The Ghostline had started to feel less like a stolen ship and more like a home.
Not a clean one.
Not a normal one.
But a home.
Over the last few months the crew had settled into rhythms that somehow worked despite how different they all were.
Rhea had converted one of the unused rooms near the rear corridor into a makeshift clinic. Cabinets stolen from medical transports lined the walls beside mismatched equipment held together with tape, rewired circuitry, and Elias’ questionable engineering. The room smelled permanently like disinfectant and overheated electronics.
Brakk had claimed the lower-deck training room and armory as his personal domain.
Every single morning he lectured the crew about discipline.
Every.
Single.
Morning.
“You maintain your weapon because one day your weapon maintains you,” Brakk said while aggressively cleaning a rifle at the galley table.
Elias groaned dramatically into his breakfast.
“You’ve said that twelve times.”
“And you still clean your pistol like a depressed raccoon.”
“It works fine.”
“It jammed yesterday.”
“It jammed once.”
Brakk pointed the cleaning rod at him.
“That is how death starts.”
Malak sipped caf beside them.
“I think death usually starts with getting shot.”
Brakk ignored him completely.
Rhea walked past carrying medical crates.
“I liked it better when the ship was quiet.”
“You said this ship felt dead when you first boarded,” Malak replied.
Rhea smirked.
“Now it feels loud and dirty.”
“Progress.”
Despite the arguing, the crew had been successful lately.
Small jobs mostly.
Cargo transport.
Passenger escort missions.
Medical deliveries into fringe systems.
Smuggling whenever the payout justified the risk.
Nothing glamorous.
But enough to keep fuel in the reactor and food in the kitchen.
Which was exactly why their latest contract felt wrong.
The payment was enormous.
Far too enormous.
And all they had to do was pick someone up.
No cargo.
No questions.
No details.
Just coordinates and a time.
That alone made Malak suspicious.
Still…
Credits were credits.
So the Ghostline landed on the Federated Colonies industrial world of Vandros beneath permanent gray cloud cover and towering refinery smoke.
The spaceport was packed with cargo haulers, refinery workers, military patrols, and neon advertisements flickering through the haze.
The crew split up shortly after landing.
Brakk and Elias headed toward the rendezvous point.
Malak and Rhea went shopping for ship supplies.
Unfortunately for Rhea, Malak had developed a secondary objective.
“You’ve seriously never had one?” Malak asked while weaving through crowded market streets.
Rhea balanced a crate against her hip.
“No.”
“That is tragic.”
“It’s a candy bar.”
“It is the candy bar.”
Rhea sighed.
“You’re describing processed sugar like a religious experience.”
Malak pointed dramatically at her.
“Because you grew up in the Republic. You people don’t understand joy.”
“We had chocolate.”
“No. You had government-approved nutrition rectangles pretending to be chocolate.”
“They were fine.”
“They tasted like drywall.”
Rhea rolled her eyes as Malak continued passionately explaining the greatness of Tanto Choco Bars to someone who clearly did not care nearly as much as he did.
“They almost taste like real chocolate,” he insisted. “Not fully. But enough that your brain forgives the lie.”
“That is the worst endorsement I’ve ever heard.”
Malak stopped at another vendor.
“Do you have Tanto bars?”
The vendor stared blankly.
“No.”
Malak looked personally betrayed.
Twenty minutes later he had checked six more stores.
Nothing.
“This world is broken,” he muttered.
Rhea hid a smile.
“You’re pouting.”
“I am grieving.”
A massive explosion thundered somewhere deeper in the city.
The sound rolled between the buildings hard enough to shake nearby windows.
People turned briefly toward the distant smoke rising above the skyline.
Rhea instinctively tensed.
Malak glanced toward the smoke before casually continuing down the sidewalk.
“You hear that?”
“Yes.”
“Someone probably ate a Tanto bar.”
Rhea stared at him.
Malak nodded seriously.
“Makes your taste buds explode.”
She laughed despite herself.
“Congratulations,” she said. “That might be the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”
“That’s a competitive category.”
By the time they returned to the Ghostline, both of them were carrying overloaded supply crates.
And Malak was in an absolutely terrible mood.
“No bars?” Elias asked from the cargo ramp.
Malak pointed at him accusingly.
“Not one in this entire miserable city.”
“That’s devastating,” Elias said with zero emotion.
Brakk sat nearby cleaning equipment.
“The client never showed.”
Malak immediately stopped joking.
“What?”
Brakk nodded once.
“We waited four hours.”
“Nothing?” Rhea asked.
“Nothing,” Elias answered. “No messages either.”
Malak set his supplies down slowly.
“That much money for a pickup job…”
“…and the client disappears,” Brakk finished.
Silence settled over the cargo bay.
Malak looked toward the city beyond the open ramp.
“I don’t like it.”
Elias crossed his arms.
“I already checked local networks. There was some kind of explosion downtown earlier.”
Malak glanced toward Brakk.
“Come on.”
Brakk stood immediately.
“And if you happen to pass somewhere selling Tanto bars?” Malak added hopefully.
Brakk looked disgusted.
“You are impossible.”
The closer they got to the explosion site, the worse the atmosphere became.
Emergency lights painted the streets red.
Burned vehicles lined the roadway.
Authorities blocked off entire intersections while cleanup crews dragged debris from collapsed storefronts.
The smell of smoke and melted metal lingered heavily in the air.
Malak and Brakk blended into the gathering crowds near the barricades.
“What happened?” Malak casually asked a nearby worker.
“Bombing,” the man muttered. “Or firefight. Nobody knows.”
Another voice nearby answered:
“Sixteen dead.”
Brakk’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Malak stepped closer toward the perimeter.
Medical teams were still removing bodies beneath white coverings.
A damaged transit car sat embedded halfway into a building.
One of the dead was displayed briefly on a nearby holo-screen while authorities attempted identification.
Brakk looked toward Malak immediately.
The image matched the client file Elias had shown them earlier.
Their pickup target.
Dead.
Malak’s expression darkened.
“Well,” he muttered quietly.
“That seems relevant.”
But something about the scene bothered Brakk.
Not the death.
The pattern.
Several of the bodies near the destroyed storefronts still carried military-grade weapons.
Most hadn’t even reached cover.
One security drone had been split apart so precisely its internal wiring hung exposed like surgical cuts.
Another was embedded into a wall by its own shattered rotor blade.
Brakk stopped walking.
His eyes locked onto the wreckage.
Something about it scratched at the back of his memory.
Not the damage itself.
The improvisation.
Using whatever was nearby.
Turning the environment into a weapon.
For a brief moment Brakk instinctively scanned the rooftops around them.
Searching.
Then he caught himself.
“What?” Malak asked quietly.
Brakk looked away from the drone.
“…Nothing.”
But his voice sounded less certain than usual.
Nearby, two exhausted emergency workers argued quietly while hauling equipment.
“I’m telling you there was only one shooter left standing.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Then explain the bodies.”
Malak overheard them but stayed focused on the perimeter.
Brakk didn’t.
His expression tightened further.
They returned to the ship fast.
Elias already had half the ship’s systems rerouted through stolen local network access by the time they arrived.
“I got into the police database,” Elias said without looking up.
Rhea stood behind him reading over the incoming reports.
“What do we know?” Malak asked.
Elias enlarged several security files across the monitor.
“It wasn’t a bombing.”
Images flashed rapidly:
destroyed storefronts
ballistic damage
blood-covered pavement
security drones torn apart
“It was a fight,” Elias continued.
Brakk crossed his arms.
“A fight did that?”
Elias zoomed further into the report.
“Sixteen confirmed dead.”
He paused.
“…Actually seventeen.”
Rhea frowned.
“What?”
“One attacker died later from blood loss.”
Malak leaned closer.
“And?”
Elias’ fingers slowed over the controls.
His expression shifted slightly.
“There’s one survivor.”
“Where are they?” Rhea asked.
“That’s the problem.”
Elias pulled up another report.
Hospital transport logs.
Empty.
Military transfer logs.
Empty.
Morgue intake.
Nothing.
“No custody records,” Elias muttered. “No transport authorization. No exit scans either.”
Brakk stood silently behind him.
Watching.
Elias opened corrupted surveillance footage from the scene.
Static distorted most of the recording.
Gunfire flashed across the screen.
Then suddenly the footage skipped.
Frames corrupted.
Time missing.
Elias slowed the playback carefully.
One frozen image appeared briefly between the distortion.
A lone silhouette standing motionless in the smoke.
Too blurry to identify.
Bodies scattered around them.
Then the footage cut out entirely.
Silence filled the room.
Rhea folded her arms.
“That’s unsettling.”
Elias frowned at the screen.
“It almost looks like the cameras lost track of them.”
Brakk stared at the frozen silhouette without blinking.
Malak leaned closer instead.
Curious.
Interested.
Not afraid.
Then Elias quietly said the words none of them liked hearing.
“The survivor disappeared.”