The realization hit Ishtar like the heat of the twin suns. The failure wasn't the ship's. It was hers. Her strategy was flawed. Her analysis, incomplete. To win, the architecture of the plan needed redundancy. She needed pawns.
She crawled back into the shattered cockpit. Emergency lights flickered, and the only remaining power came from an auxiliary battery. It wasn't enough for a distress call—even if she knew whom to call. But it was enough for a single message. A short, encrypted transmission sent into a dead channel in Finite Space. A channel that rumors claimed the Guild of the Excluded monitored.
The message was not a plea.
It was a business offer.
The Ladybug is on Typhon III, coordinates 34.98.112. Ship inoperable. Requires repair parts and extraction. In exchange, I offer my services for three contracts. Offer expires in 24 hours.
She auctioned her own rescue, her reputation the only currency she had left. Then she waited, seated atop a dune, watching the empty sky—more vulnerable than she had ever been, yet feeling a sense of control she hadn't felt in a long time.
They came at dusk.
Three ships, as ugly and patchworked as the Star-Mite itself, tore through the orange sky. They landed in a semicircle around the broken Ladybug, kicking up clouds of dust. Ishtar didn't move. She made them come to her.
Three avatars disembarked: Payload, the giant she recognized; Glitch, the woman who flickered; and Khepri, in his generic, unsettlingly normal human avatar.
"So this is the great 'Ladybug'?" Payload growled, his voice a wash of electronic noise. "Stuck in a pile of scrap in the middle of nowhere and still thinks she can set the terms?"
Ishtar let the silence stretch, the wind filling the void. With glacial calm, she delivered her answer. "I didn't come looking for you." A pause. "You came looking for me."
She stood at the edge of the dune. "My reputation is my capital. My terms are the price. If that's too expensive, the desert is vast—and the self-destruct on my ship still works. You would've come all this way for nothing."
Payload snorted, but Khepri raised a hand. "Wait," he said. "It's fine. We agree to your terms."
Ishtar didn't move. "All of them."
"All of them," Khepri confirmed.
"First, the terms," Ishtar said, her voice leaving no room for negotiation. "I am not a member. I am an independent contractor. I complete contracts, I get paid, and I leave. There is no loyalty—only transactions."
"Second," she continued, "I work alone. I will only participate in group operations if the mission is impossible for a single agent. My operational autonomy is absolute."
"Third, compensation is merit-based. Payment is split according to contribution. And I assess my own."
"And finally," she said, her eyes locking onto Khepri's, "the betrayal clause. The first rule of our contract is that there are no rules once the contract is broken. Any attempt to sabotage me voids all agreements, and I will devote every resource I have to erasing you from the game."
"Merit-based split? Contractor status? Who the hell do you think you are?" the giant snarled.
Khepri raised his palm to his friend and looked back at Ishtar. For the first time, she saw something on his generic face that resembled a smile. "We consider it an investment," he said. "Welcome to the team, Ladybug… as our first independent contractor."
Ishtar nodded once. She descended the dune not like someone being rescued, but like a CEO arriving to inspect a new—and problematic—project.
They had the pilot they needed.
And she, at last, had the resources to begin her real war.