The Ghostline drifted through Federated Colonies space broadcasting a forged cargo registry Elias Rune claimed was “technically legal if nobody inspected literally anything.”
Nobody aboard found that comforting.
On the bridge, Brakk Mercer stood behind the pilot seats with his massive arms crossed while glaring at the tactical display like he might physically threaten the stars into cooperation.
“We are all going to die because he likes money.”
Malak Voss lounged comfortably in the captain’s chair.
“Correction,” Malak said. “We are going to become wealthy because I like money.”
Rhea snorted from navigation.
“You said we were avoiding Federated space.”
“We were avoiding Federated space.”
“And now?”
“Now,” Malak said proudly, “we’re making financially irresponsible decisions.”
Brakk pointed directly at him.
“You and Elias are wanted terrorists here.”
Elias looked up from beneath a maintenance panel near the rear of the bridge.
“Technically he’s the terrorist. I’m classified as stolen government property.”
“That is not better,” Rhea said.
“It’s slightly better.”
“No,” Brakk said flatly. “It isn’t.”
Malak waved dismissively.
“Besides, all of you are wanted criminals too.”
“Not me,” Aya said quietly from the back wall.
Everyone looked toward her.
Aya folded her arms calmly.
“…because nobody knows who I am.”
Silence.
Complete silence.
Elias blinked twice.
“…was that a joke?”
Aya immediately looked horrified.
Her face turned red almost instantly.
“I regret speaking.”
Rhea burst into laughter.
Brakk stared at Aya like he’d just watched a moon explode.
Malak leaned back slowly in his chair.
“That was actually pretty good.”
Aya physically turned away from everyone.
“I will not attempt humor again.”
“You absolutely should.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Elias pointed excitedly.
“She’s evolving socially.”
Aya looked like she wanted to vanish into hyperspace.
The Ghostline’s engines growled beneath the deck plating as the ship pushed deeper into Federated territory.
Elias kicked the maintenance panel shut.
“Which is why we need this job.”
Brakk groaned immediately.
“Of course.”
Elias pointed downward toward engineering.
“The Gamma Drive harmonic signature is too recognizable. Long-range scans can probably identify us before visual confirmation.”
“They definitely can,” Rhea said.
“Exactly. Which is why I found a harmonic suppressor component that might reduce the engine resonance by thirty percent.”
Malak glanced back.
“How much?”
Elias hesitated.
Brakk narrowed his eyes.
“How much?”
“…twelve thousand credits.”
Brakk looked ready to throw him through the hull.
“You want to spend twelve thousand credits making the ship quieter?”
“Yes.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s advanced engineering.”
“It’s stupid engineering.”
Elias pointed angrily.
“Do you know how difficult it is hiding an illegal prototype military engine that sounds like a dying thunder god?”
“That is unfortunately accurate,” Rhea admitted.
Malak smirked.
“Relax. We do one quick recovery job, Elias buys his magical engine part, and everybody wins.”
Ahead of them, the industrial world of Karth Vale slowly filled the viewscreen.
Orbital shipyards surrounded the planet like steel scars.
Military traffic moved constantly:
destroyers
armored transports
fuel carriers
escort frigates
Too many.
Even Brakk noticed it.
“That’s not normal.”
“It’s mobilization,” Elias said quietly.
The joking tone had disappeared from his voice.
Convoys moved in organized patterns around the planet.
Supply chains.
Refueling routes.
Escort formations.
Rhea frowned slightly.
“You think they’re preparing for war?”
Elias stared at the display.
“I think they already started preparing.”
Nobody answered that.
The Ghostline descended through thick industrial cloud cover into one of the lower commercial docking districts.
The city felt tense.
Propaganda screens covered entire buildings.
Patrol drones drifted overhead constantly.
Long lines of civilians waited beneath armed checkpoints while soldiers scanned identity chips one by one.
Aya watched another military patrol move through the crowded streets below.
People lowered their eyes instinctively as the soldiers passed.
“They’re scared,” Aya said quietly.
Malak glanced sideways.
“More than usual.”
That was what bothered her.
The café looked unimpressive from the outside.
Small.
Crowded.
Forgettable.
Which probably explained why nobody noticed the armed security systems hidden inside it.
The moment the crew entered, one of the workers quietly locked the front doors.
The noise of the café shifted subtly.
Not silent.
Controlled.
Two customers near the back suddenly stood and moved toward different exits with practiced coordination.
Brakk noticed immediately.
“So this place belongs to the Sol Collective.”
A woman seated alone near the rear booth looked up calmly.
“No,” she said. “This place belongs to the owner.”
Malak grinned slightly.
“I already like her.”
The woman ignored that.
She wore plain civilian clothing with no visible insignias or identifying marks.
Average height.
Dark hair.
Forgettable face.
Exactly the kind of person intelligence networks preferred.
“Leda,” she introduced simply.
The crew slid into the booth while subtle signal interference activated around the room.
Elias immediately noticed.
“Oh that’s sophisticated.”
“Thank you,” Leda said.
“You built the encryption net into the café infrastructure?”
“Yes.”
“…okay now I really like this place.”
Leda activated a holographic projection over the table.
A damaged Federated transport vessel rotated slowly in blue light.
“Three days ago this ship was attacked near the Demos Corridor.”
“Slavers?” Aya asked quietly.
Leda nodded once.
“The vessel drifted after the attack. Federation recovery teams are delayed. That gives us a limited retrieval window.”
“What are we retrieving?” Malak asked.
“A secured military data drive and Federation emergency reserve credits.”
“How much?”
“Approximately ten thousand credits.”
Elias perked up instantly.
“Twelve thousand,” Brakk muttered. “For the stupid engine part.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It’s extremely stupid.”
Leda continued before they could escalate further.
“You retrieve the drive and recovered credits. The Collective receives the drive and half the recovered funds.”
“Why outsource?” Brakk asked.
“All nearby Collective assets are occupied.”
That answer somehow raised more questions than it resolved.
Malak leaned back slightly.
“And the Federation doesn’t know you’re after it?”
“If they did,” Leda said calmly, “this meeting would not be happening.”
Fair point.
Later, while the others prepared the dropship, Aya found Malak standing alone near the lowered cargo ramp.
Rain hammered softly against the docking bay outside.
For a moment she simply stood beside him silently.
Malak glanced sideways.
“That serious look usually means someone’s about to die.”
Aya ignored that completely.
“I wanted to thank you.”
Malak blinked once.
“For?”
Aya immediately looked uncomfortable.
“For…finding me.”
Ah.
That.
“You saved my life,” she said quietly. “You gave me somewhere to stay. People who…” She struggled briefly for the words. “…care whether I live or die.”
Malak leaned casually against the ramp support.
“Seems rude not to.”
Aya stared at him.
“…that was meant to be reassuring?”
“Not my best work.”
To his surprise, Aya laughed softly.
Tiny.
Brief.
But real.
Malak immediately looked far too pleased with himself.
Aya noticed.
Unfortunately that only made him more smug.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.”
“I regret thanking you.”
“No you don’t.”
“…correct.”
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Aya looked out into the rain.
“I still don’t understand why you helped me.”
Malak shrugged.
“You looked like you needed it.”
Simple.
No speech.
No dramatic philosophy.
Somehow that hit harder than anything else he could have said.
The Ghostline hid within the electromagnetic storms surrounding a nearby gas giant while the away team approached the wreck aboard the dropship.
Rhea sat in the pilot seat aboard the Ghostline while Elias monitored scans beside her.
“You sure you can handle her?” Elias asked nervously.
Rhea smirked.
“I’ve watched Malak fly this thing. The safety standards are already fictional.”
“That is deeply offensive.”
“You named the ship Ghostline.”
Elias looked genuinely insulted.
“HE named the ship Ghostline.”
“Still terrible,” Brakk muttered over comms.
“THANK YOU,” Elias snapped.
The damaged Federated transport drifted silently against the stars.
Half the hull had been torn open.
Emergency lights flickered weakly behind fractured windows.
The dropship docked against the ruined transport with a heavy metallic clang.
Then silence.
The corridors inside the wreck felt dead.
Dim emergency lights strobed across bloodstained walls.
Loose belongings drifted through zero gravity:
bags
datapads
clothing
toys
A child’s blanket floated silently past Brakk.
Nobody spoke.
Aya moved ahead quietly through the corridor with unnatural smoothness.
“Organized extraction,” she said softly.
“How can you tell?” Malak asked.
“Minimal structural damage. Fast boarding routes. Controlled violence.”
That somehow sounded worse.
Elias guided them remotely through the ship systems.
“Security compartment should be three decks below you. Left corridor.”
“Comforting amount of confidence there,” Malak said.
“I’m trying my best.”
The secured compartment finally opened after Elias bypassed multiple military encryption layers.
Inside sat several slim encrypted Federation credit chits and a sealed black military drive.
Brakk picked up one of the credit devices.
“…this is way more than ten thousand.”
Malak weighed another chit in his hand.
“Well that’s interesting.”
Aya frowned suddenly.
“…movement.”
Then the transport alarms activated.
BOARDING DETECTED.
Elias’ voice exploded through comms.
“Federated recovery team just arrived!”
“Well that feels bad,” Malak muttered.
Footsteps echoed through nearby corridors.
Close.
“Time to leave,” Brakk said.
The firefight erupted seconds later.
Pulse rounds tore through the corridor as Federation security forces rounded the corner.
Brakk slammed directly into the first soldier like a collapsing wall and launched him backward hard enough to dent the bulkhead.
Aya vanished into darkness.
One moment beside them.
Next moment gone.
Then screams echoed deeper inside the wreck.
The lights flickered violently.
Federation troops collapsed seemingly from nowhere.
Aya moved through shadows like something unnatural:
silent
precise
terrifying
Even Malak felt mildly unsettled watching her work.
Brakk held the corridor while Malak fired over his shoulder toward advancing security teams.
“LEFT CORRIDOR!” Elias yelled through comms.
A blast door slammed shut just before reinforcements reached them.
“I LOVE HACKING!”
“You are a deeply strange person!” Malak shouted back.
The retreat back to the dropship became chaos.
Gravity fluctuated from damage throughout the transport.
One corridor partially depressurized.
Loose debris exploded past them into open space.
The dropship launched under heavy fire as Federation reinforcements flooded the docking bay.
Warning alarms screamed immediately.
“We got hit!” Malak yelled.
“Minor damage!” Elias replied.
“How minor?!”
“…subjective!”
Ahead of them, the Ghostline burst from the gas giant storms at terrifying speed.
“Oh no,” Elias whispered.
Rhea grinned.
The dropship came in way too fast.
“Rhea—” Elias started.
“Trust me.”
“That sentence has historically gone very badly for us.”
Magnetic clamps fired.
The dropship slammed against the docking bay hard enough to throw everyone sideways.
Metal screamed.
Warning alarms exploded throughout the hangar.
“THAT WAS NOT A DOCKING PROCEDURE!” Elias yelled.
“But it worked!” Rhea shouted back.
The docking clamps finally locked.
The moment the ramp sealed, Rhea accelerated the Ghostline hard enough to pin everyone briefly against the floor.
Federated targeting systems failed almost instantly as the Ghostline twisted through impossible vector changes.
Gamma Drive alarms screamed throughout the ship.
“Reactor imbalance warning,” Elias announced.
“Normal levels?” Malak asked while strapping into the bridge seat.
“Shockingly yes!”
The Ghostline vanished into hyperspace seconds later.
Only after the jump stabilized did Elias finally place the black drive onto the engineering workbench.
Brakk immediately pointed at him.
“No.”
“Yes,” Elias replied instantly.
“No.”
“I’m already doing it.”
“You are exactly why we get shot at.”
Elias ignored him completely while bypassing the drive encryption.
The room fell quieter the deeper he went.
Then silence.
Elias stopped moving.
Malak noticed immediately.
“What?”
Elias looked pale.
“…they’re evacuating colonies.”
Nobody moved.
“What?” Rhea asked quietly.
Elias pulled up fragmented files across the display.
Population transfers.
Military relocation schedules.
Hyperspace lane restrictions.
Strategic clearance directives.
Entire outer systems marked for evacuation.
Cold.
Efficient.
Bureaucratic.
Which somehow made it worse.
Malak stared silently at the screen.
Because it felt familiar.
Too familiar.
Aya studied the files quietly.
“This is preparation for war.”
“Against who?” Rhea asked.
Nobody had an answer.
Elias finally exhaled slowly.
Then began restoring the drive encryption.
“What are you doing?” Brakk asked.
“Removing access traces.”
“You can do that?”
Elias looked offended.
“Brakk. Please.”
Minutes later the drive looked completely untouched.
Leda met them again aboard a remote refueling platform hidden beyond normal trade routes.
Malak handed over the sealed drive.
Leda inspected it carefully before nodding once.
“Good work.”
Malak transferred five thousand credits to her account.
“The Collective appreciates your professionalism.”
Behind him, Brakk looked dangerously close to laughing.
The moment Leda departed, Elias activated the recovered Federation credit chits again.
Total recovered:
twenty thousand credits.
Rhea whistled softly.
“We are terrible people.”
“Correct,” Malak agreed happily.
Aya quietly watched the crew laugh together around the cargo hold.
And for the first time in a very long time…
she felt like she belonged there.
Three days later, Elias proudly installed the expensive harmonic suppressor deep inside engineering.
The entire crew gathered nearby.
Elias grinned confidently.
“Prepare yourselves.”
Brakk crossed his arms.
“I hate this already.”
Elias activated the modified systems.
For one glorious second—
Silence.
Then the Ghostline emitted a horrifying metallic shriek loud enough to shake the entire ship.
WARNING ALARMS IMMEDIATELY ACTIVATED.
Lights flickered violently.
Something exploded somewhere deep in engineering.
Long silence.
Elias stared at the console in disbelief.
“…that is statistically confusing.”
Brakk collapsed against the wall laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
Rhea covered her face.
Malak physically turned away trying not to laugh.
And near the back of engineering—
Aya smiled quietly to herself.