Three days after the convoy run, Dack still woke up like someone was about to kick the door in.
It wasn't paranoia anymore. It was muscle memory—his body remembering Outreach's corridor lights going cold, remembering the blink of a case that wanted him dead, remembering the way professionals moved when they'd been paid to erase you.
The difference now was that the knife wasn't pressed to his throat every second.
It hovered.
And in merc work, hovering danger was just called business.
The dropship drifted through a pale scatter of stars, engines low, transponder clean under the new identity set. A few days of steady movement had done what medicine couldn't: it had let Dack's nerves stop vibrating long enough for his thoughts to line up.
He sat in the cockpit with a mug of bitter station coffee and a contract file hovering in front of him. The seal was municipal, verified escrow, and the payment line had enough zeros to make most mercs stop asking questions.
He'd asked anyway.
Not because he was smart.
Because he was still alive.
The file read:
**EMPLOYER:** Kestrel Basin Municipal Authority
**LOCATION:** Kestrel Basin, Planet: **Garnet Ridge**
**OBJECTIVE:** Protect surface shipments; break pirate harassment; secure extraction site
**THREAT:** "Ash Hounds" raider band — light/medium 'Mechs + ground vehicles
**CONDITIONS:** Minimize civilian losses; avoid damage to refinery core
**PAY:** High + salvage rights (limited) + priority fuel
Dack didn't like "minimize civilian losses." It was always in the contract, and it was always the line that got you killed if you believed it too much.
He also didn't like "limited salvage rights." That meant the municipal authority was either broke or hiding something valuable they didn't want him touching.
Talia leaned in the cockpit doorway, arms folded. She still moved like someone braced for a blow, but there was a subtle change in her posture—less flinch, more presence. Bruises had faded to yellow shadows. Her swollen eye was still healing, but the other one was sharp and awake.
"You're taking it," she said.
Dack glanced at her. "It's money."
"It's a planet," Talia said, like the word carried weight. "Not drifting steel and vacuum."
Dack shrugged. "Mud doesn't scare me."
Talia's mouth twitched—almost a smile, not quite. "You say that like you've ever been in mud."
Dack paused, then admitted, "Not in a hundred-ton machine."
Talia's eye brightened faintly at the honesty. It wasn't affection yet. It was something simpler and rarer:
Dack not pretending.
She stepped closer, gaze on the contract. "Ash Hounds. That's not a Clan name."
"No," Dack said. "Pirates like dogs."
Talia's lips pressed together, then she nodded. "Then they'll run when they see your machine."
"Or they'll get desperate," Dack corrected.
Talia met his eyes. "Desperate is worse."
Dack didn't disagree. He just turned back to the nav plot.
Garnet Ridge was a rough world by the data sheet: wide plains cut by slag hills, seasonal storms, old mining scars, settlements that grew around refineries like barnacles. The Kestrel Basin itself looked like a bruise on the map: a bowl of dark soil and industrial sprawl ringed by hills.
Perfect ambush country.
Dack felt the familiar mercenary calculation settle in him like a weapon being loaded.
He forwarded the contract acceptance.
The escrow chimed.
Money locked.
Work began.
---
The dropship's descent through Garnet Ridge's atmosphere felt like a fist closing.
Clouds were thick and low, gray with storm water and refinery smog. Lightning flickered inside them like nervous muscle. The ship bucked as turbulence tried to shake it loose.
Dack kept his hands steady on the controls.
He liked flying into hostile air. It made everything feel honest.
Below, Kestrel Basin spread out like a scarred industrial wound: refineries with tall stacks belching faint orange flame, conveyor spines stretching toward open pit mines, warehouses huddled in clusters, and—at the center—an extraction yard fenced with heavy plating and watchtowers that looked too small to matter.
The municipal landing pad was a reinforced slab just outside the main refinery ring. As Dack flared thrusters and brought the dropship down, he saw people gather behind safety lines.
Workers. Militia. Civilians with children.
They stared up at the ship like it was either a salvation or a new problem.
They weren't wrong.
When the dropship touched down, the pad trembled.
Then the bay doors opened.
The Dire Wolf stepped out into rain.
Mud swallowed its feet with a wet, sucking sound that vibrated up through the frame. The Daishi's massive toes sank inches into the soft ground, and water sheeted down armor plates, turning scars and weld lines into dark rivers.
Dack felt the world shift through the neural link—gravity heavier than vacuum's drift, footing uncertain, every movement resisted by the planet itself. The Dire Wolf's gyro compensated automatically, but Dack could feel the difference. In space, the Daishi was a drifting tower.
Here, it was a walking fortress pushing through mud like a god wading through blood.
People flinched as it moved.
A municipal officer stepped forward, a woman in rain-slick armor with a helmet tucked under her arm. She was young enough to still have softness in her face, old enough that the softness had been sanded by responsibility.
"Dack Jarn?" she called.
Dack's external speakers carried his voice out into the rain. "That's me."
The officer looked up at the Dire Wolf, rain running down her cheeks like she was crying even though she wasn't. "I'm Marshal Riva Holt. Kestrel Basin Authority."
Dack didn't get out of the cockpit yet. He didn't step down to shake hands. He'd learned what handshakes hid.
"Brief me," he said.
Marshal Holt swallowed. "Ash Hounds have been hitting shipments out of the east pits. They don't take much—just enough to hurt. They kill drivers who resist, torch one out of every three vehicles to keep us scared."
Dack's jaw tightened. "How many 'Mechs?"
"Confirmed three," Holt said. "Likely more. They don't commit unless they know they'll win."
Talia stood near the dropship's ramp, hood pulled up against the rain, listening. She didn't speak, but Dack felt her attention like a weight.
Marshal Holt's eyes flicked to her. "Your… crew?"
Dack answered before Talia could. "Passenger."
Talia's eye flashed at the word, but she didn't argue—she just stepped a fraction closer to the ramp, chin lifted.
Marshal Holt hesitated, then continued. "We need you on convoy escort. Two runs a day. Supplies, parts, workers. We can't shut down extraction or the basin collapses."
Dack watched the refinery stacks in the distance, flames licking at the sky like hungry tongues.
He could smell the place through the Dire Wolf's intake filters: wet earth, industrial runoff, burning fuel.
"Route?" he asked.
Holt gestured. A holomap projected from her wrist pad, showing a muddy road spine running from the refinery to the east pits, threading through slag hills and drainage channels.
Ambush heaven.
Dack's mind tracked the terrain: ridgelines, dead ground, possible firing positions, places where vehicles would slow and cluster.
He looked at Holt. "Where do you want me?"
Holt's voice tightened. "Wherever you think you'll stop them."
Dack nodded once. "Good answer."
Holt blinked, surprised, then nodded too—relief flickering.
Dack cut the speakers and opened an internal channel. "Talia."
"Yeah?"
"You ride with the convoy," he said. "In the lead hauler if they'll let you. I want eyes inside the civilian comm net."
Talia stiffened. "You want me in the soft target."
Dack's voice stayed even. "I want you where they'll try to confuse and panic people. You notice patterns. You hear lies. You'll warn me before a militia commander figures out he's being lured."
Talia's eye narrowed, then softened a fraction as she realized what he'd actually said.
He hadn't said *be useful.*
He'd said *you're good at something real.*
"I can do that," she said quietly.
Dack paused. Then, rougher than he intended: "And… stay alive."
There was a beat of silence on the channel.
Then Talia's voice came back softer. "You too."
Dack didn't respond. He didn't know what to do with that.
So he turned the Dire Wolf toward the convoy staging yard.
---
The convoy rolled out two hours later under low cloud and steady rain.
Three haulers: a water tanker, a medical module truck, and a flatbed stacked with reactor parts under sealed tarp. Two militia APCs rode escort, their tires churning mud into thick waves. A handful of militia troopers clung to the sides, rifles wrapped in oilcloth.
Dack walked the Dire Wolf alongside them, a shadow that made the vehicles look like toys.
The mud fought every step. The Daishi's feet left craters that filled with water. The sound was wet and heavy, a slow grind of earth being crushed.
Dack kept speed low.
If he ran, he'd throw mud and water like shrapnel and blind the convoy.
He didn't want fear behind him.
He wanted discipline.
Inside the lead hauler, Talia sat beside a driver who looked like he'd aged ten years in ten months. He glanced at her once, then kept his eyes on the road like if he looked away the world would end.
"You ever been shot at?" he asked, voice tight.
Talia didn't lie. "Yes."
The driver swallowed. "Then you know what this feels like."
Talia looked out at the Dire Wolf trudging alongside, rain streaking its armor like tears. "Yes," she said. "I do."
She tapped into the hauler's comm system with the municipality's permission—Holt had been skeptical, but Dack's presence made people accept strange things. Talia listened to chatter: militia callouts, refinery updates, nervous jokes that weren't funny.
Then she heard it.
A voice on the net she hadn't heard before.
Too calm.
Too clean.
"Convoy lead, slow your speed. Road ahead washed out. Reroute south channel."
The driver stiffened. "That's not—"
Talia raised a hand. "Don't answer yet."
She keyed her mic. "Identify."
A pause.
Then: "Militia Control. Lieutenant Brann. New shift."
Talia's eye narrowed.
She'd learned to read lies the way a pilot read heat curves: not by the words, but by the **timing**.
"Lieutenant Brann," she repeated, making it sound casual. "What's the refinery tower code for weather warnings?"
Silence.
A beat too long.
Then: "We don't have time for—"
Talia cut the mic. "It's fake."
The driver's hands tightened on the wheel. "How do you know?"
Talia's voice was cold. "Because real authority doesn't hesitate when asked simple questions. Pirates do."
She keyed an internal channel to Dack.
"False comm injection," she said. "They're trying to reroute us into dead ground. South channel."
Dack's reply was instant. "Copy."
He rotated the Dire Wolf's torso, scanning the southern drainage channel.
The terrain dipped into a broad muddy depression where stormwater pooled. Slag hills on both sides created perfect firing lanes. The road narrowed there. Vehicles would bog down.
Dack felt his teeth grind.
He hated predators who hunted civilians.
"Hold course," he told Holt over a separate channel. "No reroute. Tighten formation. APCs closer to the haulers. I'm moving ahead."
Holt's voice came back tense. "Understood."
Dack pushed the Dire Wolf forward, increasing pace despite mud, thrusters occasionally puffing to help his feet break suction.
He moved to the ridge line above the southern channel, using the hills to block line-of-sight from the depression. He wanted to see them before they saw him.
He crested the ridge.
And there they were.
Three 'Mechs half-hidden under camouflage nets and storm tarps—cheap attempts to break silhouettes. A light scout, a jump-capable skirmisher, and a medium with a chunky autocannon arm.
Ash Hounds.
Their paint was dirty red and gray, smeared and chipped. One had a crude dog skull painted on its chest.
Dack's hands tightened on the controls.
They were waiting to spring.
And now, because Talia had sniffed the lie early, they were caught before the bite.
Dack didn't announce himself.
He didn't roar threats.
He fired.
One ER Large Laser cut down through rain like a blade of pale sun and slammed into the medium's autocannon arm. Armor flashed. Metal erupted. The autocannon mount exploded into fragments that scattered into the mud.
The pirate medium staggered, trying to raise its other arm.
Dack hit it again, stripping the shoulder.
The pirates reacted in panic, nets flying free as they tried to stand and acquire.
The jump skirmisher lit its jets and vaulted upward, trying to reach Dack's ridge.
Dack anticipated it the way he'd anticipated the space jumper.
Different physics, same rule: the moment a jump 'Mech commits, it becomes predictable.
He fired a UAC burst into the skirmisher's landing zone—mud and rock erupting in a spray. The skirmisher landed wrong, foot sinking deep, actuator straining.
It tried to pull free.
Dack waded forward and kicked.
The Dire Wolf's foot slammed into the skirmisher's torso with brutal force, a wet metallic crunch. The lighter 'Mech toppled backward into the mud and slid, flailing.
The light scout tried to dart around the depression, aiming for the convoy's flank.
Dack snapped his torso and tracked it.
He could kill it easily.
But he didn't fire immediately.
Because he saw something else.
Ground vehicles—hidden under the ridge's far side—raced out, fast and low. Pirates in armored trucks, aiming for the convoy, not for Dack.
They were going to hit the soft targets while Dack was busy.
Dack's jaw clenched.
He didn't let them.
He rotated and fired missiles, not at the scout, not at the skirmisher, but at the vehicles.
The LRMs streaked through rain and slammed into the lead truck. The vehicle exploded into a fireball that turned mud into steam. The second truck swerved and flipped, rolling end over end.
The third tried to flee.
Dack's laser cut it in half.
He watched the burning wreckage and felt his stomach twist—because there were people inside those trucks, and the part of him that was still human counted them automatically.
Then he shoved the counting away.
If they made it to the haulers, there would be bodies anyway—civilians instead of pirates.
He chose which bodies.
The pirate medium, weaponless now, began to back away, limping through mud. Its pilot was smart enough to run when the teeth got too big.
Dack let it go for two seconds—enough to see its retreat vector.
Then he fired a laser into its leg.
The beam carved through knee armor and severed the actuator line. The medium collapsed into the mud with a heavy, wet impact.
Disabled.
Not dead.
A choice.
He opened his external speakers, voice cold over the rain. "Ash Hounds! Shut down. Now."
The scout 'Mech hesitated.
Then it tried to run anyway.
Dack fired a precise burst into its hip joint.
The scout's leg buckled. It fell hard, skidding through mud like a dropped toy.
The jump skirmisher was still flailing, half-buried in muck.
Dack walked toward it, each step a crater.
He placed a foot beside its cockpit and leaned the Dire Wolf's shadow over it.
The skirmisher's pilot powered down.
Smart.
Dack exhaled slowly.
He looked back toward the road.
The convoy had stopped, clustered tight. APCs had formed a defensive ring. Militia troopers stared up at the ridge line, watching the Dire Wolf like it was a storm made of steel.
Talia's voice came through the internal channel, shaky with adrenaline. "You… you caught them."
"You caught them," Dack corrected.
There was a pause.
Then, softly: "I didn't kill anyone."
Dack's voice stayed steady. "You saved people. That's enough."
Talia didn't answer, but he could hear her breathing change—slower, steadier, like she'd been braced for him to dismiss her and he hadn't.
Dack signaled Holt. "Ambush neutralized. Secure prisoners. Move convoy."
Holt's voice came back stunned. "Already? We— we didn't even—"
"Move," Dack repeated.
Holt obeyed.
---
They brought the captured 'Mech pilots back to the refinery ring in chains and mud-stained armor.
The pilots were young and hard-eyed, the kind of desperate people who'd found violence easier than starvation. Their leader—a woman with scars on her cheek and a bitter grin—spat in the mud and stared at the Dire Wolf like she wanted to hate it into rust.
Marshal Holt interrogated them in a rain-soaked yard while workers watched from behind fences.
Dack stayed near his dropship, arms folded, shoulder still aching under his jacket. He didn't like crowds. Crowds meant eyes. Eyes meant rumors.
Talia stood beside him, hood up, watching the interrogation.
"Why do you look like that?" Dack asked quietly.
Talia blinked. "Like what?"
"Like you want to hit someone."
Talia's mouth tightened. "Because I do."
Dack didn't press. He let her anger exist.
Marshal Holt's voice rose. "Who's paying you? Who's giving you intel?"
The pirate leader laughed, coughing. "You think we're smart enough to spoof your comms by ourselves?"
Holt froze.
Dack's eyes narrowed.
The pirate continued, grin ugly. "We get tips. A voice. Sometimes gear. Sometimes a location. We don't ask names."
Holt's expression tightened. "What voice?"
The pirate leader leaned forward, chains clinking. "They call themselves *a broker.* They talk like they're above us. Like we're animals."
Dack felt cold spread under his ribs.
Broker.
Procurement cell language.
Not proof. But a thread.
Holt slammed a fist into the table. "Where do you meet them?"
The pirate leader shrugged. "We don't. We get drops. Dead caches. Data pings. Same as everyone."
Holt turned toward Dack helplessly. "This is bigger than us."
Dack didn't respond. He'd already known that.
He looked at Talia.
She was staring at the pirate leader, face tight, as if hearing "broker" was a ghost grabbing her throat.
Dack leaned closer, voice low. "You okay?"
Talia swallowed hard. "They always use dogs," she whispered. "They don't get blood on their own hands. They pay desperate people to do it."
Dack's jaw clenched. "Not today."
Talia's eye flicked to him. "Not today," she echoed, like she was tasting the words.
The interrogation ended with no clean answers, only more confirmation that predators higher up were feeding scraps to lower predators.
The refinery workers cheered anyway.
They needed a win.
Holt came to Dack after, rain dripping off her helmet. "You did your job. Better than I hoped."
Dack nodded. "You'll have fewer raids."
Holt hesitated, then said carefully, "We can pay you to stay longer. We want a week contract extension. The Ash Hounds aren't the only ones."
Dack looked toward the slag hills beyond the refinery—dark shapes under storm clouds.
A longer contract meant more pay.
It also meant becoming predictable.
He didn't answer immediately.
Talia spoke before he could. "If you leave now, they'll come back."
Dack glanced at her, surprised.
Talia's jaw tightened. "Not because you're some hero. Because you're a deterrent. And because people here don't have another deterrent."
Dack studied her for a long moment.
She wasn't pleading.
She was reasoning.
It was the first time she'd sounded like someone who cared about something besides survival.
A small warmth flickered in Dack's chest—dangerous, unfamiliar.
He shoved it down. Not because he didn't want it.
Because he didn't trust it.
He looked at Holt. "One week. Double pay. Fuel priority."
Holt's eyes widened. "Done."
They sealed it with an escrow update and no handshake.
Dack didn't shake hands anymore.
---
That night, the refinery offered Dack and Talia food.
Not fancy. Not warm. But real.
A mess hall built from prefabricated steel, filled with tired workers and militia troopers who looked at Dack like he'd dragged them back from a cliff edge.
Dack sat in a corner where he could see the doors.
Talia sat across from him.
For a while, they ate in silence.
Then Talia spoke quietly. "You didn't have to correct me earlier."
Dack frowned. "What?"
"You said I caught them," she said. "You said *I* caught them."
Dack shrugged. "You did."
Talia stared down at her tray, voice tight. "No one says that to bondsmen. No one gives them credit. If something goes right, it's the warrior's glory. If something goes wrong, it's the bondsman's fault."
Dack's jaw tightened. "That's stupid."
Talia's laugh was soft and bitter. "Yes."
Dack watched her for a moment, then said, "You want a cockpit because you think it's the only way to be respected."
Talia froze, then looked up, eye sharp.
Dack didn't flinch. "I get it. But you don't need to pilot to matter. You mattered today."
Talia's throat worked. She looked away quickly, as if emotion was weakness.
Then she asked, voice barely above the mess hall noise, "Why did you save me?"
Dack paused.
He could have said *because it was right.*
He could have said *because I'm not a monster.*
Those were both lies in different ways.
He answered with the truth he understood.
"Because if I let them take you," he said quietly, "then they win. And I'm tired of people winning off my family."
Talia stared at him.
Then, slowly, she nodded once. "I'm… tired too."
Dack looked at her bruised face, her stubborn posture, the way her eye kept scanning exits even while she talked.
He realized something with quiet surprise:
He didn't feel annoyed by her presence anymore.
He felt… steadier.
Like the ship wasn't as cold when there was someone else on it.
That thought scared him more than pirates.
Talia's mouth twitched slightly—almost a smile. "You fight like you don't care if you die."
Dack snorted softly. "I care."
Talia raised an eyebrow.
Dack hesitated, then admitted, "I just care about different things than they do."
Talia's gaze softened a fraction. "Like not letting them own people."
Dack didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
They ate the rest of their meal in quieter silence, not hostile now, just shared.
Outside, rain hammered the refinery roofs. Distant thunder rolled over slag hills like artillery.
And somewhere out there, Dack knew, the people who used "dogs" would hear about a Dire Wolf wading through mud and breaking an ambush in minutes.
Rumors would travel.
Contracts would come.
Enemies too.
But tonight, in a mess hall full of tired workers who still breathed because of a mercenary and a bitter bondsman who'd sniffed a lie on comms, Dack let himself feel one small, dangerous thing:
Not trust.
Not love.
Just the first warmth of a partnership beginning to hold.