The data slate screens never stopped playing.

  They hung over Cinderhollow’s corridors like artificial moons, cracked panels bolted into rusted beams, looping the same imperial broadcast until the faces blurred into icons and the icons blurred into warning. A gold sun-sigil split down the middle. A priest’s voice turned grief into policy. Names were spoken like scripture.

  THE EMPEROR.

  THE EMPRESS.

  THE HEIRS.

  GONE.

  THE MERIDIAN EMPIRE MUST STAND STRONG.

  LET THE STARS GUIDE US TO GOD.

  Draven stood under one of those screens with his hood up, pretending to watch like everyone else.

  He wasn’t watching.

  He was counting.

  A solar crystal rolled across his knuckles, over and over, catching the data slate glow and throwing it back in dull flashes. It was no bigger than the tip of his thumb, cut into a faceted shard, edges worn smooth from too many hands and too many trades.

  Currency.

  Real currency.

  On the Ring, credits were cold air. Simply numbers that could vanish if the wrong system flagged your name. But a crystal, that was stored solar output; something you could feel: a gentle thrumming when it was full, or a tired weight when it wasn’t.

  Draven rolled the shard between his fingers and watched its inner glow pulse faintly. For a heartbeat it lit the underside of his hood, tracing the sharp line of his cheek before the station hab’s gloom swallowed it again.

  A charged crystal meant access. It meant power allocation. It was a week of lights that didn’t flicker; a ration kiosk that didn’t deny you, a door that opened to your wrist tag. It meant your block stayed online instead of getting throttled down into the gray zones.

  He held it up for a second, just under the memorial screen.

  The crystal’s glow didn’t match the broadcast gold. The palace light on-screen was clean and warm and proud: an empire’s idea of itself. The crystal’s light was thin, cycled too many times, drained, and refilled until it carried more desperation than shine.

  Behind him, people moved through the corridors leading into this hab junction in slow currents: workers with tool belts, kids with empty charge canisters, old men with tired eyes checking wrist meters like prayers. Everyone passed beneath the dead Emperor’s name like it was simply the weather.

  A woman with a braided scarf clutched a child close as they walked. The kid’s cheeks were hollow; his wrist tag blinked yellow—low allocation.

  The woman’s gaze flicked to Draven’s crystal and then away quickly, as if looking too long might count against her soul.

  “May the stars guide you to God,” she murmured to her child; the same hopeless strain of inevitability lasing her voice

  The child nodded like he understood. Like the stars were something you could hope with if you learned the right words.

  On the screen, the priest’s face filled the frame: sun-gold collar, calm eyes, a voice smooth enough to slide a ton of cargo freight on.

  “—God gifted the stars to mankind,” the priest intoned. “Not as plunder, but as promise. Ignite your cores with humility. Pay your Solar Tithe with gratitude. Walk the path of light, so that one day you may ignite to heaven and stand in His presence among the constellations—”

  The audio stuttered. The priest’s mouth kept moving, but the words vanished for a beat.

  Then the broadcast snapped into an ad with brutal cheer.

  ENERGY IS LIFE. PAY YOUR TITHE. MAINTAIN COMPLIANCE.

  FAILURE RESULTS IN ALLOCATION REDUCTION. ACCESS RESTRICTION. DEBT CONSCRIPTION.

  Draven snorted under his breath.

  Faith and enforcement—same screen, same tone. On Cinderhollow, God and the grid always seemed to share a billing department.

  Mira slid up beside him, cap low, grease smudged across her cheek like war paint. She didn’t look at the memorial. She scanned the crowd that milled past, watching for watchers.

  “You’re gonna wear a groove through it,” she murmured.

  Draven kept rolling the crystal. “Better than letting it go to a tithe.”

  Mira’s eyes flicked to the shard, then away. “How charged?”

  He paused and pressed it lightly to the inside of his wrist, right where the skin was thinnest. The crystal buzzed faintly, the charge you could sense if you’d grown up with nothing else reliable.

  “Forty percent,” he said. “Maybe fifty if you squint and lie.”

  Mira’s mouth tightened. “That’s a week of allocation if our block’s lucky.”

  “Or two days if the grid decides to punish us. Maintenance has been lacking lately”

  “Or a bribe,” she chimed back.

  Draven didn’t answer. The crystal resumed its lazy loop across his fingers.

  That was the thing about solar currency: it wasn’t just money. It was permission: permission to draw from the grid, permission to exist without alarms blinking your name red. A crystal at ninety could buy you a month of life. A crystal at ten could buy you one meal and the illusion of tomorrow.

  A man brushed past and stared at the glow longingly before being pushed on with the flow of bodies. Draven turned his hand inward so the light disappeared under his palm.

  Mira nodded toward the corridor mouth. “You ready?”

  Draven’s gaze drifted up, just once, to the memorial screen.

  The sun-sigil split. The footage glitched at the same moment it always glitched; right before the camera angle that would’ve shown what happened inside the palace. Static. Blur. Cut.

  Every time was the same. Like the network itself refused to show the death of the Crown.

  A man nearby made the sign of the Synod: two fingers to the brow, then down to the chest, tracing an invisible star path.

  “May you ignite to heaven,” he whispered, for the dead. . . or for himself. Draven couldn’t tell.

  Bitterness rose in Draven like bile. An Emperor could be erased behind the most expensive security lattice in the empire, all that money and for what. Cinderhollow still got its allocation throttled for being late on quota. He flipped the crystal once, caught it, and closed his fist around it.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go get charged.”

  Mira’s mouth twitched. “May the stars guide you to God,” she said, deadpan.

  Draven glanced sideways at her. “Tell the stars to guide me to a pile of stones.”

  Mira shook her head, but there was a ghost of a smile in it; small, quick, like she didn’t want anyone to see her hope. She turned and melted into the crowd like she belonged there.

  Draven followed, the shard’s faint pulse trapped in his palm, public data slate speakers washing over his back like sunlight he’d never be allowed to stand in. And somewhere deeper in the Ring, freight lanes waited: sealed crates, nervous guards, and the kind of score that didn’t just fall into your lap every day.

  It bought trouble.

  It bought solar crystals.

  And crystals were what he needed most.

  Draven followed Mira through the corridor’s slow current, letting the crowd swallow him the way it always did. The memorial screen’s audio chased them down the hall.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “—God gifted the stars to mankind—”

  A hatchway ahead led off the main spine into maintenance access, one of a hundred side passages the station maps pretended didn’t exist. Mira didn’t hesitate. She slipped through like she owned it.

  Draven waited for the exact moment a pair of union workers turned their heads, then slid in after her. The hatch sealed behind them with a tired click.

  The noise of the corridor fell away, replaced by the familiar guts of the Ring: vent hiss, pipe rattle, the steady distant thump of compressors keeping pressure and life from bleeding into vacuum. Mira stopped at a junction where old warning paint peeled from the walls in long strips. Someone had scratched a crude sun-sigil into the metal and written beneath it in grease marker:

  MAY YOU IGNITE TO HEAVEN.

  …IF THEY LET YOU.

  Draven snorted quietly. “Saints of Cinderhollow.”

  Mira’s shoulders loosened a fraction. “At least they’ve got a sense of humor.”

  They rounded another bend and the passage opened into a service bay; half storage, half workshop. It smelled like solvent, hot metal, sweat, and the kind of oil you could never wash out of skin.

  A single work light hung from a cable, swinging slightly. Its glow carved the room into sharp shadows. Jax was already there, leaning against a stack of sealed crates as if he’d been born in that exact posture: broad shoulders, thick arms, and a calm expression that never quite reached his eyes. He wore a sleeveless jacket over a worn undersuit; the faint outline of a forearm brace showed beneath the fabric, cheap actuators with patched coolant lines.

  Senn perched on a crate nearby, legs bouncing like he’d drunk three cups of stim. He was all angles and too-quick smiles, fingers constantly moving, stroking his knives, tying and untying cable knots, anything to keep the nervous energy from spilling out.

  Between them sat a tarp-covered bundle and a battered case marked with faded hazard symbols.

  Jax’s gaze found Draven’s immediately.

  “Always flipping that thing,” Jax said low and familiar.

  Draven opened his fist.

  The crystal’s faint pulse lit the inside of his palm.

  Senn’s eyes widened like he was looking at a relic. “Ohhh. That’s pretty.”

  “Don’t,” Mira warned without looking at him.

  “I didn’t touch it.” Senn held both hands up, grinning. “I only admired it with my eyes. My God-gifted eyes.”

  Jax snorted once. It might’ve been a laugh.

  Draven tucked the crystal into an inner pocket. “This isn’t the score. This is breakfast.”

  Mira tilted her head toward the tarp-covered bundle. “Then let’s go earn dinner.”

  Draven’s gaze flicked to the empty space where one more person should’ve been. “Where’s Rook?”

  A small silence settled.

  Senn stopped bouncing his leg.

  Jax’s jaw tightened. “Rook’s… busy.”

  “Busy doing what?” Draven asked.

  Mira answered before Jax could. “Busy not being seen.”

  Draven didn’t like that. When Rook wasn’t present, it meant he wanted the job done without his fingerprints on it. Which meant either the risk was high… or the buyer was worse.

  Draven slid his hood back just enough to look them in the eyes. “Anything I should know?”

  Senn cleared his throat dramatically. “Okay, okay. Full briefing. You’re gonna love this. It’s too easy.”

  “Make it short,” Mira said.

  Senn sighed like he was being personally oppressed. “Fine. State shipment coming through freight lanes. . . off the book. Small crate. Client wants it. Marked non-hazard.”

  Draven’s stomach tightened. “How do we know?”

  Senn tapped the side of his head. “Because I have a brain. And because union boys talk when they think nobody important is listening.”

  “Union boys don’t get state manifests,” Draven said.

  “They do when the crate moves through their lane,” Mira replied. “And when the state wants it quiet enough that it doesn’t bring a full escort.”

  Jax pushed off the crates and came closer, voice steady. “Lane Seven. Two guards. One drone on loop.”

  Mira added, “Three cameras. Two dead. Third’s on a lazy cycle. We’ve got a window.”

  Draven stared at the tarp bundle like it might bite. “And Rook wants us to hit state freight because…?”

  Senn’s grin returned, but it was thinner now. “Because the buyer pays in full-charge stones. A lot of them.”

  Mira’s eyes flicked to Draven. “Not eighty. Not ninety. Full.”

  The word landed heavy. Full-charge crystals didn’t circulate in Cinderhollow unless someone powerful wanted something done.

  And full-charge stones were the kind of currency that got people killed.

  Draven’s voice came out flat. “What’s in the crate?”

  Jax’s shoulders rose and fell. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters,” Draven said.

  Mira’s expression sharpened. “Small. Dense. State-stamped. Unmarked. That means either it’s valuable enough they don’t want attention… or illegal enough they don’t want paperwork.”

  Senn leaned forward, voice dropping like he was telling a ghost story. “Or it’s both.”

  Draven exhaled slowly. “And our cut?”

  “Enough to clear your quota for months,” Mira said. “Enough to get off this station—somewhere with atmo, dirt, and a sky.”

  Senn nodded eagerly. “Enough to be actual people for once.”

  Jax didn’t look excited. He just looked ready. “We do the job. We vanish. That’s it.”

  Draven stared at them: Mira’s hard eyes, Jax’s calm violence held in check, Senn’s bravado built over fear.

  He knew what they were really saying.

  We’re tired of being throttled.

  We’re tired of being milked.

  We’re tired of watching our lives get measured in percentages.

  He also knew what hitting state freight meant. It meant you didn’t just steal from the Ring anymore. You stole from people who owned your whole existence.

  Mira stepped closer and touched Draven’s sleeve: light, quick. “You in?”

  Draven hesitated for the space of one breath.

  Then he nodded. “I’m in.”

  Senn clapped softly. “Yes. Okay. Great. We’re all going to die together!”

  “Shut up,” Mira quipped.

  Jax yanked the tarp off the bundle.

  Gear lay beneath: cobbled and battered, but cared for like sacred objects.

  Scrap matrices first: rough housings, mismatched capacitors strapped to a plate, wiring stitched and soldered in ugly lines. The underworld called them sunpacks, burnboxes, coffin packs. Whatever name you used, the meaning was the same: Borrowed light. Borrowed power.

  Mira picked up the smallest one; flat, meant to ride at the hip. She checked the charge window: a faint green sliver.

  “Two flickers of shield,” she murmured. “Maybe three if I don’t waste it.”

  Senn grabbed a wrist rig—cheap emitter strip bolted to a brace. He snapped it on like jewelry.

  “Flashblind module still works,” he said. “Mostly.”

  “Mostly?” Draven asked.

  Senn gave him a bright smile. “It blinds someone. Sometimes it’s me. That’s still tactical. Confusion is a weapon.”

  Jax lifted the heaviest piece: a forearm matrix with a thick capacitor spine and reinforced emitter port. It looked like it had been built from drone parts and prayer. Jax flexed; the actuators whined softly.

  “Enough power to punch through a bulkhead,” Jax said. “Or cook my arm if it fails.”

  Draven crouched by the battered case with faded hazard symbols and popped the latches.

  Inside lay a blade spine: metal-ceramic core with old scorch marks along its length. Not a true Solblade. No Knight-grade focusing lattice. But it had an emitter channel along the edge—enough to catch a plasma line for a moment if the matrix feeding it didn’t sputter out.

  A street-igniter.

  A thief’s sword.

  Draven ran his thumb along the spine, feeling the tiny imperfections where the edge had warped and been ground back down.

  Mira watched him. “You ready?”

  Draven didn’t look up. “As ready as I can be.”

  Senn leaned in, eyes gleaming. “Say the prayer.”

  Draven glanced at him.

  “You know,” Senn said, grinning. “For luck. May the stars guide you to God.”

  Mira rolled her eyes. “Don’t you dare.”

  Senn’s grin widened. “What? I’m just being faithful.”

  Jax spoke without humor. “Faith doesn’t stop solar bolts.”

  Draven closed the case and stood, sliding the spine into a worn sheath on his back. “Doesn’t hurt, though.”

  He strapped a slim matrix pack across his ribs—light enough to hide under a jacket, heavy enough not to forget. He checked its charge window: low amber.

  “Thirty?” Mira guessed.

  “Twenty-five,” Draven said.

  Senn winced. “Oof.”

  “That’s fine,” Draven said, even though it wasn’t. “We’re not here to fight a war. We’re here to grab a box and disappear.”

  Mira pulled a small coil of insulated wire and a cutter from her pocket. “Plan stays the same. Lane Seven. Vent cycle gives us twelve seconds of noise. Senn distracts the drone if it swings early.”

  Senn saluted. “I was born to distract.”

  “Jax blocks,” Mira continued. “No one gets hurt unless they make it necessary.”

  Jax’s expression didn’t change, but something in his shoulders shifted. “Copy.”

  Mira looked at Draven last. “You’re the hands. You open the latch, pull the goods, reseal it like it never happened.”

  Draven nodded. “And if the state escort is bigger than we think?”

  Mira’s eyes hardened. “Then we run.”

  Jax added, simple and absolute: “No hero moves.”

  Senn swallowed and tried to make it a joke. “No heroes. Got it. Heroes die. Thieves live.”

  Draven tightened the straps on his pack until it bit just enough to remind him, he still needed circulation. He thought of the memorial screens. The priest’s voice. The dead imperial family turned into a looped warning.

  Let the stars guide us to God.

  On Cinderhollow, the stars didn’t guide you anywhere.

  They watched you measure your life in percentages… and called it order.

  Draven met Mira’s gaze. Then Jax’s. Then Senn’s.

  “We do this clean,” Draven said. “We do this fast.”

  Mira nodded once. “May the stars guide you to God,” she said: but this time. . . it wasn’t deadpan.

  It was a promise she wanted to believe.

  Draven’s mouth twitched. He didn’t answer.

  Not yet.

  He pulled his hood up, and the four of them slipped into the maintenance passage, gear hidden under patched clothing, borrowed sunlight pressed close to their bones.

  Down toward Lane Seven.

  Down toward the score.

  Down toward destiny.