The Ghost Rider drifted through the bckness of space like an old, tired shark—scarred by time, but still lethal when provoked. Her hull ptes creaked in slow, mechanical protest, and the dull hum of the engines was the only sound Doran “Shade” Kallen really noticed anymore.

  He sat hunched forward in the cockpit, as if sheer willpower might bend the trajectory. The seat didn’t squeak—it already knew Shade’s weight too well to compin.

  The onboard computer pinged—a sound less like a technical alert and more like a tired, irritated cough.

  “Anonymous transmission. Origin: encrypted. Content: job offer. Subject: cargo transfer. Payment: high. Requirements: discretion. Questions: none.”

  Shade barely moved. His eyelids lowered briefly—a gesture that, for others, might have passed as a frown.

  “Of course. Sounds like a ‘take this coffin somewhere and don’t ask why it’s drooling’ kind of deal.”

  With a single tap, he accepted the job. No details, no context. Just coordinates, a deadline, and a seductive avanche of credits. He didn’t speak aloud. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d already started compiling a mental list: Possible Causes of Death—alphabetized, footnoted.

  Lorville was a wound with a skyline. Beneath its yers of smoke, metal, and concrete despair, Draven Carter sat in a medical bunker tucked under a slum stack. It smelled of sweat, blood, and cheap disinfectant—his personal brand of sacred.

  A patient wheezed on the cot beside him. Carter held the IV aloft, his gaze calm, even gently numb. The medscanner buzzed a ftline rhythm.

  His mobiGs vibrated. Once. Twice. He sighed.

  “If you’re gonna die, do it quietly. I don’t want to get the notification te.”

  The patient responded with a sound that fell somewhere between dying and digestive regret.

  Carter gnced at the dispy.

  “Direct contract avaible. No questions. Just delivery. Payment reasonable. Coordinates pending.”

  He didn’t need three seconds to decide. He barely needed one. In another life, he might’ve hesitated. But not today. Not in this star system.

  Levski reeked of the past. Failed revolutions, rusted pride, and cheap booze lingered in the air like bitter ghosts. Kara “Rogue” Veran sat at an abandoned bar, one hand on her gun, the other gently working a rag across its surface. She wasn’t polishing. She was caressing. Almost tenderly.

  A mercenary at the far end of the bar stared, his courage slightly rger than his brain.

  “You’re Rogue, right?”

  She didn’t even look up.

  “Only if your life insurance is paid up. And I hope you’re the one paying it.”

  Her wristband vibrated. Not a tone—more like a twitch. A silent transmission.

  “You’ve been selected. Job: high-risk transport. Anonymity required. Bonus upon success. No callback.”

  Kara sighed.

  “Justice doesn’t sleep. But it takes weird side gigs.”

  She confirmed the job and stood. The merc took a step back. Betedly.

  Grim Hex was what happened when a prison, a junk freighter, and a dive bar had a baby and then left it in a dumpster. Jerik “Bcksheep” Taris was ft on his back beneath a half-disassembled Caterpilr when a hydraulic module smacked his shin with loving force.

  “Shit with extra sauce,” he muttered, crawling out. Oil-smeared, grime-caked, awake.

  A tiny bot buzzed over—bck shell, gold lens, and a hologram projector that looked like it moonlighted as a failed opera singer.

  “Mr. Taris. Discreet contract. Highly paid. Cargo transport. Encryption included. No further details. Interested?”

  Jerik grinned.

  “If I say no, I’ll end up respectable. And nobody wants that.”

  He tapped the bot’s lens.

  “Deal.”

  Daymar wasn’t dead—just tired. Dust clung to the rocks like old skin. The sun blinked down like a hungover god.

  Sienna “Scrap” Voss hummed a forgotten pop song as she dug inside a crashed mining vessel that smelled more like a curse than machinery. Wrench in one hand, energy bar in the other.

  “Dotti, shut up when I ugh—I get sparks in my mouth,” she said to the companion AI buzzing beside her.

  Her mobiGs lit up. New message.

  “Special assignment for a technically inclined individual. Cargo transport. Destination: cssified. Pay: excellent.”

  She grinned.

  “Cssified? Sounds like a blind date with a shipwreck.”

  Click. Job accepted.

  A tiny hiss from her helmet reminded her of the breach. She popped a piece of gum into her mouth, chewed, and patched it.

  “Good as new.”

  Five people. Five reactions. One question no one asked.

  No names. No context. Just coordinates and credits.

  The job was live.

  And somewhere in the gaxy’s crooked heart—where comms fall silent and sensors lie—something waited.

  Something that made even Shade’s shadows twitch.

  Something that wasn’t a point on a map, but a dark spot in the conscience.

  But they’d all agreed.

  And the job?

  The job had already begun.

  CHAPTER END