Gravel skidded around a corner, catching sight of their exit—a narrow loading bay, half-collapsed, littered with rusted crates. The southern blast doors loomed ahead, barely illuminated by the flickering emergency lights.

  Then came the voices. “Seal off their escape!”

  “They’ve got nowhere to run!”

  The officers were closing in.

  Sloan cursed under her breath, raising her stolen rifle. “We need a distraction.”

  “Working on it,” Priest muttered, already scanning for alternate routes, his cybernetic fingers jerking as he rerouted control overrides to Fang.

  Hunter's rifle spat bursts of crimson energy. Each shot cracked against the ferrocrete walls, sending chips flying. The officers’ shouts became more distant, muffled by the sudden sound of body hitting the ground as they rolled over to find cover.

  Then Gravel saw him—Koto.

  He moved differently than the others, stepping into the kill zone as if he were expecting a conversation, not a firefight. His shock rifle was slung across his chest, but he wasn’t reaching for it.

  Instead, he just stood there.

  “Sloan,” Koto called out, voice calm, controlled. “You don’t want to do this. I can get a word in for you; for old time’s sake. You’re getting 20 years, max.”

  Sloan hesitated, her weapon still raised.

  Koto continued. “I’ll tell Mura you were forced into this. That you were gathering intel.”

  Gravel scoffed. “Yeah, sure. And we’ll get a medal too?”

  Koto ignored him, his focus locked on Sloan.

  His tone sharpened, almost urgent. “You don’t have to go down with them.”

  Gravel could see it happening—she was considering it. His grip tightened around his sidearm.

  Then Priest’s voice cut through the tension, low and even. “Sloan. You know better.”

  She stiffened. Her jaw clenched, fingers flexing around the trigger.

  Koto took a slow step forward. “Come on, Sloan. Those lowlives’ words are worth nothing. You’re gonna listen to those outlaw rats, or you’re gonna choose reason?”

  Gravel’s finger hovered the trigger. Eyes flicked. Sloan. Koto. Sloan. Koto. Am I dropping her first, or him?

  Sloan exhaled, a single drop of sweat tracing down her temple. She pulled the trigger.

  The plasma bolt ripped Koto’s chest apart. He staggered, shock flashing across his face. Then he crumpled.

  Silence.

  Sloan stared down at the body, her breath shallow. Her hands, steady a second ago, trembled. Her fingernails dug crescents into the palm of her free hand.

  Gravel lowered his weapon. “Well. Guess that settles that. Anyone want a space lager?”

  But Sloan wasn’t looking at Koto anymore. She was staring at her own hands, the rifle still clutched tight.

  Reality hit.

  She was now one of them. There was no going back.

  ***

  The air outside the industrial dockyards was thick with smog, the neon glow of Kestris’ undercity barely cutting through the haze. Gravel adjusted the collar of his jacket, eyes scanning the skyline as they approached the shipyard perimeter. I haven’t seen a single flying animal in this city since I arrived. What gives?

  The Black Fang was here—somewhere.

  Sloan walked a few steps ahead, her movements tense but measured. She’d barely spoken since Koto. Hunter had kept a wary eye on her, but Priest had said nothing.

  Fang whined over comms from a nearby vantage point. “Guys. I’m out of the loop. Tell me why we’re heading this way.”

  “Why do you sound like you’ve swallowed an ocean, Fang?” Hunter asked. “Did you put the mask on again?”

  “Duh. I’m in an industrial zone.”

  “Sloan stashed our ship before Mura’s men got to it,” Priest answered.

  “Mura already knows,” Sloan added flatly. “I had people relocate the Black Fang to a secure impound—Mura’s already in contact with them.”

  Gravel sighed. “Fantastic. So much for an easy getaway.”

  Sloan shot him a look. “I didn’t say it was impossible. Just difficult.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Fang’s voice crackled over comms. “Yeah, uh, before you guys go off, you wanna tell me where the hell I’m supposed to be?”

  Gravel winced. Fang had been monitoring from a safe position, away from the heat. “Your coordinates?”

  “Couple districts out.”

  Sloan muttered something under her breath, then switched to a secondary frequency. “There’s an old transit line that runs under the impound facility. It’s been decommissioned for years, but I know the maintenance access codes. It’ll drop her two blocks from us, and she won’t have to risk running patrols.”

  Priest tapped at his visor. “I see it. The route is mostly clear.”

  “On my way, boss,” Fang said.

  The others remained in position, watching the security rotations, waiting. Priest studied the facility ahead, his visor pulling in security feeds and layout schematics. “We need an entry point.”

  “I’ve got one,” Sloan said. “I know the patrol schedules. There’s a shift change in ten minutes, which means a window where the new guards are getting briefed and the old ones are clocking out. If we time it right, we can slip in before they notice an extra set of faces. And even if they do, I can get through with my authority.”

  “Last I heard, Mura said you’re a criminal, not a corpo executive,” Hunter said.

  “McPherson has majority ownership of this dock, but Gilneas and other smaller organizations own a share too. Mura sent Koto from his private detachment, and not the police. McPherson can’t risk breaking the news about me. My educated guess is that Mura ordered the guards to not let any unauthorized personnel in under any circumstance, but didn’t provide the reason why. No guards dared stop Lin Biao’s craft from taking off despite several official orders, because he was the Deputy Prime Minister.” Nobody else had ever heard of the name Lin Biao or knew which planet they served as the Deputy Prime Minister of.

  Gravel crossed his arms. “Even so, you saying we just walk in? I mean . . . you might look the part, but we look like ourselves. Hunter’s wearing a backpack she got from Jetpack Joyride, and Priest is . . .” He stared at Priest’s robot arms. “They’re gonna notice.”

  Priest immediately hid his arms inside his long overcoat. He looked marginally less suspicious.

  Hunter chimed in. “Then we make sure they’re too busy dealing with a different problem. And we have someone for that.”

  A vent cover near the alleyway rattled, and Fang crawled out, shaking dust from her jacket. “I hate tunnels,” she muttered, brushing off grime.

  Gravel raised a brow. “You look like you lost a fight with an exhaust pipe.”

  Sloan pulled up a holo-display, highlighting a nearby security hub. “The Black Fang’s locked down under automated defense protocols. But if we trip a breach alert on the opposite side of the impound yard, it’ll reroute security forces there. However, this is the risky part: the men who failed to catch us might’ve already alerted Mura, and he might have been brave enough to tell some guards to revoke my access. We need someone to cause a mess while the rest of us move in.”

  Fang grinned. “Say no more.”

  Fang’s grin was equal parts enthusiasm and recklessness. That immediately put Gravel on edge.

  “Hold up,” he said, eyeing her. “What exactly do you plan on doing?”

  Fang stretched her arms. “Something noisy.”

  Hunter pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s not an answer.”

  Priest tapped his visor, scanning the security feeds. “The external defense grid runs on an outdated response algorithm. If we force a system lockdown, it will trigger an automatic high-priority alert—one that requires manual clearance.”

  Sloan nodded. “There’s a power junction near the north entrance. Overloading it will trip the internal failsafe, and this will pull security forces off the shipyard perimeter. But it has to be precise.”

  Fang said, “Oh, I am precise.”

  Sloan frowned. “If you trigger the alarm, you’ll have to book it back here alone.”

  Fang rolled her shoulders. “I run on risks. Better if only one person is caught than the whole crew. Also, I can look like I’m responding to the emergency instead of causing it.”

  Sloan nodded, then reached into her coat’s inner pocket, pulling out a small, unassuming access badge. She pressed it into Fang’s palm. “This certifies you as McPherson’s esteemed guest. If someone stops you, flash it and act important. Say you’re Fumiko Nakamura.”

  “Thank you,” Fang said. “You know, this whole thing would’ve been easier if you hadn’t moved the ship in the first place.”

  Sloan turned to her. “Excuse me?”

  “I already hacked the docking system earlier, but at the original dock the Black Fang was supposed to be at. If the ship had stayed put, I could’ve just overridden the lockdown and walked us in.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  Then Sloan narrowed her eyes. “You broke into McPherson’s docking system?”

  Fang grinned. “And rerouted their clearance protocols. Not my fault you didn’t check first.”

  Sloan exhaled, rubbing her temple. “The systems are prone to overload attacks, but I didn’t think you could slip into their network that fast.”

  Fang gave a casual shrug, but there was unmistakable pride in her voice. “Guess you underestimated me.”

  Sloan glanced at her, then nodded. “I suppose I did.”

  Gravel smirked. “Well, would you look at that? Respect from a corpo. Now, Fang, go.”

  Fang snapped a salute that was, by the standard of every single army in the galaxy, wrong, which was remarkable considering there were more right ways than wrong across the systems. Then she turned and moved toward her target. There was a slight hitch in her stride, like a single missed beat in an otherwise fluid motion, as if she'd momentarily forgotten where to place her foot. Her arms did not even sync with her legs. Maybe she was slightly fatigued.

  Hunter glanced at Sloan. “And what about us?”

  Sloan’s eyes flicked to the approaching security detail near the impound’s main gates. “We walk in.”

  Gravel scoffed. “That’s your big plan?”

  Sloan shot him a look. “You’ve got a better one? I don’t know how to hack systems.”

  Gravel opened his mouth, then shut it.

  Priest adjusted his coat. “She is right. Act like you belong.”

  Sloan led the way, her posture shifting as she adopted brisk, confident strides. The others followed suit, moving toward the gates as the first warning sirens roared to life in the distance.

  Fang had done her job. Now, it was up to them.

  They reached the perimeter checkpoint without a hitch. So far, Sloan’s plan had been working. The guards at the impound barely spared them a glance, too distracted by the blaring alarms and the flickering status feeds on their terminals. With those who did stop in their tracks to look at the crew, Sloan flashed them a badge she wore on her neck. It said Deputy Executive Officer underneath a McPherson logo. The quantum ink on the logo had an organic pattern woven into its structure, something far beyond mere engraving. Quantum ink could not be forged.

  They nodded at her, then resumed running. Sloan’s educated guest had probably been correct.

  Inside the facility, the Black Fang sat docked behind a high-security bay door, clamps securing its landing struts. Gravel clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to break into a sprint.

  Priest tapped at his visor, running a bypass on the security panel. “Severing remote access. The ship’s ours again in ten seconds.”

  Sloan pulled up a secondary display. “Flight control’s still active. If they realize we’re launching, they’ll have skijets locked on us before we’re in the clouds.”

  “Skijets?” Gravel snorted. “That’s a weird way of spelling ‘anti-air’.”

  “I know what I said,” Sloan replied.

  Gravel’s eyes slightly widened and the corner of his lip curved into an amused smirk. Sloan shot him a look, knowing he was about to say something subjectively funny but objectively unfunny. But there was no time for talking nonsense, as the loading ramp unlocked with a hiss.

  “Fang, we’re grabbing you in thirty, kid. Be at the rendezvous,” Gravel said. “I’m sending the coordinates.”

  “Yeah, yeah, just hurry before they patch the grid.”