The wind clawed at their clothes as they stood above the sprawling labyrinth of Orkash.
Gravel yanked the tracking dart off Priest’s boot, glaring at the blinking light before smashing it under his heel. The device barely made a sound as it cracked against the pavement. “They really have tracking devices this obvious,” he muttered. But when he checked, the blinking light persisted. If anything, the flashes became more annoying.
He cursed under his breath and tried again, this time pulling it apart with his hands, but the dart held. “Take your boot off, Priest,” he said.
From Priest’s experience with these devices, he knew the system would log their location until the moment the dart was destroyed. He got down on one knee to take off his boot.
“Hold up,” Hunter said. Gravel stepped back. She knelt beside them, pulling out the same specialized extractor tool from her belt. She stared at it and muttered, “Wait. This is useless.” Then she pulled out a good, old-fashioned razor blade.
Hunter carved around the surface of the boot where the dart had lodged, slicing through the leather in a single motion. The small piece of the boot came free with a snap, and the tracking dart fell into her hand, now fully dislodged. She threw it as far away as she could.
“Impressive, surgical approach,” Priest said, raising an eyebrow. Admittedly, Priest would’ve tried to key in more commands into that extraction tool. But Hunter didn’t do commands. She was the only one who didn’t do commands.
Hunter smiled. Gravel stared at her, opened his mouth, but finally said nothing.
Fang’s holo-slate pinged. Vanje’s voice came through, thick with static. “Flight path’s set, but you need to move. East rooftop, ten seconds.”
Priest’s visor flickered with updates—no immediate pursuit, but Sloan wouldn’t stay idle. Not after that.
Hunter pulled out her sidearm, eyes sweeping the skyline. “They’re not letting this go.”
Fang sighed, shoving her slate into her pocket. “She’s a corpo. Corpo charged me subscription fee for the auto-guidance system I liberated 20 years ago. They never let anything go.” She groaned dramatically. “I officially can’t call Kai anymore. He’s gonna be so worried.”
Gravel let out a short laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s the real tragedy here.”
Hunter exhaled, glancing at Priest. “Your old friend’s going to hunt us.”
“She’ll do worse than that,” Priest muttered. “But we have one thing going for us—Sloan likes the chase. She will take her time, draw it out.” Another haptic feedback—UNKNOWN SIGNALS INTERCEPTED. CIPHERED COMMUNICATIONS DETECTED. Sloan was already working. Calling in favors.
Priest’s visor was locked on the extraction point—metal grates, unstable footing. No time for finesse.
Vanje’s voice punched through again. “Jump.”
They sprinted.
Fang vaulted over a railing, stumbling into Gravel’s arms as he followed her steps. He pushed her back to her feet, dragging her along. Hunter spun mid-step, firing a quick shot at a nearby surveillance drone before diving forward. Priest followed last, leaping just as the hovercraft pulled up beneath them.
Fang braced for impact—but instead of Vanje at the controls, there was no one.
The hovercraft was empty. Remote-controlled.
She hit the floor hard, rolling onto her back. “Are you kidding me?”
Vanje’s snort could be heard through the speaker. “What, you think I was gonna fly into a death trap just to pick you up? Please.”
Priest pulled himself up, gripping a support beam as the hovercraft banked sharply. His visor flared red, and he projected the message for everyone to see: MULTIPLE LOCK-ONS DETECTED. HOSTILE SIGNALS—CLOSING.
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The hovercraft lurched as its autopilot threw it into a tight spiral, engines howling against the wind shear. Fang barely grabbed a safety rail before the hovercraft nearly flung her sideways.
Gravel groaned. “If this AI kills us before Sloan does, I’m haunting you. I’ll wait until you’re taking a dump then jumpscare you while you shit.”
Vanje’s voice crackled through the speakers. “Little faith, people. I wrote this code myself.”
Priest’s visor continued flashing with pursuit markers—multiple bogeys gaining, fast. His hands moved instinctively, pulling up the hovercraft’s countermeasures. “Incoming fire in five.”
Hunter braced against the cabin. “Tell me this thing can actually shake them.”
Vanje snorted. “Oh, it can.”
A hard jerk to the left sent the hovercraft skimming low over a rooftop, barely avoiding a barrage of pulse rounds. Then, just as the enemy pilots adjusted, the thrusters cut off completely.
For half a second, they were weightless.
Then the engines roared back to life, slamming them into a vertical dive. The pursuing crafts weren’t as lucky—two veered too sharply, one clipping a neon-lit antenna and spiraling into a building. The third broke off, reluctant to risk the same fate.
Fang was thrown again as the hovercraft took another sharp turn, but this time, as she tried to grip the side, she felt a sudden pull—gentle, steady. Her landing was softened, her body held in a controlled descent, preventing a worse crash into the metal floor. She glanced at Priest, who was already scanning the latest data. His hand had been raised, subtly manipulating the gravitational field.
“Thanks, old pop,” she muttered, surprised but not about to argue. “Didn’t know you can manipulate gravity in such closed space.”
Priest’s visor dimmed—PURSUIT: EVASIVE. THREAT PROXIMITY: DECREASING.
Gravel exhaled. “That was stupid.”
Fang peeled herself off the floor, scowling. “I swear, if they seize Black Fang—”
Vanje cut in, his usual smugness gone. “Yeah. About that.”
Priest’s visor flared with an update. BLACK FANG—LOCKED. MULTIPLE HOSTILES AT DOCK. ENTRY DENIED. “They locked it,” he relayed the information.
Fang clenched her jaw and did that odd, restless habit of rubbing the backs of her shoes against each other like she was trying to start a fire. “You’re kidding me.”
“Did you infiltrate the dock system?” Gravel asked.
“Yeah. But I can’t hack the guards,” she replied.
Hunter looked out the window as their hovercraft dipped below a cluster of stacked cargo towers. From this altitude, she could just make out the security detail swarming their ship—corpo enforcers in heavy gear, setting up perimeter defenses.
Gravel groaned. “I mean, it didn’t take a genius to figure out they’d lock us out of our only way off this planet.”
“Bit more than you could chew, buddy?” Vanje said.
Priest’s visor pinged again—Sloan’s teams were moving. Expanding the search radius. They had minutes before lockdowns started.
Vanje’s voice lowered over comms. “I’ve got a place. District Ten, off-grid, old smuggler hub. You lay low, regroup, then you figure out how to steal your ship back.”
“What do you mean ‘you’?” Hunter asked Vanje.
“I mean you,” Vanje said flatly. “I did my part. Got you out, kept you alive. I’ll crack the encryption on the drive like I promised, and then I’m out. You’ll see a cracked drive on your comms, along with a code to access it.”
Fang scoffed. “You’re kidding.”
Vanje replied, “I’m not part of your crew. I don’t owe you a damn thing past this. The only reason I’m still here is because I’m flying this thing remotely. Once you jump, I’m gone.”
Gravel let out a sharp laugh. “C’mon. Can’t I owe you two huge favors?”
“I’m done with your antics, man. Always poking your head into places you can’t get out of. You keep dealing with people like Sloan, you’re gonna make a lot of enemies real quick. Priest . . .” The line turned silent for a moment. “Well, we all know what he brings to the table.”
Priest could feel Gravel’s gaze on his back. Gravel had tried, time and again, to dig into his past—always poking for more under the pretense of casual conversations. He had given up by now, but he was persistent before. Whether it was to get closer, for some misguided form of camaraderie, or simply as a check on his history, it didn't matter. Priest had always kept his background to a minimum. A brief word here, a well-timed evasion there. Even when they’d landed in his old city, this was the first time any of them had heard about these people he might’ve crossed paths with.
Priest didn’t need to look back to know what was in Gravel's mind. He could practically hear the wheels turning. That Priest wasn’t optimizing the crew’s success chance. He was optimizing his own success.
His visor flared with new warnings—SECURITY LOCKDOWNS INITIATED. FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS ACTIVE. Time was up.
“Fine,” Hunter muttered. “Where’s the drop?”
“Three levels down, east side,” Vanje replied. “Old freight dock. No cameras, no patrols. It’s your best shot. Now jump.”
The emergency hatch slammed open, wind howling through the cabin. Hunter didn’t hesitate—she vaulted out first.
Priest went next. Then Gravel.
Fang lingered for just a second, gripping the edge of the hatch. “Hope I never see you again, Vanje.”
Vanje’s comm rattled, but he said nothing.
If you were part of the crew, what would be your top priority?
