“This world doesn’t feed mouths that don’t earn their teeth, Riven. You want warmth? Go chase it. You want a name? Build it. Your half-blooded nature won’t buy you my love, nor will it buy you a place here, and pity doesn’t keep food on the table. If you’re still alive in ten years, maybe I’ll call you back. But I doubt it.” -Final words of Maelis Lenvora, Guildmaster of the Hollow Reeds, Wickrow Sector, spoken to her bastard son, 508 A.S.

  The sky out here wasn’t quiet, it was empty. That kind of wide, weightless emptiness that settles behind your ribs and makes you feel like you’ve gone too far out, too high up, like the world itself has thinned. The clouds rolled lazily beneath the Wakesong’s hull, a slow churn of ghostly vapor stretched into grasping hands and nearly up to the catwalk. This whole region was unmarked by trade routes or beacon lights. No patrols or chatter on the open bands. Just wind and the Wakesong riding along the white, slithering waves.

  I stood at the ladderwell, arms folded against the chill bleeding from the wall, watching the drift below like it might offer some kind of answer if I pondered long enough. But it never did, it was just motion. Beautiful, disinterested motion, like everything else out in the white void.

  I looked up after a small jerk came from the ship. The Wakesong held her course better than usual. She still stuttered when we hit a sharp crosscurrent or dipped too fast between altitudes, but the resistance that had plagued her since I awoke aboard her was gone. She’d settled, in her own way. The bones of her frame didn’t groan as much when she flexed against gravity, and the flight dampeners weren’t arguing with me every time I made a course correction. It wasn’t submission, something closer to tolerance. Not quite warmth, but I’d take what I can get.

  I turned my attention to the green splotch on the horizon. We were three hours out from the drop. The job was one of those Concord arrangements that came wrapped in unhelpful coordinates and fewer details than you wanted. We were supposed to pick something up, salvage, maybe, or a package not worth the risk to send through official channels. The job didn’t have any names attached, only a retrieval tag and a promise of payment from someone who’d signed the message “—V. L.” and never clarified further.

  It wasn’t glamorous, but the course took us halfway to Demeris’ Reach, and I needed to buy fuel, parts, and a little time to let the letter stop echoing behind my eyes. I pushed off the wall and made my way back into the ship.

  The ship started to breathe around me again. Not literally, not in any real, mechanical sense, but there was a difference. Doors opened before I touched them. Lights brightened to my preference without prompting. The vox anima within the Wakesong wasn’t welcoming, but she was listening. I keyed the comm panel as I passed.

  “Status?”

  Portem’s voice cut in a moment later, clear and measured.

  “We’re on track. Twenty-six minutes to the ring marker. Atmospheric readings are within tolerances, though the southern ridge is carrying more heat than I’d expect. Nothing hostile so far.”

  “Let me guess,” I muttered. “Contact didn’t mention terrain conditions.”

  “Correct. I recommend a visual sweep before disembarking.”

  “Got it.”

  The view beyond the glass of the helm stretched wide and deep ahead. That endless horizon where clouds met color, and color became land. I slid into the captain’s chair—still strange to call it that—and let my weight settle into it slowly. The seat groaned once beneath me, then went still.

  The floor hummed. Engine tone steady. A kind of soft pulse beneath everything, like the ship had grown used to the sound of my heartbeat and had adjusted hers to match.

  “Something feels off,” I murmured.

  “Define.”

  “It’s been too calm as of recent.”

  “You’re uncomfortable because the ship is behaving.”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “You’re uncomfortable when I behave. This is no different.”

  I smiled faintly, but it didn’t last. My eyes stayed on the forward view. I watched the growing splotch of green nestled in a sea of slow-rolling gray, soft gold light curling at the edges where the sun was still trying to claw its way upward.

  “How’s your mood?” Portem asked. I didn’t answer right away.

  Muted. That’s what it was. Not quite numb. Just… dulled. Like my emotions had taken a step back to let everything else catch up. The letter still sat folded in my jacket pocket, pressing faintly against my side like it was reminding me not to forget the weight of it.

  “They’re, settled. For now,” I said eventually. “Still thinking about the letter.”

  “It will be good to free your thoughts from it for at least a moment. Some respite would do you well.”

  I gave a small breath, not quite a laugh.

  “You getting philosophical on me now?”

  “Only when you're this quiet. It makes me nervous.”

  The ship rocked faintly, light turbulence, but the dampeners compensated before it could throw us off balance. I barely felt what a few days ago would've been something I’d get tilted for.

  We were still flying light. Just one mech and one pilot on a half-functional ship built for something only Thessel had been able to determine. And now we were getting our feet under us. A job that might not pay enough to keep the engines warm another week.

  But it was forward motion. And I needed that more than I needed answers right now. “Let me know when we hit scan range,” I said. “If it’s clear, I’ll go topside and take a look.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “Then we’ll adapt to whatever unfolds.”

  “That’s not the word you usually use.”

  “Trying it out,” I said. “Sounds more mature than ‘improvise and pray.’”

  “Delightful.”

  The islet came into view an hour before local noon—half-shrouded in mist, but rising cleanly from the cloud shelf below like it had been waiting centuries to be found.

  It wasn’t large. Maybe two kilometers across at the widest point. Shaped like an overturned bowl, ringed with sheer cliffs along the south and tapering down to a more gentle slope on the northern edge. Dense canopy blanketed most of it, an old-growth forest, tall and sleepy and heavy with quiet.

  The trees weren’t like the cultivated groves closer to Concord trade routes. These were ancient things, proud and broad, with root systems that broke through the earth in great arching webs and trunks so wide a man could lay flat against one and not touch both sides. Their bark grew in thick, scale-like ridges, rough with pale lichen and moss that trailed down in long green beards. The higher branches forked into narrow spindles that vanished into mist, forming a roof that let sunlight through in flickers and speckled shafts.

  Wakesong hovered slow on her final approach, engines dialed to a low murmur. Portem adjusted the descent angle automatically, keeping the wind resistance to a minimum as we drifted over the northern ridge.

  I stood on the catwalk again, watching the canopy roll beneath us like the back of a sleeping animal—alive in its stillness, unaware or uncaring of our presence.

  There was beauty here. A kind that didn’t ask to be seen. The kind that didn’t know it could be hunted, logged, or studied. Just bark, and root, and the deep breath of something too old to name but still young in the way it stood untarnished.

  Patches of clearing broke the treeline in a few places. Exposed stone where the earth had sloped into itself. A small pond ringed in stalk-grass. And, nestled between the roots of the tallest trees, the dark curve of something that wasn’t natural.

  Just a sliver of metal. Half-buried, maybe collapsed, shaped too smoothly to be anything from the land itself.

  “There,” I said. “That’s our mark.”

  “A preliminary look confirms the alloy signature,” Portem replied. “Titanium-ceramic blend. Roughly sixty percent buried. It may be a capsule.”

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  “Or a crate.”

  “Or a wreck.”

  I nodded once, already entering the descent profile into the console. The air around the island was surprisingly stable, no strong turbulence, minimal currents. There were animals visible in the treeline, though none large enough to register as dangerous. Something feathered and six-legged darted from one branch to another—bright-eyed and cautious.

  “Think we’re gonna get swarmed?” I asked.

  “Unlikely. These creatures are endemic to higher tree lines. No reported attacks either.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Would you like jinx the plan?”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll stop.”

  Wakesong settled down toward the northern edge of the islet, her landing struts extending with a slow mechanical sigh. The trees bowed outward where the ground dipped to make room, but none cracked. The soil here was dense—dark, moist, thick with the scent of moss and something sharper beneath.

  The cockpit hissed open with the low, familiar breath of decompression, and I stepped inside Portem’s cradle, the floor groaning under my boots as the gantry locks disengaged and the clamps sealed into place behind me. The harness clicked into my chest, hips, and legs with a sequence that had long since become second nature—tug, click, rotate, brace. No neural thread, no spine jack. Just muscle memory.

  I’d been offered jacks before. Hell, I’d even trained on one for a month back in Wickrow, right up until the installation day. Watched three of the other test candidates pass out during the interface, one of them seize in his seat. They said it was rare. They also said that once it was in, you’d never fly the same again.

  They were right. But not in the way they meant. The spine jack makes you fast. Inhumanly fast. It eats the delay between thought and movement until your devices feel like a second body, perfectly mirrored. But it also eats you. The risks didn’t stop after installation. Sudden spikes could rupture nerves. A feedback loop could cook the back of your skull if the sync went wrong. One good hit and you weren’t unconscious—you were dead.

  On the other hand, that also caused the Sspine jacks less lethal cousin neural rig, to gain some prominence. It was safer, more common, and popular among the rich. But it only feeds so much. The channel’s too narrow. You feel the motion, not the muscle. You get the rhythm, but none of the weight.

  I never liked either. What I liked was knowing what I pressed. What I turned. Without the chance for a Possessed to seep into me.

  My fingers closed around the yoke, the seat adjusted, and Portem’s chassis shifted around me, limbs loosening as the cradle retracted and his systems came fully online. Tracer lights surged once, then dimmed to standby blue.

  “I’m synced,” he said. “Power steady. No external threats of note within a one-kilometer radius.”

  “Good,” I muttered. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The ramp descended, and the first rush of outside air hit the hull, a humid sweep laced with soil, rotting wood, and the damp perfume of thickleaf sap dripping from the canopy above. Trees like cathedral columns loomed on every side, their branches threading overhead in a vaulted ceiling of green and silver, soft light pouring down onto us.

  Portem stepped down from the ramp, each movement deliberate, precise. No unnecessary noise. Just the sound of plates shifting, footfalls heavy but measured, compressing the loam beneath us into deep impressions that would stay there long after we were gone.

  The mark wasn’t far. Less than a quarter klick from the landing zone, buried under the lip of a collapsed slope where the rock had sheared off long ago.

  Half-submerged in roots and soil, the object was exactly where the contract file said it would be, surprising given how often the coordinates they have for these jobs were completely off. I knelt Portem beside it.

  The capsule wasn’t large—maybe the size of a heavy-duty footlocker, shaped more like a shipping sarcophagus with reinforced plates and grip-latches along the sides. Scorch marks lined the outer casing, and there were signs of deliberate damage near the seal—like someone had tried, and failed, to open it. The retrieval tag blinked green through the grime.

  “Scan it.”

  Portem kneeled quietly for a minute before he responded. “Negative for active traps or trackers. No readable transponder ID. External heat bloom indicates passive insulation layer, likely for biological or data containment.”

  “So either someone’s knowledge, or someone’s meat.”

  “Let’s focus on bringing it back to the ship.”

  I frowned, leaning in with the controls, magnifying the view on my lower screen. The label had been scuffed almost clean, but part of the serial chain was still intact. It was for someone in the Concord, from someplace starting with a W.

  Someone had evidently los this, and now someone else wanted it badly enough not to ask questions.

  “Contract says bonus if it comes back sealed. Do you think it’s a trap? It’s probably a trap.”

  “Regardless of the nature of the job, we shouldn’t open it.”

  I let Portem’s hand close around the capsule, careful not to trigger the latches, and loaded it into the storage compartment he had mounted to the rear shoulder frame. The clamps sealed with a metallic snap.

  Just like that, the job was done. Still, I stayed there a moment longer—half-crouched in the pilot seat, eyes scanning the canopy. There was no movement. No birds, no skittering branch-crawlers. Just the hush of the trees and the low static of distance running through the comms.

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  “You never do.”

  “Someone wanted this thing kept secret, but why? It won’t stop gnawing at me.”

  “That is precisely why we are being paid extra not to ask.”

  I adjusted Portem’s stance and rose from the kneel. Branches shivered above us. Just wind, probably, but it felt as if the trees watched me leave. I hated the feeling the whole way back.

  The capsule thunked gently into its restraints with a final magnetic lock. The cradle auto-sealed and ran its passive stasis field, pale blue rings pulsing faintly across the container’s surface like ripples in cold glass. Portem’s systems reported stable temps, no bleed, no ticking hot zones..

  I slumped back in the pilot seat, helmet set on the side cradle, sweat clinging to the inside of my collar. The flight back from the forest had been quiet. No trouble. No ambush. Not even the usual buzz of wildlife breaking the silence around the islet. It should’ve felt like a relief..

  “Still quiet?” I asked, more to fill the silence than anything else.

  “No new movement. External sensors clear.”

  “Local air traffic?”

  “None. This is an unmonitored islet. The contract’s sender chose it deliberately.”

  I frowned, tapping the cradle monitor. The casing on the capsule didn’t give much away, but I didn’t need to be a Synod scholar to guess. The weight. The shape. The insulation. The secrecy they wanted around it.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what we were carrying. Organs. Maybe black-market augments. Maybe engineered flesh for some rich bastard who didn’t want his records dirty. Maybe just the leftovers from someone who got cut down and packed up before anyone could report them missing. I could almost hear Thessel’s voice—soft, unreadable—“Cargo is cargo, until it starts talking.”

  I turned back toward the helm, still wearing the harness half-loose across my chest. The Wakesong’s main panels pulsed in standby. Portem’s presence dimmed slightly, syncing to recharge. I could feel him, just on the edge of awareness.

  “You want to say something?” I asked.

  A pause. “You already know what I’d say.”

  “Then why not say it anyway?”

  “Because we need the money.”

  I let the silence stretch. Let the ship hum beneath my boots. He wasn’t wrong. But neither was I. There’s a point in the job where you stop wondering where things came from. Not because it doesn’t matter—but because it has to stop mattering if you want to keep flying. The Wakesong didn’t seem like it ran on good intentions.

  “Could be heart-lung packs,” I said after a beat. “Or spinal coils. Maybe a vault-load of glandwork for some Crown heir trying to keep his bones from turning to powder.”

  “Possible. The casing’s high-grade. Civilian market wouldn’t know what to do with half of it.”

  “Which means military, noble, or black contract.”

  “Or all three.”

  I ran a hand through my hair, leaned back in the chair. Augments weren’t rare. Not out here. Not with the way life wears a body down—if the cloudrot didn’t chew your lungs, a misfire or broken harness might snap your spine. Plenty of people opted for brass replacements or soot-stained gear-stacks in their joints just to keep their jobs. Some kids got them young. Some didn’t get the choice.

  The good augments were beautiful, in their own way. Seamless plating, oil-fed valves with silent motion. Flexible exo-tendons layered with heat-reactive mesh. I’d seen a woman once in Wynscar lift a cargo sled with one hand, her elbow clicking softly, the movement as smooth as breathing. She had it paid for by ten years of hazard contracts and a whole lot of luck.

  Then there were the other kinds. Shoddy welds. Wrong-size fittings. Secondhand flesh-sinks and broken pump systems bolted into skin too fast to heal right. I saw a boy in Wickrow once whose father had carved him a leg from stripped-down drone parts. It clicked when he walked. Scraped when he ran. Thankfully the kid managed to outlast the leg until the scrounged lore funds for a better one.

  I’d lived near the markets. Not in them—but close enough to know the smell. The copper reek of reforged goods. Gore you couldn’t quite wash off the floor. Steel trays holding parts with the names of the original owners still etched across the inner rim. You learn not to look too long.

  And if you’re smart, you learn who you can trade with. I wasn’t the worst off, not then. I had Thessel. I had the chassis. And a half-formed dream of what Portem could be, even if I didn’t have the tools yet. Other kids had knives. I had a frame with no arms and a single optic that flickered in and out like it was winking at me through the rust.

  Most days, that was enough to keep the worst of them from getting too close. But I still remembered the back alley jobs. The scavvers. The clinic-smugglers who’d pull a failed lung valve from a dead man in the morning and bolt it into a patient by nightfall.

  I stood, stretched, rubbed the tension out of my neck. We were still a a ways out from Demeris’ Reach. More than enough time to double-check the cradle seals and pray the recipient didn’t feel like asking questions I didn’t want to answer.

  “I ever tell you I tried to steal an augment once?” I asked, offhand.

  “You’re still alive, so either you failed or got away clean.”

  “I got caught. Just before I turned 7 years old. Tried to lift a servo-band from a crawler market in Low Wickrow. The seller caught me, cracked me across the jaw with a belt of socket wrenches.”

  “Brutal.”

  “That’s how I met Thessel, he paid for the part anyway. Made me learn how to install it on a dead drone. Said I was going to work for every scar.”

  “Seems like it stuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  I looked out the viewing glass again. The clouds were thicker now, the color gone to a darker blue where the light couldn’t reach. The kind of sky that made you feel like you were sailing on the inside of someone’s dream.