DAY 65 — 22:34 (SHIPTIME)
The Union drifted with its belly to the dark, a blunt animal pretending to be dead.
Three days of cold-running had turned the ship into a discipline all its own—lights dimmed, systems throttled, heat bled off in careful cycles. Even voices changed. People spoke less. They listened more. You learned to hear the little things: a pump that hesitated, a deck plate that rang wrong, a comm chirp that wasn't supposed to exist.
Dack sat in the Dire Wolf cockpit while Lyra held them in high orbit over a backwater world that barely deserved the name "civilized." The planet's nightside rolled under them like a bruise: scattered refinery lights, a few thin strings of road illumination, and vast dead stretches where the only movement was storm bands and dust.
He stared at the tactical overlay. No locks. No hails. No chatter.
But the emptiness still felt watched.
Inside steel, inside the only place he trusted, the day count rose without permission.
"Sixty-five," he said once, quiet.
Then he swallowed it again and keyed his private line.
"Lyra. Anything."
Lyra's voice came back smooth and controlled. "Nothing loud. But I'm still seeing the same passive sweep pattern in the far band. It's not close enough to paint. It's… patient."
"Name of the world?" Dack asked.
"Perdition's Reach," Lyra replied. "Mining and refining. Low militia budget. Enough traffic that raiders get brave."
Dack's eyes stayed on the plot. "And enough traffic we can get paid."
Lyra didn't argue. "I've got a tight-beam contract. It's not posted through the usual boards. It came through an industrial admin relay—local. Quiet."
"How quiet," Dack said.
"They want an escort for a convoy run and protection at a refinery transfer yard," Lyra replied. "One night. They're paying fast because they've already been hit twice."
Dack didn't ask if it was a trap. Everything was a trap until it wasn't.
"Who posted," he said.
"Perdition Combine Logistics," Lyra answered. "Not a House name. Not a militia. Corporate."
Dack's jaw tightened. "They'll lie."
Lyra's tone stayed calm. "Probably. But it's local, and it keeps us off stations. We land, we fight, we take payment, we lift."
Dack stared at the starfield beyond the canopy glass and made the decision the way he always did: bluntly, without romance.
"Take it," he said.
A beat. "Copy," Lyra replied. "I'll negotiate salvage rights on anything that threatens the convoy."
"Do it," Dack said. Then, after a pause, because it mattered more now than he liked admitting: "Keep the ship cold."
Lyra answered immediately. "Always."
---
The drop was clean.
Not pretty—clean.
The Leopard went first, slipping down through cloud bands and dust haze like a knife under a rib. It didn't broadcast. It didn't talk. It moved on inertial and discipline, carrying the kind of threat that only existed when you didn't announce yourself.
The Union followed later, lower and heavier, coming down into a shallow basin a few klicks off the convoy route—hidden behind a ridge line of black stone and old slag piles. Ramp down. Mechs out. No wasted time.
The air on Perdition's Reach tasted like burned metal and dry sand. The ground was a cracked desert of basalt plates and pale dust, cut by old pipeline trenches and half-buried industrial spines that had once fed a boom economy. Now they just fed raiders.
Dack walked the Dire Wolf into position at the lip of a broken pipeline cut and looked out over the convoy route below. There were lights down there—faint and nervous—trucks and flatbed crawlers and a couple of armored haulers with Combine logos painted fresh over older markings.
The employer's "security" was a joke: two aging turrets, a handful of men with rifles, and one battered Scorpion tank that looked like it had survived more accidents than battles.
Dack keyed the convoy admin on a narrow band Lyra scrubbed and routed through three filters.
A man's voice answered, too eager. "Moonjaw? You're on-site?"
Dack didn't bother correcting the name. "We're here."
Relief poured through the other man's tone. "Thank God. They've been hitting at the transfer yard. They wait until the cranes are busy and—"
"Where," Dack cut in.
A pause. "The Ravelin Yard. Two klicks down-route. We're staging to roll now."
Dack glanced at the map. Pipeline trench. Slag ridge. A narrow cut where the road dipped and visibility died. A perfect place to ambush.
He didn't need Quill to see that.
But Quill did anyway.
Her voice came into the crew channel, controlled and sharp. "They'll hit the cut. It forces the convoy to compress."
Jinx's laugh crackled through comms. "We know."
Quill didn't rise to it. "If they've hit twice already, they'll bring heavier this time. They'll try to pin the escort and take the haulers."
Morrigan's voice was low and mean. "Let them try."
Taila's Griffin shifted beside Dack's Dire Wolf, keeping the right side lane covered. Her breathing was steady over the link—tighter than she wanted, but not panicked.
Dack watched the convoy begin to move, lights crawling like insects across dead stone.
"Positions," he said.
Jinx answered first, bright and eager. "Highlander on high ground. I see everything."
Morrigan, clipped: "Marauder on the left ridge. Flank lane covered."
Taila, quieter but solid: "Griffin center-right. I'm on the convoy's shoulder."
Quill: "Awesome in the cut mouth. I'll anchor."
Dack didn't praise. He just confirmed. "Do it."
They moved into a kill geometry they'd practiced in sims until it stopped being theory.
The convoy rolled into the pipeline cut.
Then the desert tried to swallow them.
---
The ambush began the way good ambushes always did: not with noise—with absence.
Lyra's voice came through, low and tight from the Leopard's overwatch. "Dack. Contact shadows moving. East ridge. They're cold."
Dack's gut went cold too.
"Hold," he said.
The first shot came from somewhere they couldn't see: a missile arc, thin and fast, streaking into the convoy's lead hauler.
The hauler's cab exploded into sparks and blood and shredded glass. It didn't flip—it just died, folding into the road like its bones had been removed.
Men screamed over open comms. The convoy tried to brake. Trucks slammed into each other. The whole line compressed, trapped in the cut exactly like Quill had said.
And then the raiders rose.
A Javelin jumped first—light mech, SRM racks flaring as it crested the ridge and dropped into the cut like a spear. A Phoenix Hawk followed, landing light on its feet with jump jets hissing, lasers already searching for cockpit seams.
Then the heavies came.
An Orion stepped into view, broad and ugly, autocannon barrel swinging like a finger pointing at a grave.
A Catapult appeared behind it, tall and hunched, missile doors cracking open.
And then the Thunderbolt—a slab of armored violence—moved into the lane like it owned the world.
Jinx's voice lit up with delight. "Oh. That's better."
Dack didn't let her fire yet. He watched the Orion's feet, the Catapult's posture, the Thunderbolt's angle.
They weren't random.
They were coordinated.
And that meant someone had trained them—or paid someone who had.
"Now," Dack said.
The fight detonated.
Quill's Awesome fired first—three PPC flashes in fast sequence, blue-white bolts that lit the pipeline cut like lightning. One bolt smashed into the Javelin mid-drop, blowing armor away in a bright spray. The second hit the Phoenix Hawk's torso, forcing it to twist away. The third cracked into the Orion's shoulder plating, making it stagger half a step.
The raiders answered immediately.
The Catapult's missile racks opened fully and loosed a storm of LRMs into the cut. Explosions walked across yardcrete and basalt, ripping trucks apart, turning men into red mist between steel frames. A convoy guard tried to crawl out from under a flipped trailer and was erased by shrapnel before he could scream again.
Taila's Griffin fired its PPC once—clean, disciplined—and the bolt struck the Phoenix Hawk in the leg as it tried to flank. The medium mech stumbled, jump jets coughing as it corrected.
Dack fired his LRMs in a tight ripple—missiles streaking over the convoy line and hammering into the Catapult's upper torso. Armor flared and peeled away in chunks.
Jinx's Highlander answered with a gauss shot, the recoil thumping through her chassis. The slug tore into the Thunderbolt's center torso and caved armor inward. The Thunderbolt rocked, but didn't fall.
Jinx giggled like she'd just been given candy. "Stay still, baby."
The Orion pushed forward anyway, AC/10 barking in heavy pulses that chewed the pipeline wall and sent rubble bursting outward. One shell struck the Griffin's left torso, rattling Taila hard enough that her breath hitched.
She didn't break.
She shifted, held the lane, and fired her LRMs into the Javelin as it tried to recover from Quill's first hit. The light mech's torso lit with detonations and it staggered backward into dust.
Morrigan's Marauder appeared on the left ridge, cutting across the raiders' line with a PPC shot that slammed into the Catapult's shoulder. Then a laser rake, quick and ugly, that forced the Catapult to rotate away from the convoy to keep its own side from being carved open.
Morrigan's voice came over comms like a threat whispered through teeth. "Look at me."
The Phoenix Hawk tried to ignore her. It boosted, jump jets flaring, aiming to get behind the convoy's rear and hit the haulers directly.
Dack saw it and corrected without emotion.
He stepped the Dire Wolf forward, twisted the torso, and fired his AC/10—one heavy bark. The shell caught the Phoenix Hawk mid-boost and punched into its torso. The mech landed hard, stumbled, and its pilot hesitated.
That hesitation got it killed.
Quill's Awesome fired again—triple PPC. The first bolt struck the Phoenix Hawk's center mass. The second hit where the cockpit met the torso. The third caught its shoulder as it tried to turn away.
The Phoenix Hawk collapsed into the dust, smoking, its reactor cycling down in ugly coughs.
Quill didn't celebrate. She just shifted her Awesome's stance and held the cut like a wall.
Jinx wanted to chase. Dack could hear it in her breathing.
"Hold," he said sharply.
Jinx whined. "But—"
"Hold," Dack repeated.
She held.
The Catapult tried to re-establish missile dominance, backing up to regain range. Dack refused to let it.
He fired another LRM ripple, then a gauss shot timed between the Catapult's missile cycles. The gauss slug tore a crater into the Catapult's torso plating and exposed internal structure. Warning alarms would be screaming in that cockpit now.
The Catapult's missiles launched anyway—but sloppier, less controlled. Several detonated into the cut wall. One slammed into a convoy trailer and turned it into a burning spill of fuel and shredded bodies.
A man ran out of the fire with his arms flailing.
He didn't make it three steps before a secondary blast tore him apart.
Taila swallowed hard over comms and kept her Griffin steady. She didn't look away.
The Javelin, damaged but still moving, sprinted toward the convoy's rear hauler with SRMs ready.
Dack called it blunt. "Taila. Javelin. Legs."
Taila answered, tight: "Copy."
She fired her PPC again. The bolt hit the Javelin's knee joint and blew plating away. The light mech collapsed into the dust like it had been kneecapped by a god.
Jinx finished it with SRMs, short and savage.
"Sorry," Jinx cooed. "No stealing."
The Orion and Thunderbolt were still pressing. The Orion kept firing into Quill's Awesome, trying to overwhelm her cooling capacity. The Thunderbolt rotated to bring its missiles into play against Jinx's ridge position.
Dack adjusted.
"Quill," he said. "Anchor. Don't chase. You're the wall."
Quill's reply was immediate. "Understood."
"Jinx," Dack said. "Don't get cute. Thunderbolt will try to bait you."
Jinx pouted even through radio. "I'm always cute."
"Shoot it," Dack said.
That made her laugh. "Now you're talking."
Jinx's Highlander fired its gauss rifle again. The slug punched the Thunderbolt's torso plating and tore deeper this time. Sparks and ferro fragments sprayed out like blood.
The Thunderbolt answered with missiles and lasers, the impacts rocking Jinx's mech hard enough to make her swear. She didn't retreat. She just shifted to keep cover between herself and the Orion while maintaining line of fire.
Morrigan flanked the Orion now, her Marauder stepping down from the ridge line into a side lane. She fired a PPC shot that struck the Orion's rear torso and blew armor off in a bright sheet.
The Orion pilot panicked and tried to rotate—exposing himself.
Dack took the opening.
LRMs first—hammering the Orion's torso plating. Then his gauss rifle thundered, and the slug hit dead center in the Orion's chest.
The Orion staggered.
But it didn't fall yet.
The Orion fired its AC/10 one more time in a desperate burst, shells ripping into the pipeline wall and throwing fragments into the convoy. A convoy guard—teenager, maybe—took a piece of hot metal through the throat. He fell without a sound.
Dack's voice stayed flat. "Finish it."
Quill fired. Triple PPC. One bolt struck the Orion's weakened chest. The second hit the same point. The third punched through, and the Orion's center torso went from "damaged" to "gone."
The Orion dropped to its knees and toppled sideways into the cut, crushing two convoy trailers like toys.
Smoke poured out of its torso like breath leaving a body.
The Thunderbolt saw the Orion fall and hesitated.
That was all it got.
Jinx's gauss rifle spoke again.
The Thunderbolt's chest caved, and the assault-ish heavy mech collapsed forward into the dust with a long, grinding scream of tearing metal. Its pilot ejected late—seat rocketing up, canopy exploding.
The seat cleared.
The pilot drifted.
Alive.
Dack didn't shoot him.
They weren't here for pride. They were here for money.
The Catapult tried to run.
Dack refused.
He advanced the Dire Wolf through the cut, stepping over burning wreckage and shattered convoy trailers, keeping his torso angled to minimize exposed armor. He fired his AC/10 into the Catapult's leg—controlled, not trying to core it. The Catapult stumbled.
Morrigan's Marauder came in from the flank and fired a PPC shot that struck the Catapult's other leg. The heavy mech buckled.
Jinx, frustrated she didn't get to chase earlier, laughed and said, "Mine."
Her Highlander fired SRMs into the Catapult's hip line.
The Catapult collapsed into the dust, missile racks still open like a dead mouth.
Silence fell in pieces.
Not total. Never total.
But enough that you could hear the convoy fires crackling and the distant hiss of dust settling back onto dead stone.
Dack held his Dire Wolf still and scanned.
No second wave.
No hidden lance.
Just the aftermath.
"Convoy admin," Dack said on the narrow band. "You're alive."
The man's reply came shaky and panicked. "We— we're alive. Jesus. You— you killed them."
Dack didn't correct him. "You pay."
"Yes," the man blurted. "Yes. We'll pay. We'll pay now."
---
They secured the yard in ugly, practical steps.
Quill's Awesome held the cut while the convoy crawlers limped past the wreckage. Taila's Griffin screened the flank lanes. Morrigan's Marauder took overwatch and didn't speak unless she needed to. Jinx's Highlander prowled like she wanted someone to try again.
Dack walked the Dire Wolf through the dead mechs.
He looked at the Catapult first. Good salvage. Missile racks intact enough to sell. Internal structure damaged but not melted. A salvage team could make that worth real c-bills.
He looked at the Orion. Mostly scrap now. The way its torso had failed meant less profit and more work.
He looked at the Thunderbolt and felt nothing. Machines died. People died. The universe didn't care. Dack cared only in the way it affected the pack.
"Rook, Rafe," he said. "We take Catapult parts. Fast. We lift as soon as payment clears."
The twins answered like one voice split in two.
"Copy—"
"—moving."
Lyra's calm voice cut in from the Leopard. "Payment packet received. Clean currency. No immediate flags."
"Good," Dack said.
Then Lyra added, quieter: "But there's something else."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "Talk."
"Convoy cargo manifests… there's a crate listed as 'industrial seals,' but the metadata has a second tag embedded. It's not Combine."
Dack felt his spine tighten. "Show me."
Lyra routed a snippet into his HUD. A tiny string of characters buried in the manifest. A quiet place to hide something.
And in that quiet place, a shape Dack recognized now: the same pattern as the drone's beacon architecture—micro-pin layout signatures, routing language meant to handshake with something patient in orbit.
A tag attempt.
Again.
Dack's voice stayed blunt. "Find it."
Rook and Rafe didn't waste time. They moved to the convoy's surviving cargo stack and started checking hinges and latch plates like they were searching a body for a knife.
"Here—" Rafe said.
"—found," Rook finished.
They held up a sliver of black hardware, no bigger than a fingernail, stuck under a latch seam where it would have ridden unnoticed until it got close enough to ping the right receiver.
Taila's voice came tight. "So someone… put that on their cargo?"
"Or on purpose," Morrigan muttered.
Jinx sounded angry for once. "That's disgusting."
Quill's voice was controlled but hard. "That's handler work."
Dack stared at the tag and felt the shape of the threat sharpen.
It wasn't random raiders.
The raiders were just raiders.
But the tag—the tag was hunting.
Dack's voice went cold. "Remove it. Bag it. Burn the rest of the manifest chain."
Lyra replied instantly. "Already scrubbing."
The convoy admin tried to speak again on the narrow band, voice trembling with gratitude and terror. "Moonjaw—listen, we can offer another—"
Dack cut him off. "No."
A pause. "No?"
"You paid," Dack said. "We're done."
He ended the channel.
Because staying longer meant being visible longer.
And something out there wanted them visible.
---
The Union lifted off Perdition's Reach without fireworks.
No proud ascent. No broadcasting. Just engines warming under strict control, ramp sealed, mechs clamped, ship rising like a shadow that refused to be pinned down.
Inside the mech bay, the smell of battle came with them—burnt insulation, hot armor, blood that had splashed onto steel and dried dark.
Dack climbed out of the Dire Wolf cockpit and felt the ship's gravity settle under his boots like a familiar weight.
Jinx found him first, because she always did.
She wore black-and-red again—tight, revealing, built for movement. Her long dirty-blonde hair was loose now, a little tangled from helmet wear. Blue eyes bright, mouth curved like she wanted something.
She stepped in close and kissed him fast, hungry, public. Not obscene—just ownership and relief.
Taila stood a step behind her, cheeks warm, trying not to look like she wanted the same thing.
Dack didn't push Jinx away.
He didn't flinch when Taila stepped closer and touched his arm.
He let it happen.
Then he said, blunt, "Later."
Jinx grinned like she'd just won. Taila looked embarrassed, but happy.
Morrigan walked past them with a scowl that tried to hide a tiny smirk and failed.
Quill stood near the Awesome's berth, helmet tucked under one arm again, posture still disciplined. Her eyes tracked the Atlas restraints overhead like she was checking for ghosts.
Lyra's voice came over internal comms. "Dack. Command alcove. When you're free."
Dack went.
---
The Union's command alcove was small, utilitarian, and quiet in a way the mech bay never was. It smelled like recycled air and electronics—less human, more machine.
Lyra stood over a holo table with their finances, inventory, and threat maps layered together. Her calm face didn't change when Dack walked in, but her eyes sharpened.
"We got paid," she said.
"We did," Dack replied.
"And we got tagged again," Lyra continued.
Dack didn't argue. "We did."
Lyra looked at him for a long beat, then tapped the holo.
Their money line flashed.
It was decent.
It wasn't safe.
"It's not enough," Lyra said. Not complaining. Just stating reality. "Not for what you want."
Dack's jaw tightened. "Say it."
Lyra didn't waste words. "We're running a Union and a Leopard with a crew that's too small. I can fly. I can manage routing. I can handle deception. But I can't do everything and also keep catching shadows."
Dack stared at the holo, then at her. "So hire."
Lyra nodded. "Two or three people. Minimum."
Dack waited. He didn't like adding variables. But he liked dying less.
Lyra began listing without fluff, each role like a piece of machinery that needed to exist or the whole system failed.
"Quartermaster or bosun," she said. "Inventory. Consumables. Parts tracking. C-bill burn rate. Contract paperwork. Someone who can keep the ship fed and the mechs supplied without you or me wasting time."
Dack nodded once.
"Comms and sensors operator," Lyra continued. "Someone who sits in the chair and does nothing but listen. Passive sweeps, traffic patterns, narrow-band intercepts. Someone trained enough to notice when the silence is wrong."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "And deck."
Lyra nodded. "Deck chief. Someone to run the Leopard bay, fuel, refuel, rearm, and keep us from making stupid mistakes during hot lifts. Right now, it's me and luck."
Dack didn't like the word "luck." Luck was what got people killed.
He stared at the holo again.
Then he said, flat, "Crew wants women."
Lyra's expression didn't change. But her eyes flicked once—acknowledging what he'd noticed without forcing it into a fight.
"Yes," she said simply. "They do."
Dack held her gaze. "Make it happen."
Lyra nodded. "I can find candidates. Quietly. There are ex-crew out here who don't ask questions if you pay and keep them alive."
Dack's voice stayed blunt. "Background checks."
Lyra replied instantly. "I'll run them through three chains. And they don't get access to the prisoner. They don't get access to our full routes. They don't get the whole story until they earn it."
Dack's mouth tightened. "Good."
Lyra hesitated for the first time—just a fraction.
Then she tapped the holo again.
A long-term layer appeared: jump vectors, refuel points, possible contracts, and the ugly truth behind all of it.
They were always renting a door through space.
"We're always at someone else's mercy," Lyra said quietly. "Every jump we pay for is a chance to be recorded. Every dock is a chance to be tagged. Every transit corridor is someone else's gate."
Dack didn't need her to explain. He already knew. But hearing it laid out like that made it heavier.
Lyra met his eyes. "We need JumpShip access."
Dack didn't laugh. He didn't dismiss it. He asked the only question that mattered.
"How."
Lyra exhaled once. "Not buying one outright tomorrow. But there are ways. A share. A lease. A protection deal. There are JumpShip owners out here drowning in debt or piracy losses. If we keep them alive, they give us priority jumps. If we buy in slowly, we stop being beggars."
Dack stared at the map and imagined what it would mean: a JumpShip under their influence. Fewer eyes. Fewer records. More control.
Also more attention.
Bigger targets.
He didn't like attention.
But he liked being hunted even less.
"Find an angle," Dack said.
Lyra nodded once. "I already started."
Dack's eyes sharpened. "What."
Lyra tapped her slate and brought up a single broker ping—scrubbed, anonymized, routed through a chain so long it looked like paranoia.
"A JumpShip owner named Kelm Harker," Lyra said. "His ship is old. His crew is thin. He lost two escorts last month and now a lender is squeezing him. He's looking for protection in exchange for priority access. Possibly a partial share."
Dack didn't react outwardly. But something inside him tightened with focus.
"Is it a trap," he asked.
Lyra's voice stayed calm. "Everything is. But it's also plausible. And it's the kind of trap we can turn into a deal if we move carefully."
Dack nodded once. "We move carefully."
Lyra held his gaze. "And Dack… if we hire people and chase JumpShip access, we get louder."
Dack's answer came without hesitation, because it was the truth.
"We're already loud," he said. "They're already following."
Lyra didn't argue.
Dack leaned closer over the holo and pointed at the broker message. "Next step."
Lyra's eyes stayed steady. "I'll send a feeler. Not direct. A soft approach through an intermediary. If he bites, we meet groundside. Quiet. No station."
Dack nodded. "Do it."
Lyra hesitated, then added, "And the prisoner. She's still quiet. But she listened to everything. I'm keeping her on cams."
"Keep her there," Dack said.
Lyra's expression flickered—approval, maybe, or just shared understanding. "Understood."
Dack turned to leave.
Lyra's voice stopped him one last time.
"Dack."
He looked back.
Lyra didn't soften. She didn't try to make it emotional.
She just said what mattered.
"If we're going to keep winning fights like tonight, we need more than steel. We need a ship that can move like a ghost and a crew that can keep it that way."
Dack stared at her for a second, then nodded once.
"We'll build it," he said.
He left the alcove and walked back toward the mech bay, where the pack waited and the machines cooled and the air tasted like burned dust.
Inside the Dire Wolf's cockpit, later, when everything quieted enough that he could hear his own breathing again, the day count would rise the way it always did.
But for now, he didn't give it voice.
For now, he gave orders.
Because c-bills weren't comfort.
C-bills were survival.
And survival was how you stayed alive long enough to hunt back.