Chapter 9: ORBITAL INVENTORY
Twenty-eight hours in orbit.
I'd established a testing protocol—systematic, scientific, the kind of methodology that would have made my engineering instructors proud. Every hour, I attempted active selection on a target object. Every attempt, I logged the result.
Hours 1-23: Nothing.
Hour 24: The ability responded.
I'd focused on a wrench in the cargo hold—something small, something I could see, something to confirm the ability worked before trying anything dramatic.
The jolt came. The wrench appeared in my hand.
Twenty-four hours exactly. That's the cooldown.
I noted it in my improvised log. One day between uses. Enough time to plan, to choose targets carefully, to avoid the impulsive disasters that had marked my early experiments.
But there were other constraints to map.
I tried active selection on a satellite passing in the distance. Nothing—not even a flicker of response. I tried on debris floating past the viewport. Nothing.
Ownership matters. I haven't touched whoever owns those things.
The Quarren bounty hunter. Kess. I'd touched both of them before stealing their possessions. Physical contact established some kind of... link? Permission? The ability couldn't target strangers. It needed personal connection.
Recent contact with the owner. That's the rule.
I added it to my log and moved on to the next test.
Combat Prediction was harder to measure.
I shadowboxed in the cargo hold, trying to understand the enhanced awareness from the Kess fight. The skill was subtle—not visions, not precognition, just heightened reading of movement patterns and body language.
I watched combat holovids on the ship's entertainment system, pausing to predict strikes before they landed. Forty percent accuracy, maybe. Better than guessing, worse than useful.
It's not magic. It's pattern recognition.
My brain was processing threat indicators faster than conscious thought. Muscle tension, weight shifts, eye tracking—all the tells that combat trainers spent years teaching. This body amplified those skills somehow.
Developing. Getting stronger.
Or maybe I was just learning to access what had always been there.
The distinction might not matter.
The ship's hidden compartment was behind a false panel in the sleeping quarters.
I found it during a systematic search of every cubic meter—standard procedure for any acquired vehicle. The panel moved wrong when I pushed it, too heavy, too deliberate. Behind it: a reinforced lockbox keyed to biometric scan.
Kess's biometrics, presumably. Which meant—
I pressed my palm against the scanner.
The lock clicked open.
Ownership transfer. Even the security systems recognize me now.
Inside: eight hundred credits in mixed denominations, a holdout blaster smaller than my palm, and a Guild tracking fob—inactive, but the design was distinctive. Kess had been a licensed hunter.
I pocketed the credits and examined the fob. The Bounty Hunters' Guild regulated operations across the Outer Rim. If this ship had Guild registration, that meant infrastructure: docking rights, communication networks, repair services.
It also meant records. Traceable identity. Liability if anyone checked too closely.
Use the advantages. Mitigate the risks.
The holdout blaster went into my boot. The credits went into my growing reserves—1,340 total now, enough to survive for months if I was careful.
The fob I kept separate. Guild connections might prove useful.
The personal log was a mistake.
I don't know why I recorded it. Loneliness, maybe. The accumulated weight of weeks without human conversation. The need to speak truths I couldn't tell anyone else.
"Personal log, day... I don't know what day. Thirty-something since I woke up in this body."
My voice sounded strange in the empty ship. Too loud. Too real.
"My name is Cole Morgan. I was born in Fort Worth, Texas. I served three tours in Afghanistan. I have a son named Marcus who was four years old the last time I saw him."
The words poured out—about Earth, about the hospital, about waking up in a dead man's body on a planet that shouldn't exist.
"I don't know if I'm dead back there. If Marcus is sitting by an empty bed. If anyone is looking for me or if they've already moved on."
I talked for twenty minutes. Thirty. Lost track.
"I miss coffee. Real coffee, not whatever they call caf here. I miss sunlight that doesn't look wrong. I miss knowing what tomorrow would bring."
When I finished, I was crying.
First time since arrival. First time since the cantina disaster, since the wedding ring, since all of it.
I deleted the log immediately.
No evidence. No weakness. No record of the man hiding behind Ven Calder's face.
The landing sequence nearly killed me twice.
Atmospheric entry was rougher than I expected—the ship's hull had taken damage in the teleportation crash, and the heat shielding wasn't operating at full capacity. I came down hot, fighting controls that wanted to spin me into the volcanic plains.
I found a canyon on Nevarro's far side, away from the main settlement. The ship settled onto rock with a grinding sound that suggested expensive repairs in my future.
Priorities: Parts. Mechanic. Plan.
The engines ticked as they cooled. Through the viewport, Nevarro's red-orange landscape stretched toward a horizon I was learning to call home.
I'd survived another day. Learned more about what I could do. Built resources I could leverage.
But the fundamental problem remained: Ven Calder's bounty. Kess might have agreed to report my death, but one terrified hunter's word wouldn't satisfy everyone. I needed confirmation. Needed to know if Rendo Vesh had actually closed the case.
Time to show Ven Calder's face again.
I gathered my weapons—blaster on my hip, holdout in my boot, vibroblade strapped to my forearm. Checked my gloves twice.
Then I started the long walk back to civilization.
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