Inside the Dire Wolf's cockpit, the world narrowed to glass, warnings, and the low thrum of a machine that could outlive cities.
Dack ran his gloved thumb along the underside of the HUD housing and found the thin marks he'd scratched there—each one a day. He added one more, precise as a range adjustment.
He didn't speak the number out loud. He didn't need to.
Then he sealed the cockpit and let the Daishi wake fully—systems stabilizing, heat sinks humming, sensors sweeping. Outside, the hangar lights painted the fresh Moonjaw sigil on his chest plate in harsh white: a dire wolf howling with the moon caught in its jaws, black and red like a warning.
Lyra's voice came over comms from the Leopard, tight and businesslike. "Tower site is six kilometers east of the civilian pad. If Vanta's using it as a relay, the logs will be on local storage or the uplink board. We need those intact."
Jinx's Highlander powered up beside him with a heavy, familiar growl. "So we don't turn the tower into modern art until after we steal its diary."
Taila's Griffin came online last, her voice steadier than it had been weeks ago. "Copy."
Dack's reply was simple. "We go fast. We go quiet until we can't."
Morrigan wasn't in a cockpit. She stood on the Leopard's ramp in black lace like she'd dressed to attend a funeral and then decided to live through it instead. Her eyes tracked the mechs—lingering on the Dire Wolf with something like resentment, then snapping away before it could become anything else.
Lyra kept her out of the fight, but not out of the work. Morrigan had given them the direction. She would see the consequence.
The Leopard lifted.
---
The old civilian comm tower sat on a ridge of jagged basalt beyond the bright arteries of the spaceport—half a skeleton against a bruised sky. Long antenna spines. A rusted support ring. An equipment shack crouched at the base like something trying to hide from lightning.
A place built for voices, now used for leashes.
Lyra brought the Leopard in low and wide, staying off the main port patrol arcs. "No active radar from the tower itself," she said. "But I'm reading heat blooms around the ridge. Someone's home."
Jinx laughed softly. "Of course."
They set down behind a broken rock spur a kilometer out, out of line-of-sight. The three mechs moved immediately, feet crunching red dust, careful with their heat signatures.
Taila's Griffin kept slightly behind Dack's Dire Wolf—not hiding, not clinging, just taking the protection offered while she learned the rhythm of real operations.
Dack didn't baby her with words. He just kept the formation clean.
Lyra's voice stayed in their ears from above. "Two light contacts moving picket patterns. One medium anchor sitting still near the tower shack. There's also intermittent vehicle heat—likely technical trucks."
Morrigan's voice cut in unexpectedly—she was riding on the Leopard, not in the mech channel normally, but Lyra had patched her in. "They'll have mines."
Taila's throat tightened. "How do you know."
Morrigan sounded annoyed that anyone asked. "Because they always do. Cheap crews can't afford armor. They afford tricks."
Dack didn't argue. "Mark likely lanes."
Morrigan exhaled once, then forced herself into usefulness. "Scrap piles. Old conduit trenches. Anywhere you'd walk instinctively. They'll want you to step where they want."
Jinx's Highlander shifted its weight like it was eager to stomp the ridge flat. "Good thing we don't do instinct."
Dack moved first, the Dire Wolf's sensors sweeping the ground—subtle anomalies in dust density, faint metallic signatures under the surface. He adjusted his path a few meters left.
Taila followed the line without question.
That alone would've been unthinkable a month ago.
The first defender revealed itself at the ridge crest—a Spider, moving quick and twitchy, using its jump jets to pop up and down like a knife tip.
The second was a Javelin, light but braver, trying to flank wide to see the shape of Moonjaw.
Dack didn't chase.
He raised the Dire Wolf's torso and sent a controlled LRM volley into the Spider's likely landing zone—not to hit it midair, but to deny it a safe rhythm. The missiles ripped basalt into a spray of fragments. The Spider jumped again, forced higher than it wanted.
Jinx's Highlander answered with a gauss shot that punched through the Javelin's shoulder plating and knocked it sideways into a rock spine. The light mech didn't fall, but it stopped pretending it was invincible.
Taila's Griffin held her fire, tracking, breathing steady. She didn't waste shots. She waited for a clean angle the way Lyra had drilled into her in sims.
Lyra's voice sharpened. "Medium anchor is moving now. It's a Wolverine—confirmed. Autocannon profile, SRM heat spike."
Dack's eyes stayed on the ridge. "Where."
"Base of the tower," Lyra said. "It's waiting for you to crest."
Morrigan's voice came tight. "And the ground—watch the ground."
Dack didn't need the reminder. He could already see the subtle disturbed lines where someone had buried charges and tamped dust back down too neatly.
He adjusted again—wider arc, slower steps, the Dire Wolf's feet placing like a surgeon's hands.
The Spider jumped to harass him from the left.
Taila finally fired—one PPC flash, bright and harsh, catching the Spider mid-rise. It didn't destroy it, but it forced the light mech to twist hard and land ugly, jets coughing. The Spider's next jump would be risk, not routine.
Jinx laughed, pleased. "There you go."
Taila's voice came clipped. "I saw it."
The Javelin tried to retreat to cover.
Jinx punished it with a short missile volley—just enough to peel more armor and make it limp away instead of sprint.
Then the ridge crested and the comm tower site opened up in front of them.
Basalt flats around the tower were littered with old cable spools, half-buried conduit, rusted antenna segments. The equipment shack had a reinforced door and fresh heat inside. Two technical trucks sat near it with portable launchers mounted in the beds.
And near the tower base, exactly where Lyra said it would be, stood the Wolverine—medium chassis, broad shoulders, confident posture like it wanted to prove something.
It didn't wait.
The Wolverine fired first, autocannon thumping, rounds sparking off basalt near the Dire Wolf's feet—walking the shots up, trying to force him into a mined lane.
Dack didn't bite.
He shifted right, stepping across a bare rock patch where the dust didn't hide anything, then answered with his own autocannon and a gauss shot timed between the Wolverine's recoil cycles.
The gauss round slammed into the Wolverine's torso plating and made it stagger, gyro correcting hard.
Jinx's Highlander moved up the right flank, using a broken conduit trench as partial cover. "We need the shack intact, right?"
Lyra's reply was immediate. "Door intact. Inside intact. Everything else? I don't care."
Jinx grinned. "Perfect."
Taila's Griffin moved to the left, careful of dust lines and disturbed ground. She tracked the Spider again when it tried to rejoin the fight from a higher perch.
Morrigan's voice went sharper, urgent. "They'll try to funnel you toward the tower base. That's where the bigger charge will be."
Dack's gaze flicked over the ground—then to the tower's support ring.
He believed her.
He adjusted the push line so the Dire Wolf stayed off the base's "obvious" approach. He kept the fight on his terms.
The technical truck on the left fired a rocket toward the Dire Wolf.
Dack answered with LRMs, bracketing the truck without wasting everything. The missiles hit around it, flipping the vehicle onto its side and scattering the crew into the dirt.
Jinx took the second truck with a gauss shot that snapped its engine block and turned it into a dead hunk of metal.
The Wolverine tried to capitalize—closing distance while Dack's attention split.
Taila caught it.
She fired missiles into the Wolverine's right leg joint, not enough to sever it but enough to make it hesitate, to make it feel like it wasn't fighting one monster—it was fighting a unit.
Dack pivoted and put an autocannon burst into the Wolverine's shoulder, then shifted to keep the shack and tower between the Wolverine and its retreat lanes.
Lyra's voice cut in. "Infantry moving from behind the shack—portable launchers. They're aiming for joints."
Dack's reply was flat. "Keep them off my legs."
Jinx didn't answer with words. She answered by stepping forward and saturating the ground around the infantry cluster with missiles—forcing them to dive for cover or die exposed.
Taila held the left approach, PPC flashing again to discourage the Spider from peeking.
The Spider tried anyway, jumped, and landed behind a scrap pile—exactly where it would've been safe if Taila had panicked and chased.
She didn't chase.
She kept her arc clean and waited.
The Spider jumped again—and this time it clipped a dust line it shouldn't have.
A buried charge detonated under its landing foot.
The blast didn't obliterate it, but it threw the Spider sideways and tore its leg plating. The light mech stumbled, jets spitting.
Morrigan's voice came grim. "See."
Taila's voice was tight. "They mine their own ground?"
Morrigan sounded like she hated the answer. "They mine everything."
Dack used that moment.
He stepped forward with the Dire Wolf, not onto the tower base lane, but along the rock spine that ran behind the shack. He fired LRMs into the Wolverine's retreat route, forcing it to turn toward him instead of away.
The Wolverine, stubborn or desperate, tried to push past anyway.
Dack punished it—gauss round into the torso, then autocannon to follow, then another LRM spread to keep it from regaining rhythm.
The Wolverine staggered hard, gyro alarms likely screaming in the pilot's ears.
Jinx moved in from the right flank, Highlander heavy and relentless. She fired—missiles and a clean follow-up that tore at the Wolverine's remaining armor.
The medium mech tried to backpedal.
Taila put a final PPC shot into the Wolverine's chest plating.
The Wolverine's cockpit glass spiderwebbed.
It stopped moving.
No dramatic explosion. Just a machine losing the argument with physics.
The Spider, crippled, tried to crawl away.
Jinx started to pivot to finish it.
Dack's voice cut in. "Leave it. Shack."
Jinx hesitated—then obeyed, annoyed but disciplined.
Taila held her Griffin steady, tracking the Spider's movement without chasing into mined lanes.
Lyra's voice tightened. "Port patrol is redirecting. Someone noticed the gunfire. You have minutes."
"Inside," Dack said.
He didn't smash the shack door. He didn't want to risk destroying the storage inside.
Instead, he used the Dire Wolf's bulk to pin the door frame, then fired a short autocannon burst into the lock assembly—not into the interior. Metal shredded. The door sagged.
Jinx moved up and kicked it in with her Highlander's foot like she was slamming a bar door.
Inside, the shack was cramped and hot—server racks, old storage drives, comms boards, and a small terminal station with a human operator staring at the three mechs through the open doorway like he'd just seen extinction.
He bolted.
Dack didn't waste time climbing down. He didn't need to.
Taila's Griffin stepped forward and blocked the back exit with its shadow.
Jinx's Highlander angled slightly to cut the other side.
The operator stopped running because there was nowhere to run.
Lyra's voice came tight with focus. "Dack, keep the equipment intact. I'm dropping a line through the Leopard to pull logs remotely—hold that shack."
Morrigan's voice cut in, lower and colder than before. "Ask him who Krail reports to."
Jinx laughed softly. "Oh, now she's bloodthirsty."
Morrigan snapped, "Shut up."
Dack keyed external speakers, voice amplified into the shack. "Sit."
The operator's hands shook. "I—I'm just a contractor—"
"Sit," Dack repeated.
The operator sat.
Lyra's voice came through, clipped. "I'm in. Pulling ping logs now. Keep him alive until I'm done."
Jinx leaned her Highlander's head down closer to the shack opening like she was staring into it. "You hear that? Stay breathing."
The operator swallowed hard. "Vanta—Vanta pays. I don't know his face."
Morrigan's voice was sharp. "Where do the pings go after you."
The operator flinched at her voice on comms like it surprised him. "A relay in the next system—Tortuga route—then it disappears into dead accounts."
Lyra's tone sharpened. "Tortuga."
Dack's eyes narrowed. Pirate gravity. Pirate markets. A place where a handler name like Vanta could be a dozen people and one ledger.
Lyra continued, "I'm pulling destination tags—keep talking."
The operator licked his lips. "Krail reports to a woman called Mother Lark. She runs a yard network—she sells parts and data. Vanta buys from her."
Jinx whistled. "Mother Lark? That's a name."
Taila's voice went quiet. "Is she on-world."
The operator shook his head frantically. "No—no—she's off-world. The comm tower is just the first hop. If you kill me, Vanta still exists."
Morrigan's voice went colder. "We're not killing you for Vanta. We're killing you for tagging a home."
Lyra snapped, "Morrigan."
Morrigan didn't apologize. But she didn't argue further.
Lyra's voice shifted back to work. "Got the logs. Got the account handshake. Got a routing string that points to a rendezvous code in-system before Tortuga. That means someone local is ferrying data physically."
Dack's reply was immediate. "We grab that courier."
Lyra inhaled sharply. "After we get out of here. Port patrol is two minutes out."
Jinx sounded thrilled. "Time to leave."
Dack didn't linger. "Back."
They backed out as a unit, not sprinting, not scattering—clean withdrawal.
The Spider, still crippled, took one desperate shot toward Taila's Griffin.
Taila answered with a single missile burst that made the Spider stop trying.
The limping Javelin had vanished. The Wolverine was dead metal. The tower itself stood untouched, but the shack's equipment was already ruined for anyone who came later—Lyra had pulled what mattered and then fried the rest through the uplink as she disconnected.
The Leopard swooped in low, engines screaming, dust kicking up as it skimmed over the ridge.
Lyra's voice came calm through comms despite the chaos. "On my mark—move into the pickup lane. Don't cross the dust line by the tower base. It's mined."
Dack adjusted without question.
Taila followed without hesitation.
Jinx followed with a laugh like she trusted the math.
They reached the pickup point just as distant port security lights flashed over the ridge line.
The Leopard's ramp dropped.
They boarded.
And the ship lifted away, leaving the comm tower behind like a tooth they'd ripped out of the planet.
---
They didn't celebrate immediately.
They went back to the Union yard and worked.
Because home didn't become home by wishing.
It became home by locking doors, stripping traps, and building the inside until it looked like people lived there—people who intended to survive.
Morrigan's vetted contact finally delivered furnishings that passed Lyra's inspection: fold-down bunks, clean filters, a galley module that didn't smell like mold, lighting strips, a battered but functional table, and storage lockers that actually locked.
Morrigan hovered while Lyra scanned every panel and every seam.
When Lyra finally nodded once and said, "Clean," Morrigan's shoulders loosened so slightly it was almost invisible.
Taila noticed anyway.
Jinx noticed too and smiled like she'd found a new button to press. "Look at that. Goth princess didn't get us killed."
Morrigan glared. "Don't call me—"
Jinx cut her off by tossing her a folded black sheet set. "Here. For your bunk."
Morrigan caught it on reflex, then stared at it like it might bite. "What is this."
"Black sheets," Jinx said sweetly. "I heard you like them."
Morrigan's cheeks warmed with anger and something that wasn't anger. "I didn't—"
Taila stepped in, surprising herself. "You did."
Morrigan shot her a glare.
Taila held it.
Morrigan looked away first, clutching the sheets tighter than she needed to. "Whatever."
It was the closest thing to "thank you" she'd ever given them.
They spent the afternoon unpacking and installing like they were building a nest inside a war machine.
Lyra climbed into a maintenance crawlspace to bolt in a motion sensor junction. Jinx stood below "spotting" her by resting her hands on Lyra's hips every time Lyra shifted.
Lyra, flushed but determined not to give Jinx the satisfaction, kept her voice calm. "If you grab me there again, I'm kicking you."
Jinx grinned. "You can't. You're stuck in a vent."
Taila walked by and, without thinking, patted Lyra's ass lightly as she passed.
Lyra froze.
Jinx went dead silent for one stunned beat—then burst into delighted laughter.
Taila stopped, eyes wide, realizing what she'd just done. Her face turned bright red. "I—uh—"
Lyra slowly wriggled backward out of the crawlspace until her shoulders and head emerged, hair slightly mussed, cheeks blazing.
Taila stammered, "I was just—Jinx does it—"
Jinx leaned on the bulkhead, practically purring. "Oh my god. Taila's corrupt."
Lyra stared at Taila for a long second.
Then, to Taila's horror and relief, Lyra smiled.
Small. Real.
"Don't do that when I'm holding a wrench," Lyra said.
Taila's throat bobbed. "Okay."
Jinx licked Lyra's cheek anyway—quick and triumphant.
Lyra snapped, "Jinx."
Jinx shrugged. "I'm celebrating."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "Quietly."
Jinx's grin widened. "No."
Taila laughed, still blushing, because she couldn't help it.
Even Morrigan, carrying a stack of bedding toward her bunk, paused and stared at them like she couldn't decide whether to be disgusted or… jealous.
She chose disgust, because it was safer.
But she didn't walk away.
---
That night, they ate inside the Union for the first time.
Not in the Leopard's cramped galley.
At an actual table.
It wobbled slightly because nothing in a DropShip ever sat perfectly, but it was a table, and that mattered.
Lyra set her tablet beside her plate and explained what she'd pulled from the comm tower logs—routing strings, handshake IDs, a courier rendezvous tag that pointed to a quiet transfer point on-world before the data left the system.
Jinx listened with her chin in her hand, eyes bright. Taila listened like she was memorizing. Morrigan listened like she was trying not to admit she cared.
Dack listened like he always did—quiet, present, absorbing.
Lyra finished, then said, "If we catch the courier, we get a physical ledger or a contact list. Something Vanta can't scrub with dead accounts."
Jinx grinned. "So we hunt a mailman."
Taila nodded. "On-world. Not space."
Morrigan muttered, "Good. Space is worse."
Jinx looked at her. "You're afraid of space?"
Morrigan glared. "I'm afraid of idiots."
Jinx smiled. "Same."
After dinner, they moved through the Union's corridors like it belonged to them.
Taila tested the new bunk ladder with an excited kind of caution. Jinx wandered behind her and smacked her ass once, gentle, playful.
Taila yelped and spun. "Jinx!"
Jinx grinned. "Union tradition."
Taila huffed, but she didn't move away. She grabbed Jinx's jacket and pulled her into a quick kiss that was more bold than Taila used to be.
Jinx blinked, delighted. "Oh. Okay."
Taila's face went red. "Shut up."
Jinx laughed and kissed her again, longer.
Lyra watched them from the corridor edge, cheeks warm. She looked… less guarded than she had been weeks ago.
Taila noticed and smirked—still shy, but brave enough to tease now. "You're smiling again."
Lyra blinked. "I'm not."
Jinx, without missing a beat, leaned over and licked Lyra's cheek like she was stamping approval.
Lyra groaned softly. "Jinx."
Taila, emboldened by her own earlier mistake and the way Lyra had smiled instead of snapping, stepped in and kissed Lyra's other cheek—gentler, sincere.
Lyra's breath caught.
Jinx's eyebrows rose like she was impressed.
Taila's face went crimson again. "I—um."
Lyra's voice was quiet, warm. "It's okay."
Even Morrigan, passing with her black sheets tucked under her arm, slowed.
She watched Lyra's expression—the softness, the belonging—and something in her face tightened like it hurt.
She glanced away fast, then muttered, almost inaudible, "Gross."
Jinx called after her, sing-song. "Good night, lace gremlin."
Morrigan snapped, louder. "Stop calling me that!"
Jinx laughed. "Make me."
Morrigan disappeared into her compartment and slammed the door.
A second later, it opened just a crack and Morrigan shoved a small folded piece of fabric out into the corridor—something dark with red stitching.
A patch.
Lyra picked it up carefully.
It was a crude but recognizable Moonjaw wolf head, hand-stitched, black thread with red accents.
Taila blinked. "Did she—"
Jinx grinned, softer than usual. "She did."
Lyra held the patch for a moment, then set it gently on the table outside Morrigan's door like an offering.
The door didn't open again.
But the patch didn't get thrown away either.
---
Later, when the Union quieted and the corridors dimmed, Lyra found Dack near the mech bay access—checking locks, checking angles, making sure the ship stayed theirs even while they slept.
She stepped close enough that her shoulder brushed his.
Dack didn't move away.
Lyra's voice was low. "The logs are good. The courier tag is better."
Dack nodded once. "Tomorrow."
Lyra hesitated—then added, quieter, "Taila and Jinx are going to be unbearable."
Dack's eyes flicked to her. "About what."
Lyra's cheeks warmed. She didn't look away. "About me."
Dack's reply was simple. "Let them."
Lyra exhaled, and the sound was half laughter, half surrender. "Okay."
She touched his wrist—brief, steady—then walked away with the kind of calm that came from feeling safe inside a ship that finally had locks and sensors and a crew that was becoming something real.
Behind her, in the Union's corridors, Jinx's laughter drifted—low, satisfied—followed by Taila's embarrassed protest and then quiet kissing that didn't need walls to hide behind anymore.
And in the Dire Wolf's cockpit, when Dack eventually climbed back in to run one last systems check before sleep, his thumb found the marks beneath the HUD again.
He added nothing this time.
He just sat there a moment—listening to the machine breathe, listening to the ship around him, and feeling the weight of the next thread they were about to pull.
Vanta wasn't a person.
But Vanta had teeth.
And Moonjaw was learning how to bite back harder.