. Suicidal, even. Pirates didn't fly like this unless they were desperate… or being paid well.

  He doesn't like either option.

  Glancing left, he sees the Aggressor holding its own, its belly gun spinning wildly as Lars banks hard to the side. One fighter tries to line up on his tail, and is just as quickly forced to roll out of the way of a hail of fire.

  "Fuckheads! Get off!" Lars growls in the comms.

  Another fighter strafes past Eli, clipping his shield with a burst of fire. The blue glow around his ship flares bright, then flickers.

  'Tch. Damn it, down to half.'

  He hazards a glance at the monkey in his right vector.

  Bolts fly.

  Engines are at full burn.

  They swarm like flies on shit.

  But the monkey dances around all of it.

  Each evasive maneuver is tighter than the last, flowing into the next like water over polished glass. The ape's fighter is painting the void with debris and kill trails. Six fighters down in hardly a minute. Eli counted them as they vanished from radar. Six.

  And the ape hasn't taken so much as a scratch.

  Eli's jaw tightens.

  Something in him stings like a fresh blaster wound. He was a top Cornieran sniper, a survivor, a merc who has worked this side of the frontier for years, and an ace pilot. Who the fuck does this monkey think he is? Coming in here and acting the way he does?

  Eli snaps his focus back just in time to see the pirate frigate launch even more fighters. Most go for the ape, and he wishes them luck, but a handful arc toward him and Lars.

  "Here comes more!" he barks. One low-life brazenly flies in his face, and he rewards the stunt with a prompt, cannon-born spacing.

  Lars just grunts. "Let 'em come."

  The Aggressor twists its frame and opens up its turret again, catching a pursuer in the belly and blowing it wide open.

  Eli rolls to avoid a burst of fire, then another, and another.

  Lock-on. A missile.

  From behind him, an orb of plasma in a homing, mini magnetosphere races his way, zipping out of a junky Hurg with a torpedo tube grafted to it.

  He tries to shake it. Dive. Twist. The missile keeps coming. He swears violently, yanking his controls hard, but the lock is ironclad. Too fast. Too close. The eagle's stomach goes cold.

  Looks like today is the day his card is punched.

  His eyes drop to a photograph, held to his console by tape, and time seems to slow to a crawl. Over the blare of the missile alarm, there is a quiet whurr as the lense in his false eye focuses.

  Eli was never sure which one was more beautiful; her eyes or her smile.

  Looks like he'll get to see them again soon, then he can finally make that call.

  A flash of white, and the scream of an incoming missile goes silent. Eli's head turns so fast he nearly gets whiplash.

  The Wyvern cuts behind him like a falling blade, engines throwing cones of flame and grabbing the plasma orb's attention. It peels off Eli instantly, homing on the new lock.

  The ape doesn't hesitate. He leads the missile out, rolling through a knot of debris, then turns—too sharp, his brain should be leaking out his nose—and threads the missile straight into a pirate fighter trying to get a bead on him.

  The super-heated explosion knocks two more pirates off-course, and the monkey's pet tubesock is quick to gun them both down.

  Eli stares.

  Silent.

  Still alive.

  His breath catches, and for one brief moment—he feels something sharp in his chest that isn't just anger.

  But it's gone in an instant.

  He snarls, smashing a fist on his console before whipping his ship back into combat. "Motherfucker!"

  Between the four of them, the raider numbers are thinning fast, and Trigger picks up on the growing fear like a shark does blood.

  The pirate fighters are hesitating, spooking easily and unwilling to commit to attacks. They don't leave their comms open like the group that Mila was fending off when he first met her, but Trigger sees the non-existent air change all the same. Their flying, the wobbles, the cadence of their acceleration give it all away.

  They're scared, but not scared enough to run.

  Not that Trigger would let them go. None leave, not alive.

  "Bravo Wing, this is Haul-o-Rex!" The radio says after spitting some static. "We've called a Libret patrol and are prepared for a micro-jump to safety! Return back and be quick about it! We're jumping as soon as you're in wake-range!"

  "Belay that, Haul-o-Rex," Trigger replies back quietly, tracking all the nervously buzzing fighters. "We were just cleaning up."

  "Belay that?! What do you mean belay th-" Trigger closes the channel.

  Then the pirate frigate lurches forward.

  Trigger sees it before anyone else. Its vector shifts subtly, engines burning hotter, bow angling toward the distant speck of the hauler.

  "Frigate's making a run for the hauler," he says into the microphone of his helmet, instantly swinging the Wyvern into a new heading.

  A numb hand flips a switch, and the Wyvern's belly splits open, the EML unfolding.

  EML Charged! His HUD flashes.

  The Wyvern's frame shudders as the long railgun draws power. Even with its EM hardening, the sheer magnetic buildup still makes the plane-turned-ship stutter and shake like a person touching a livewire.

  "Wh—zzzk the fu—zzzk—is—zzzk!" Lars' question is lost as comms for kilometers around jam, scrambled just by the EML charge.

  "—Trigge—zzzk—charging his railg—zzzzk—away from it!" Mila urges, cutting out just as much.

  The airman lines up the shot, no lead time needed, and squeezes the trigger.

  A blue-white lance of electromagnetically-accelerated hell tears across the void. Even with the dampening system, Trigger still has to punch his engines or be thrown backwards by the recoil.

  The frigate's shield flashes, then collapses, blooming with electric arcs and stress fractures. The railgun slug punches a hole into its prow, slowed just enough by the shielding to not rupture the entire thing like an overripe fruit. The breach vents white vapor, then a flurry of shredded cloth and pink mist as some poor soul experiences pressure differentials in the worst sort of way. Explosions ripple the ship from within.

  It's wounded, but that only makes the charge more desperate.

  An unheard call on private channels must go out in response, as the remaining pirate fighters snap to a new pattern. They surge toward Trigger, diving on him all at once.

  The Wyvern banks sharply, throwing itself into the teeth of the incoming pack. His muon cannon flashes again, and a ship explodes. Missiles scream out of his weapon bay, weaving through space and turning the attack run into a funeral procession.

  The panic in the pirate ranks is open and naked now. They stop fighting like pilots, and instead like frightened children thrown into a pit with a tiger. All of them are too terrified to mount a proper defence, but know that showing their backs is countless times worse.

  "Bravo Wing, I have their attention," Trigger weaves between a pair of bolts and folds his wings for a moment, letting a sloppy fighter miss him by inches. "Destroy the engines on the frigate. Stop them."

  Lars is the first to respond, the Aggressor veering off to line up on the frigate's rear. "Copy, moving!"

  "Roger dodger!" He can hear the grin in Mila's voice as she circles around.

  Eli says nothing, but he follows in.

  Their ships peel off, angling toward the crippled frigate's back. Point defence guns mounted to the frigate turn, trying to get an angle on the flanking Bravo Wing, but none can get a shot off before a missile or muon bolt shreds them.

  "I love this part!" Lars laughs as all three of his guns spin up.

  The frigate shudders under the hail of fire. Lars's gatling cannons carve long, sparking grooves into the port engine, sending chips of red-hot metal flying, and Mila follows up with a focused burst in the central engine, aiming right down into the innards to make the best use of her weaker guns. Eli rakes the final, starboard engine with precision shots right into the external mounting points of the thruster cone, making the whole thing break off. The damage is swift and catastrophic. With no shields to protect them, the engines are spewing white-blue flames in under ten seconds.

  The frigate lists, momentum dying. Escape is no longer an option.

  The moment the drives fail, the last few pirates break. The fighters flee, leaving the crippled frigate behind.

  "Stop! Stop! We surrender!" The voice that demanded their own surrender just a few minutes ago cries on all bands, the menacing voice filter gone. "Please stop!"

  Trigger watches the chaos unfold. His crosshair dances over one of the fleeing craft, the HUD flashing [FIRE], almost urging him to squeeze his namesake and send another one off. He holds.

  His breath comes slower as he comes back down, into his own body. He can feel it, that pulse in his chest. A part of him wants to end them anyway. No prisoners. No chances.

  It's better that way. Safer.

  But another part of him, the part still holding the flightstick with a steady hand, forces that cold thought down and opens a private channel.

  "Mila," he says lowly, his voice flat. "They're breaking. What's the protocol?"

  There's a pause. He imagines her ears twitching as she thinks.

  "Libret law says we gotta give them a fair chance if they surrender," she replies. "The Haul-o-Rex already called a patrol, so we just have to babysit them until we get the okay to split."

  Trigger exhales. That part of him still snarls, but it's quieter now, pacing in its cage.

  "Understood."

  He flicks his weapon safeties back on. Reluctantly. Then he opens his radio to all bands.

  "All fleeing fighters, return immediately for arrest or be hunted down. You have thirty seconds," he sends out, finger primed to re-arm his weapons as soon as the timer counts down.

  One by one, the pirate fighters slowly circle back.

  The silence is deafening. No one speaks over the open comms anymore—not the pirates, not the mercs. Just the whine of damaged engines and the occasional burst of static as power systems struggle to stay alive.

  Trigger watches their approach in silence. He tracks them each as they limp into position, weapons pointed away from him and the rest of the wing. The worst of them twitch nervously, ready to bolt at the first sign of a kill order.

  A frown on his face, Trigger then radios the freighter ready to jump away a few hundred kilometers back. "Haul-o-Rex, this is Stratos Wyvern. Pirates neutralized. Route is safe."

  The patrol takes about an hour to show up. With it is the largest ship Trigger has seen yet, a three-hundred meter cruiser flanked by a pair of uniform frigates. The pirate frigate is swiftly boarded by EVA-suit soldiers for survivor rescue and body recovery, and the remaining fighters are forced into docking with the cruiser at gunpoint.

  The captain of the cruiser, a ferret woman who looks like she doesn't get enough sleep, pops up on the too-many-direction call between himself, the rest of Bravo Wing, and the wide-eyed, arabian-robed badger captain of the Haul-o-Rex.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen," the patrol captain greets politely. "Thank you for your assistance in this arrest, and we're sorry that you were subject to an attack. This band only popped up on our radar recently, and they've been both fast and bold, an awful combination to track down."

  "It's fine, captain, no harm at all!" Farworth, the captain of the hauler, smiles. "My friend Trigger here made sure we didn't see so much as a shot ping off our shield! You should have seen his expertise in action! It was like something out of a movie!"

  In the corner of his eye, Trigger spies Eli scowl.

  "Thank you, Mister Farworth," Trigger inclines his head towards the camera on his console. "It was a team effort, though."

  The scowl of the eagle in the side feed eases, just a little.

  "Quite! Of course!" The old badger nods rapidly, eager to agree. "Everyone in Bravo Wing is quite spectacular, the unique ones always are."

  "Indeed they are," the Libret captain smiles tiredly. "We've finished the initial cataloging of the arrested crew, and there is a total bounty of roughly forty-five thousand credits after taxes and fees to be given out. Funds can be electronically deposited immediately, or I can issue an IOU redeemable at any Libret sponsored bounty office. I'll also need to know how you want it split."

  "Deposit is fine," Eli says.

  Lars nods. "Same here."

  "Ditto!" Mila grins. Trigger can already see her daydreaming about a new fighter.

  "And the split?"

  Mila, Lars, and Eli don't immediately answer, with Mila even sending a look Trigger's way, as if waiting for him to take the reins.

  Eli and Lars look at him, too, but their gazes are more judging than deferential.

  "Even split," Trigger finally says, crossing his arms and leaning back into his seat. "Give my share to Mila. She has equipment to purchase."

  That, and he still doesn't have a bank account yet. That'll be something to sort out on Tantalus.

  Eli and Lars exchange looks, while Mila beams. "Trigger, I could kiss you!"

  "Understood," The captain nods. "Oh, and before I forget, the pirate frigate had quite the hole in its hull, like a shot from something larger than any fighter. Might I ask what caused that?"

  She already knows, she has to have seen the footage. This can't be anything but a test.

  "A fighter mounted railgun," Trigger answers, blunt and honest.

  The ferret woman nods slowly, visibly filing the answer away in her head. Interest shines in those exhausted eyes as she stares at him, but she pushes no further. "I see… I'll get your money transferred shortly. Thank you for your cooperation, everyone. You're free to go."

  The video feed winks out.

  The rest of the trip to the midway point is without any kind of hiccups. As the refueling station, an old hulk with a great gas-collecting dish on the side, comes into view, Trigger is pretty thankful.

  Flying is his first love, and space is beautiful almost beyond words, but sixteen-going-on-seventeen hours is a long time to be in the Wyvern's cockpit.

  Getting docked doesn't take long, and once the paperwork and everyone's immediate bodily needs are taken care of, Mila collects Jodie then pulls Trigger along to a small diner on the edge of the station, where they sit down for a meal and some relaxation.

  "You actually ate one of those tasteless ration tubes in-route?!" Mila exclames, almost gagging around bites of her chicken sandwich at the thought. "Trigger! Those things are the culinary equivalent of a suicide note! Are you okay?" She reaches out and lays a hand across his. "You can talk to me! We'll get through it together."

  Trigger pulls his hand free and flicks his straw wrapper at her, pinging right off her pink nose. "It was cheap. Five credits for a pack of ten. Also no crumbs. Don't want that in zero-g."

  "It also looks and tastes like what you'd get if you tried to sand-blast oily concrete," Jodie raises an eyebrow as Mila grumbles and runs her nose. "Wait, the Wyvern doesn't have a comfort grav module? You were in zero-g the whole time?"

  The coyote groans and pulls out a pen, scrawling a note on a napkin that she shoves in her pocket. "Nother thing I gotta install…" she says to herself. Jodie then leans back in her seat, eyes flicking between the two of them before finally settling on Trigger. "Still can't get over how you fly," she says after a sip of her drink. "I've seen ace pilots before, but that was something else. The way you handled those pirates, it's like it wasn't even hard."

  Trigger can only shrug. It wasn't hard, not really. The lack of atmosphere and gravity ironically makes dogfighting easier. There's no accounting for drag, no danger of crashing into the ground, no stalling. It only took him that first dogfight outside of Kalibo-III to get used to it. "You were watching?" He asks.

  "The whole hauler was. The crew sent out a survey drone to keep an eye on things, see if they should cut and run," Jodie looks down at her empty plate. "Jaws were hanging slack on the whole bridge."

  Jodie leans forward again, nursing the last of her drink. "So where'd you learn all that?" she asks, voice casual but probing. "The maneuvers, the tactics, the instincts… That kind of flying doesn't just come from time in a cockpit."

  Trigger doesn't answer right away. His gaze drops to his half-finished plate, then to the reflection in the window beside them—just the faintest shimmer of the stars behind the station's glow.

  He's spared from answering when the entrance chime beeps. The door hisses open, and Eli and Lars step inside.

  Eli is unmistakable even out of the cockpit. His sharp-featured face, gold cybernetic eye, and permanent scowl practically radiate disdain. His flightsuit is black and angular, fitted like a second skin and adorned with a scattering of private insignias and faded campaign patches. Every movement is tight, precise, like he's always preparing for a fight.

  Lars, by contrast, is an entire wall of presence. The rottweiler wears a sleeveless field jacket over reinforced spacer gear, leaving thick, scarred arms fully exposed. Trigger's used to looking slightly down when speaking to Cornerians, as every one he's met so far has hovered around five-six at most. Lars must be pushing six and a half feet, with a build to match. It's enough to give Trigger pause.

  They spot the trio immediately.

  "What a cozy looking table," Eli mutters as they approach. "Didn't think apes knew how to make friends outside their kind."

  "Fuck, Eli, we talked about this..." Lars sighs and rubs his head, clearly already tired.

  Trigger doesn't rise to it. He leans back in the booth slightly, studying the two now that they're more than faces on a HUD.

  "I was wondering what you looked like without compression artifacts," he says mildly.

  Eli grunts. "And?"

  "You've got a lot of anger for someone not blown to bits."

  Lars barks a laugh. Even Jodie snorts.

  Eli glares but says nothing, sliding into the far end of the booth by Mila while Lars pulls up a chair from the neighboring table and occupies the space on the end, his arms resting on the table with a weighty thump.

  Trigger files away the detail: Lars moves big, but his hands don't fidget. They're still. Purposeful. The kind of stillness that only comes from someone who's used to lifting, repairing, or breaking things for a living.

  Eli is much the same, only it's his entire body that is still and controlled.

  There's a pause in conversation, long enough that the noise of the diner seeps back in, clinking silverware, low mutters, and the hum of a busted ceiling light.

  Eli clears his throat. Not loud, but just enough to draw attention.

  "I..." He stops, scowls at the table, and starts again. "Look. You flew well out there. Better than I expected. Better than I gave you credit for."

  Trigger raises an eyebrow.

  Eli doesn't meet his eye. "What I said before, back when we first linked up... that was out of line."

  Jodie watches with interest. Mila, mid-sip of her drink, nearly chokes.

  "I don't like apes," Eli mutters, jaw tightening. "But… You almost took a shot for me, the polar opposite of what I expected. So... yeah. I was wrong. About you."

  Trigger stares at him for a long second.

  Then Eli finally meets his gaze.

  "You hiring?"

  Trigger blinks once. Then he sits back, considering. Slowly, a tiny smile comes to his face.

  "I think I am. Let's talk."