Chapter 6: The Siphon
Kaelen turned back to his navigation console, his face a grim mask in the green glow of the displays. He pulled up a map of the local sky-sector. The Rim was a green circle at the center. Dozens of other islands, large and small, were scattered around it. Thin blue lines marked the 'safe' trade routes—currents of stable air, free of Miasma upwellings.
"Alright, partner," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Your original plan was Bazaar. That's three days' travel along the Meridian route."
He tapped a key, and the route lit up. Then, red icons began to flash, appearing at every major intersection and at the port of Bazaar itself.
"Purifier priority signals," he said, not needing to elaborate. "They've locked down the whole route. We fly that way, and we're just a glowing target in a shooting gallery. They'll have a cruiser on us before we've gone 500 klicks. Bazaar is a death trap."
Lyra's jaw tightened. "There's an old historian in Bazaar. Alistair. He was my father's closest friend. He's the only one I trust to help me understand this. The Lodestone... it's more than just a map. The patterns are changing. I need him."
"You're not listening," Kaelen snapped. "Your friend doesn't matter if you're vapor. We're not going to Bazaar. We're not going anywhere near the Meridian route. We need to disappear."
"And go where?" she shot back. "We're in a custom rust-bucket, I just blew a hole in the hull, and we're carrying the one thing the Purifiers will burn islands to get. Where, exactly, is 'disappear'?"
"That," Kaelen said, his expression souring, "is the problem."
Frustrated, Lyra unzipped her pack again. The Lodestone's violet light was dim, but the throb was stronger. "You said you're the pilot. So pilot. Where do we go?"
As she spoke, the rings on the Lodestone spun, a low, resonant thrum vibrating through her hands. They clicked into a new alignment. The pin-prick lights on the rings formed a new, sharp constellation. And from the center, a pencil-thin beam of violet light shot out, not blinding, but clear. It pierced the cockpit's gloom and landed on Kaelen's navigation display.
Kaelen froze. The beam was pointing to a region on the chart he had been actively avoiding. A dark, empty patch of sky marked only with a skull-and-crossbones icon and one word: THE SIPHON.
"No," Kaelen said, his voice flat. "Absolutely not."
"What is it?" Lyra asked, moving closer to see the chart.
"It's a Miasma vortex. A permanent, swirling drain in the sky-sea. It's a ship-eater, a graveyard. All the junk, all the toxic gas, all the lost cargo from this whole sector eventually ends up there. It's orbited by a klick-wide field of wreckage and asteroids."
"It's pointing at the wreckage," Lyra observed, her eyes tracing the line. "Not into the vortex itself. What's there?"
Kaelen let out a long, pained breath. He looked like a man who'd just been sentenced to his own execution.
"Scavengers," he growled. "Not like me, kid. Not the kind who poke at ruins and sell to merchants. The other kind. The kind who shoot ships down before they're wrecks. Pirates. Butchers. Madmen. The only 'port' in that entire field is a place called 'The Gutter.' It's not a station, it's a hole. Just a collection of lashed-together hulls and hollowed-out asteroids, run by a warlord who'd melt you down for your boot-buckles."
"It's also," Lyra said quietly, "the one place the Purifiers will never go. They won't risk their cruisers in that debris field."
Kaelen stared at the map. The red icons of the Purifier fleet seemed to pulse on one side, and the swirling vortex of The Siphon on the other. He was trapped between the law and the abyss.
"Fine," he finally bit out. "Fine. We go to The Gutter. We can lie low, get real repairs done on the hull, and dump this ship's transponder for a new one. But we are not staying. And you," he jabbed a finger at her, "you don't talk, you don't look at anyone, and you don't ever show that thing. You're my mute cargo-hauler. Got it?"
Lyra nodded, her expression serious. "Got it."
Kaelen's hands flew across the console, killing their transponder and pushing the Rust-Wren into a steep dive, away from the trade routes and toward the dark, debris-choked quadrant.
Just as they cleared the ridge of a Miasma cloud, a proximity alarm shrieked.
"Kark!" Kaelen swore, yanking the ship into a hard spin. "Purifier long-range patrol! They must have seen our transponder die!"
A sleek, black Purifier interceptor, all sharp angles and glowing blue engines, flashed past their viewport, banking hard to follow.
"They're faster than we are!" Lyra yelled.
"In a straight line!" Kaelen yelled back. He shoved the throttle into the red. "But I'm a better pilot!"
He wasn't flying away from the interceptor. He was flying towards The Siphon's debris field. The black ship followed, firing warning shots that sizzled past the Wren's cockpit.
"Go to engineering," Kaelen ordered, his eyes locked on the sea of tumbling rocks ahead. "Find the panel marked 'Aft Ballast' and dump everything. Now!"
Lyra didn't question him. She scrambled from the cockpit. Kaelen, meanwhile, flew the ship like a madman, weaving between the first few chunks of debris. The Purifier was closing fast.
Just as the interceptor lined up a killing shot, Lyra's voice came over the comm. "Dumping now!"
Kaelen grinned. He slammed a control, and a cloud of metal scraps, wastewater, and refuse shot out from the Wren's aft.
The Purifier pilot, flying at full throttle, had no time to react. The ship plowed directly into the cloud of junk. There was a bright flash as scrap metal was sucked into its port engine. The interceptor wobbled, its engine flaming, and spun out of control, disappearing back into the Miasma clouds.
Kaelen didn't slow down. He plunged the Rust-Wren deep into the asteroid field, the ship's running lights dark. They were safe from the Purifiers.
They were now in the pirates' den.