The cushions in the common room of the Black Fang were never quite the same color from patch jobs. Some were stitched together with whatever fabric had been cheapest at the last spaceport stop, and the patch right at the middle of Gravel’s favorite cushion would glow in the dark. One particularly suspicious stain on the armrest had been there so long that it had its own backstory. Gravel would tell a version, and Hunter would tell a different version of said story.

  Still, this room was the most intact part of the ship, probably because Gravel actually cared about it. A round, half-sunken couch formed a loose ring around the center table, a reinforced metal slab with heat stains from too many haphazardly placed drinks. Hunter had carved ‘DON’T TOUCH MY FOOD’ into the surface, only for Fang to add a much smaller, ‘or do. I’m not your boss.’ Someone had carved ‘EAT MY DUST’ into the edge of the scuffed metal table where they sat, with handwriting that looked suspiciously like that of Fang. Hunter once asked if the young woman was the one who did it, but she just said the carvings had already been there when she bought it second-hand. Atop their heads, a mismatched assortment of LED strips flared at varying levels of brightness. The Array’s holo-display was propped against one wall, currently idle, save for the flare from the residual energy of their last comms call.

  Once they were deep into the safe zone—far from Theta-92, far from Garnash—Priest finally spoke, “I made a copy.” Like he’d just mentioned the weather.

  The words hung in the air. The growls of engines vibrated through the floor, occasionally sounding like somebody choked it by the neck.

  A holo-display cast shifting blue projections over the table.

  Hunter, leaning back in her seat, jumped. “What?” Her tool pouch jiggled as she jumped.

  Gravel shot him a look. “When?”

  “Before we left the bunker,” Priest said, unstrapping his harness and standing. “Just to have something to blackmail him if they ended up not fulfilling their end of the deal.” He tapped his wrist console, bringing up a holo-display.

  “I didn’t take you for the leverage type. Or the maverick type.”

  Priest glanced at him, unbothered. “I take precautions.”

  Hunter folded her arms, eyeing the holo-display. “And now? We got paid. We got out. What exactly are we doing with this?”

  Gravel leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “This job was supposed to be a simple pickup. Instead, we walked into a kill box. That tells me this drive isn’t just some forgotten relic—it’s part of something bigger.”

  Hunter frowned. “Bigger how?”

  Gravel smirked. “Bigger as in, we could score big. If this thing’s valuable enough for Garnash to throw an army at us, then someone else out there might be willing to pay even more.”

  Hunter rolled her eyes. “It’s always money with you.”

  Gravel shrugged, unbothered. “Money keeps us flying. If I’m correct, we barely had 600 thousand ducats in our account left before this.”

  Maintaining a ship wasn’t just about fuel—it was repairs, docking fees, permits, replacement parts for systems that were never supposed to fail but somehow always did. And then there was gear—high-powered firearms, reinforced armor, cloaking devices, rebreathers, atmospheric adapters—none of it came cheap. Every mission left them with something busted, and every repair chipped away at their earnings like a parasite that never stopped feeding.

  Their typical job barely pulled in a few million ducats, which sounded like a fortune to anyone who didn’t live on the edge of intergalactic travel. For them, the Black Fang crew, though? It wasn’t enough to cover a month of expenses, let alone a year. Factor in the sheer distances they had to cover—warp fuel costs, hyperspace tolls, bribes for border skips—and they were constantly running on fumes, financially and literally.

  “547 thousand and three, to be exact,” Priest commented.

  The truth was, he had a knack for sniffing out profit where others saw dead ends. The crew owed more than a few lucky breaks to Gravel’s instincts—like the time he talked their way out of a bounty on Xethos-9 by selling Republic patrol routes to a pirate lord who happened to hate the Republic more than them. Or the time he found a buyer for a “lost” corporate prototype they’d technically never meant to steal.

  Then there was the salvage run on Elkkka Prime (yes, with three Ks)—what was supposed to be a routine scrap haul until Gravel spotted the markings of an old smuggler’s cache in the wreckage. That job alone had paid for their last three engine overhauls.

  “We don’t need that much money,” Hunter said. “When you asked me to join, you promised me a ship to call home, and adventure.”

  “We still have both of those, don’t we?” Gravel half-grinned. “It’s not cheap keeping this ‘home’ running, I tell you that. The hundred million we got is just gonna keep us floating for another year, maybe two if Fang stops buying coffee sourced from Earth. This can keep us well-off for good.”

  “Ten months, Gravel, with our current spending,” Priest interjected.

  “All the more reasons to go big.”

  Priest crossed his arms. “We need money, but a mission of lesser risk would still sustain us for another two to four months. We can do them over and over, as long as we manage our hazards.”

  Gravel countered, “Weren’t you the one who wanted us to take on a big one and settle down? To stop living this life?”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “If it’s within our capabilities.”

  Hunter exhaled sharply. “Our ‘big one’ should not involve the corpos. It’s in the code.”

  Finally, she shot back. He needed her to let something out of her system, so he could clear up whatever hesitation she had in her mind.

  “Yeah, if we are their lap dogs then no. But we’re exposing them.” Gravel shot back, his voice low. “Don’t you want this? You remember what corpos did to you.”

  Hunter’s gaze shifted away. Her fingers dug into the small tool pouch strapped to her waist, the worn leather creaking under her grip. Gravel saw it—he knew the scars those words stirred.

  Bad move. She’s gonna clam up again.

  “Hunter, I—”

  “Sure. I’m on board, Rhyan.” She clawed at the bridge of her nose.

  Gravel and Priest exchanged looks, and Priest shook his head just slightly.

  Gravel stood, hands spread. “And Fang, you been listening?” He spoke to the holo-projector which had been connecting with the cockpit the entire time.

  “Uh-huh.” Her voice was slightly distorted, a semitone deeper.

  “How’s your debt repayment from that Neural Bond Speculation scheme going?”

  Fang’s voice crackled. “Don’t talk about that in front of everyone!”

  “We already knew, Fang,” Hunter said flatly.

  “I knew it was a scam, okay? I knew! I just thought I could get out with a good fortune before it collapsed.”

  “So, you’re on board, Fang?” Gravel asked.

  “If I get a decent cut out of it.”

  “I’ll make sure you’re debt-free, kid.”

  “Count me in!” Gravel could hear the sound of the back of her heels clicking against one another. “You got room for more? I can sign my cousin up for it too!”

  “Doesn’t your cousin work for the Republic?” Gravel asked.

  “No. That’s Jiye. I’m talking about Jilin. Linlinnnnn! Would you like to hear about this new investment opportunity?” Then she cut off comms. Gravel hoped she was joking about that one.

  “That was easy.”

  “If you are about to sell our souls for cash, we should figure out what we are holding first,” Priest said.

  “You need money too, old man,” Gravel said with a smug face. “You’re still going for a beachfront property and a retirement fund.” He sat back down, tapping his fingers on his knee. “We’re bounty hunters. When have we ever been scared for our lives?”

  Gravel turned back to Hunter again, and she was still fiddling the pouch. He moved closer, kneeling with one foot on the ground. “You really in on this?”

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “You said it. Then . . .” Gravel paused, looking at Priest now. “Let’s crack it open.”

  “Three versus one. Democracy, I guess.” Priest sighed, then keyed in a sequence on his console. The holo-display shifted, lines of encrypted data scrolling faster than the eye could track. “Fang. We need your expertise.”

  The cockpit door slid open, and Fang strolled in like she owned the place. The faint circles under her eyes somehow got darker in the span of two hours. “Finally,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “Lemme get my money.” She plopped down at her station, cracking her knuckles theatrically before pulling up the data. Her eyes darted across the readouts as her demeanors shifted from amused to serious.

  “This encryption isn’t standard. It’s layered—old Republic ciphers, but modified. Someone’s been playing with the deep-core protocols.”

  Gravel frowned. “Translation?”

  Fang exhaled. “Translation: whoever made this didn’t want it getting out. And whoever tries to decode it without the proper key?” She tapped a few keys, and a warning prompt flashed red on the screen. “Gets hit with a full data wipe. You can make as many copies as you like, they will still be wiped all the same if you can’t get through.”

  Hunter let out a low whistle. “That complicated, huh?”

  Fang nodded. “And that valuable.”

  “Then we’re gonna need a real expert for the job,” Gravel smirked. “And I know just where to find him.”

  “Richarlison?” Hunter protested, “He almost compromised our position last time.”

  Gravel shook his head. “No, not Charlie. I’m not that desperate.”

  Hunter exhaled, relieved. “Good. Because I swear if we have to clean up his mess again—”

  “Relax,” Gravel cut in. “I’m talking about Vanje.”

  A second of silence followed.

  Priest’s brow furrowed. “Vanje? Is that the guy who sold out the Rasha Syndicate and walked away breathing?”

  “The very same,” Gravel confirmed, stretching his arms. “If anyone can crack this without frying the data, it’s him.”

  Fang made a face. “He’s a paranoid wreck. Last time I saw him, he had three different comm signals bouncing across six systems just to order a damn drink.”

  Gravel shrugged. “And yet, he’s still alive. That’s gotta count for something.”

  Hunter crossed her arms. “You sure he won’t sell us out?”

  Gravel grinned. “Don’t worry. We go way back.”

  Priest wasn’t convinced. “That is not reassuring.”

  “Yeah,” Hunter added. “The last person you said you ‘went way back’ with tried to shove us out an airlock.”

  Gravel rolled his eyes. “That was a misunderstanding.”

  Hunter scoffed. “We were the misunderstanding.”

  Fang sighed, leaning back in her seat. “Look, Vanje’s the best we’ve got if we don’t want to risk a full data wipe. But if he’s as paranoid as ever, getting to him won’t be easy.” Her hands kept rubbing against each other, and when they didn’t, her thumbs fidgeted against one another. The girl could never stay still without at least some part of her body moving. Her itch to prance about even worse than Gravel’s.

  Gravel smirked. “It never is.” He glanced at Priest. “You’re the one who wanted to follow the contract to the letter. That didn’t work out too well for us, did it? Now we play this our way.”

  Priest exhaled slowly but didn’t argue. “Fine. But we do this carefully. No surprises.”

  Hunter shook her head, already resigned. “We’re about to walk into a mess, aren’t we?”

  Fang flicked through the nav charts. “Where’s Vanje holed up these days?”

  Gravel grinned. “Last I heard? A little place called Kestris-9.”

  The room fell quiet.

  Fang groaned, rubbing her temples. “Oh, for void’s sake.”

  Hunter muttered, “Why is it always Kestris?”

  Priest just closed his eyes for a moment. “I hate that planet.” He should know well. He used to work as corporate there.

  Gravel clapped his hands together. “Then we’d better get going.”

  Fang moved an inch closer to Gravel and whispered, “Please don’t wear luminous clothing on Kestris.”

  He smiled at her. “Why not?” Then extended his hands, palms outward as she glared at him. “Kidding; kidding. I’ll wear full black. Happy?”

  Fang let out another groan.