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The tram arrived with a metallic shriek, the doors hissing apart. B stepped inside first and he followed close behind her, scanning the occupants before the doors had finished opening.

There were a handful of dockworkers at one end of the carriage. Two human females with sleeping children strapped to their chests took the nearest seats, the one closest to him looked like she was dead on her feet with exhaustion. A male with scar tissue crawling up one side of his neck sat opposite. He had the hard, flat eyes of somebody who carried a weapon for pleasure rather than necessity.

Nothing immediately dangerous.

But that didn’t mean safe.

B headed for an empty row of seats halfway down the tram. He followed her and took the outside seat beside her instead of letting her sit exposed to the aisle. It was the better position. He had a clear line to both doors, enough room to move if he needed to, and anyone who wanted to get to B would have to come through him first.

She looked at him and grunted but didn’t comment as the tram lurched into motion.

B folded her arms and looked out the window. Settling back, he braced one arm along the seat behind her without touching her. The station slid by in flashes, docking bays giving way to busier transit corridors. Advertisements flashed across the public feeds above the doors. Everything from cheap food to ship insurance. A smiling human male promising discreet medical treatment for conditions nobody wanted discussed in public.

Then every screen flickered.

A dramatic musical sting rolled through the tram. The nearest feed filled with the image of a ruined transport drifting through space, flames spilling from its engine housing.

“Tonight,” a polished voice announced, “we investigate the growing threat of alien mercenary crews operating in human-held space.”

He froze as the feed cut through images of armed ships, blurred combat footage, and bodies under white sheets. Then the presenter said, “Among the most dangerous are the Reapers, wanted in multiple systems for suspected involvement in⁠—”

Faces flashed across the screens. Ryke, then Covak grinning. Davis half turned away as he snarled at someone, which was probably Anson just behind him.

Then his face.

It wasn’t a recent image. His hair was shorter, he was clean-shaven, and he wore a dark green jacket that had gotten trashed years ago. But it was him. Full face on display, easily recognizable, with a rifle in his hands and blood on his collar.

Sinking down in his seat, Rann pulled his cap low to shadow his eyes and hoped like draanth nobody noticed.

4

Blythe caught the edge of whatever documentary was on the feed, something about alien mercenaries or something, and slid a sideways glance at Rann. He’d sunk down in his seat, cap pulled low.

Interesting. Perhaps he didn’t like aliens. She didn’t blame him.

She shrugged, filing it away under ‘things she did not have time to deal with right now’. The tram doors opened and she got up, shouldering past a pair of workers trying to board before anyone had properly got off.

“Right, we need the commercial market rather than the official shops,” she said. “I don’t want to pay some bullshit, jacked-up prices.”

Rann followed, still with his head down. “Makes sense to me.”

The market was two corridors down and was absolutely packed. Occupying a massive station hall, it had been split into rows of individual stalls, each one selling whatever somebody had managed to haul in from the ass-end of known space. There were stores with ship parts right next to ones with food cartridges. Cheap clothes sat next to actual fruit in little refrigerated cases, priced high enough to make her teeth hurt. She raised an eyebrow at a stall that appeared to exclusively sell plastic novelty helmets with stupid sayings printed across the front.

People crammed into the aisles, shouting over one another and hauling carts through gaps that weren’t nearly wide enough. The fans from the station ventilation overhead wafted a lovely mixture of hot grease, machine oil, sweat, and somebody’s aggressively floral perfume right through the hall.

Getting her bearings, she headed straight for the ship-systems suppliers.

She knew what she needed: pressure-sensor contacts for the galley unit, a proper manual-release kit for the main corridor doors, extra coolant sealant, replacement conduit shielding, and enough cleaning compound to deal with the cargo clamp controls without taking the skin off her hands.

The first stall had the contacts but not the release kit. The second had a kit but it looked like it had been assembled by somebody wearing a blindfold.

“No,” she said, putting it down.

The seller scowled. “It’s certified.”

She snorted. “Yeah? By who?”

He opened his mouth.