“Oh, I can't believe we missed it,” Charlene speaks up as she re-engages the engines.

  “What did we miss?” Brenna signs.

  “The ship's name,” Alice supplies, rubbing her forehead.

  “Maybe ‘Alpha’, with the sub-ships being ‘Beta’ and ‘Gamma’?” I quickly suggest.

  “No, no…” Alice switches to her chin, “too bnd… Chameleon, perhaps?”

  “Too obvious…” Brenna signs, “Octopus, maybe?”

  “They're pretty well known for stealth too… Charlene considers, “The Kraken would still be a cephalopod, right?”

  “Too threatening…” Alice considers, “What about ‘The Wager’?”

  “Pying on the ‘Bet’ portion of the group name, eh?” I consider, “that works.”

  “‘The Wager’ it is,” Charlene agrees.

  “OK,” Brett signs.

  I pce the call to Absalom Station, and get an immediate audio response, “This is Absalom Station Controller 873. What can I do for you?”

  “This is The Wager,” as of a few seconds ago, “and we need berthing.”

  “Oh, don't bother,” Ferdinand speaks, “I own a bay, there's a trust account that covers the taxes, maintenance, utilities, guards, and so on out of interest on the account, and it's really unlikely anyone knows I'm dead. I can give you the access codes, no need to pay for a berth.”

  “Certainly, that will be fifty credits,” the station controller starts.

  “Oh, sorry,” I interrupt, “We just received a message from our sponsor via another channel,” it's even technically true, it's just not another radio channel, “he has a berth ready.”

  “Very well then; thank you and have a good day.”

  I close the channel, and the ghost speaks up again, “Docking arm six, section eight…” he walks Alice through directions, and me through the codes to enter the bay, including two independent one-time time-based passwords (calcuted off of word-sad secrets) and a challenge/response mechanism based on a public/private key pair… where he had apparently memorized the private key, which is patently ridiculous… but also really difficult to crack, so… whatever.

  Scans let me know he has a good three thousand feet reserved for docking his ship. He has enough space for a Huge ship, easily… inside the station. That's insane… good for when he needs to refit it, I suppose. They don't open the entire door… it's sectioned, and they open just enough for our shuttle. We dock inside properly, and are immediately greeted by some staff robots that proceed to refuel the ship… but before we leave, I summon my decoy, armor her up, refill my spell points, and become the weapon.

  “How rich were you?” Brett signs as we head into the station proper.

  “I had enough…” the ghost shakes his head, “...until I didn't. Money alone can't buy security… but your ship should be safe enough… and there's a really nasty surprise waiting for anyone trying to steal it.”

  At Charlene's frown, he adds, “Anything from your advancement out of contact with you ceases to be and reforms near you when you rest up for the night… which means anyone flying off with the ship will find themselves stranded in space.” He pauses, “Also… don't book a hotel. At least one of you should rest up in the ship if you want to keep any fully real cargo you may have.”

  “Which is currently none,” I point out.

  “True,” he shrugs, “but you also don't currently have any real money… those UPBs that are your leftovers from starting wealth will also fade. Things will go badly if you spend them.”

  “So we need to get jobs…” Alice nods.

  Brenna signs, “and we kind of want to attract attention.”

  “Oh, that's going to be easy,” the ghost smiles, “Because you just walked out of a very expensive docking bay into a low-css neighborhood without a dozen armed guards. I can't see them until one of you notices them, but I'm sure we're already being tailed by a cutthroat of some stripe looking for us to let our guard down.”

  I pause, and ask the two people with the highest Perception checks in the party, “Alice, Brett?”

  “Behind us, six humans with pistols and knives,” Brenna reys through her telepathy cantrip, “Local gang toughs, and they mean to kill us.”

  “Okay then…” I consider, replying the same way, “in case of cameras, we want them to strike first…”

  …which they do before I finish my sentence, each firing a carefully aimed shot… all of which are at me, but only one of which nds true. Fortunately, my summoned minion has more health than that… and that was the signal we were all waiting for, so we return fire as most of us find whatever cover is avaible: I remain out in the open, as a summon is rgely disposable… better they shoot at the idiot who isn't smart enough to find cover than anyone we'll need to fix the other way. Now, my summoned minion isn't a great shot… but I am good enough, Alice is awesome, and everyone else is at least decent (well, okay, Charlene is a terrible shot, but it is her pets that do the actual shooting in her case, and they're decent shots)... well, for level one, but these are just basic thugs. I do lose my summoned minion before the battle is done… but I rather expected that.

  After the battle, I summon my other minion, and as it's dressing in the lost one's armor, I ask, “Who all needs their weapons recharged?”

  Alice starts, “I have the Unlimited Ammunition talent from the Barrage Sphere; I'm good.”

  “Don't look at me,” Brett signs as she lowers the dark glowing energy around her left hand, “the Sor Fre I have via an Epiphany doesn't run out.”

  Charlene shrugs, “My klikharp doesn't need ammunition at all, and I have the Create Ammunition spell. While that makes temporary charges, I also have the Transfer Charge spell for my drone's weapon… I didn't go through enough to deplete a full battery yet, but recharged my drone’s weapon already from a spare. Maybe I could use a recharge on spell slots after the next fight?”

  “...and as a Spirit Bde, I also come with unlimited ammunition. Huh.” I consider, “We've all been in too many ‘stranded’ scenarios, haven't we?”

  “It seems so,” Fredrick ughs, “You're all clearly ready to deal with being away from resupply in one way or another… the undead thing means you don't even need to worry about food, drink, or air.”

  I'd shake my head, but I'm currently a weapon.

  We loot the bodies. Individually they didn't have much: Their clothing has built-in environmental protections good for a day in case there's a breach, and each had a cestus battleglove, a survival knife, a tactical semi-auto pistol, some rounds, a credstick, and some UPBs. So of course, our first stop is a second-hand store to sell off all the junk we can't use… which is basically all of it. The credsticks and UPBS we keep; the rest we sell, but there's a wrinkle.

  “What do you mean, just nine credits for the stationwear? You're selling simir gear for ten times that!” Alice is talking to the store rep. It costs ninety-five new.

  “Look, dy,” the elven cashier sighs, brushing his bck bangs out of his eyes , “we need to check and make sure they're not damaged, stolen, cursed, haunted, or carrying viruses or parasites - whether electronic, biological, or magical. We need to clean, factory default, charge, document, and run any needed repairs or curse removals on them. After that, they're liable to sit on the shelves for months. It’s a lot of bor, and we still need to make a profit on top of that. If you don't like it, you can try selling them yourselves… but if you're not an established, reputable business, you're going to have an awfully hard time getting any more than what we offer… and you're going to need to do all of the above yourself if you're going to become a reputable business.”

  Brenna telepathically soothes Alice, “Look, it's in the books that things only sell for ten percent. He has clear reasons, let it go.”

  “All right, let's do this, then…” our skill monkey Alice finishes negotiations with the cashier, and we exchange the captured goods for money.

  That handled… we go shopping. We netted a little over three hundred credits from selling the gear, plus about seven hundred in loose change (credsticks and UPBs) from the fight. After a few hours, we realize we're just window shopping: Anything we'd want we either already have, or is too expensive right now. So we go job hunting: Using our comms to check the local infosphere for postings, mostly.

  After a bit of back and forth…

  “An escort mission for some xenobiologists, huh?” Alice seems to be weighing it in her head, “Should do.”

  “Yeah…” Brenna nods as she signs, “during talks they were particurly excited about the stealth features of our mechs; they don't want our gear to disturb the local wildlife, so the fact that we can maintain invisibility continuously… well, at least until we need to shoot something… was a big selling point.”

  “And of course,” Charlene considers, “when the wildlife does get aggressive, we can collect experience.”

  “I'm game,” I have my proxy nod, “Let's go. It certainly beats bouncer duty at a bar.”

  We load into our ship, head out, synchronize our Drift Engine with that of the scientists (it's the only way to ensure multiple ships arrive at the same time) and head out.

  A day into the trip, while I'm spending time pying games in my armor (I can't currently keep my summons in The Drift, unfortunately, so I lose them within a day of entering), I hear Alice speaking to Brett, “Mind checking these numbers for me?” I gnce over… Alice is frowning very deeply.

  Brenna shrugs and sits down at Alice's desk as Alice vacates it, then spends ten minutes running the math, and also frowns. “That's not where they said we were going.”

  That piques my interest, “Oh?”

  Alice responds, “Well… they gave us a star reference in The Vast, but this says we're headed to Near Space, specifically somewhere in the Veskarium.”

  I hit my comm, “Hey, Charlene, we got a problem. Meet us on the bridge, please.”

  She sends back a confirmation, and shows up quickly, a towel wrapped around her hair, “What have we got?”

  “Lying employers,” Brenna signs, “But Alice figured it out first, so it's her show.”

  “Thanks…” Alice gres daggers at Brett, “Yeah. Basically, when we sved our Drift Engine to theirs, they didn't plot a course to that star in The Vast as they cimed… we’re heading to the Veskarium.”

  “I didn't buy the Culture skill,” Charlene frowns, “but aren't they those military lizard people that rule their sor system by force as an empire?”

  “I did,” I frown, “and can confirm that's correct. And our employers were really interested in the invisibility aspect of our mechs.”

  “Good thing we didn't mention the Gray cloak,” Alice considers, “Not that we can engage it without a full stop.”

  “Which would tip our hand that we know they're lying to us,” Brenna's frown deepens.

  “Not if we fool them,” Charlene runs her chin, “You're the only one with that ‘Oath of Candor’, all you need to do is not speak up while the rest of us handle it… we can say we need to do some engine repairs or something.”

  “They'll know what's up as soon as we vanish from their scanners…” I consider, “...except we might not; we’re flying close, and we only fool the least expensive scanners avaible at close range… and then word would get out that we have a gray cloak.”

  “We could just run,” Brett shrugs, “we have shields and some rocking engines… or split the ship and fight; we have guns when we do that.”

  “A sudden course change risks the Spectra thinking we're invaders,” Alice cringes, “Fighting them inside Triune's domain…”

  “Right, bad pn,” Charlene shudders.

  “So… what if we ask them about it?” Brenna raises an eyebrow as she signs, “faking it and hiding has some drawbacks, cutting and running does too, and I'd rather not fire first on little more than a suspicion.”

  “We could try that… talking, I mean… the worst likely scenario is we end up running or fighting anyway,” Alice nods.

  Charlene considers, “So pn A is, ‘Hail them and ask about it’, pn B is ‘split the ship and shoot them out of The Drift’, while pn C is ‘run away’?”

  I nod, “Sounds right. Any objections?” I look around.

  When nobody speaks up, I reach to my controls to start the hail, when I get a notice that they're calling us….