DAY 89 — 18:44 (LOCAL)
The Union sat low in a dead cut of basalt, belly down like an animal trying not to breathe. Its heat signature was masked, its running lights killed, its hull plates still dusted with slag and scorch from the last extraction. The mech bay smelled like hot metal, coolant, and old smoke that never fully left.
Moonjaw's machines filled the bay like a steel pack—scarred, patched, refitted, still lethal.
Dire Wolf: Dack's—burned armor panels swapped for mismatched ferro, gauss barrel blackened, missile bay doors still stiff.
Highlander: Jinx's—gauss housing polished like she did it for fun, knee actuators tuned hot.
Awesome: Quill's—brutally simple, brutally honest, three PPCs that made problems disappear if you gave them time.
Marauder: Taila's—new to her hands, still bigger than her confidence, but starting to feel like it belonged.
Orion: Morrigan's—ugly, stubborn, and now hers, with a left knee that chattered when it was angry.
Griffin: Cassia's—still the same lines, still the same fear behind the canopy, but the discipline was becoming real.
Chained to one side like a prize that might bite if it could—
Timber Wolf.
The captured Clan machine sat tied down with deck clamps and cargo chain, leg joint torn and braced, cockpit sealed. Every time the ship flexed, the chains clinked, and the sound was a promise: we took this from someone who doesn't forgive.
Dack stood under the Timber Wolf's shadow, helmet off, pilot suit half unzipped at the throat. His eyes moved across the bay the same way they moved across a battlefield—counting, measuring, storing.
Lyra's voice came through ship net from the cockpit. "We've got a contract offer."
Dack didn't look up. "Read it."
"Convoy protection," Lyra said. "Mining guild. Three-day run. Low pay, low risk."
"Pass."
A short pause. Lyra knew him well enough to pick the next angle. "We need C-bills. We need parts. We need fuel."
"We need something that scales," Dack said.
Jinx, stretched across a crate of diagnostic couplers like she owned the ship, swung a booted foot idly. Her black-and-red jacket hung open, tank top tight beneath, shorts riding high. She smiled at nothing and then made a face—brief, sharp—like something had punched her stomach from the inside.
Taila noticed instantly. Her voice stayed casual, but her eyes didn't. "You good?"
Jinx waved it off too fast. "Fine. Smell's just… gross."
Taila didn't buy it. Neither did Lyra. But neither of them said the real word over open comms.
Dack's gaze flicked to Jinx for half a second—sharp, suspicious—then back to the bay. He didn't ask. Not yet. He stored it.
Quill walked past the Awesome with a slate in hand, hair tied back, posture precise. She paused at Dack's side. "You said you wanted legitimacy."
Dack nodded once.
Quill's eyes moved to the Timber Wolf. "A Clan bondsman gives you legitimacy. Or a death sentence."
"Both," Dack said.
Morrigan came in from the corridor, black-and-red clothes tight and functional, hands smudged with grease like she'd been helping the twins without admitting it. She stopped near Dack, arms crossed, mouth already set like a scowl was her natural face.
"You're thinking again," she said.
"I always think."
Morrigan snorted. "Yeah. That's the problem."
Jinx perked up, grin returning. "Aww. She's worried about you."
Morrigan's cheeks colored just a fraction—anger at being seen. "Shut up."
Dack's mouth twitched, almost a smile that didn't fully become one. "Don't waste oxygen fighting each other. Save it for bullets."
Jinx gasped theatrically. "He made a joke."
Dack looked at her. "That wasn't a joke."
Jinx's grin widened anyway.
Lyra cut in. "There's another offer. Not public. Direct. It's… weird."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "Read it."
"Black-site cleanup," Lyra said. "Payment's real. But the employer's masked. They want a 'lost shipping core' recovered from an abandoned relay yard on the night side. No questions."
Quill's voice went colder. "Trap."
Taila swallowed. "Trap."
Morrigan said it like a curse. "Trap."
Dack didn't deny it. "Yeah."
Lyra hesitated. "We still might need it."
"We do," Dack said. "But we don't walk into someone else's box blind."
He turned toward the corridor hatch. "Bring her out."
The bay went quiet in a way that felt like knives coming out.
Lyra's voice came careful. "You want me there?"
"I want cams," Dack said. "Lock the ship's doors. No one moves without you seeing it."
"I can do that," Lyra said. "No guards. Just locks and eyes."
"That's enough."
A minute later, the hatch opened.
Quill came first, then Morrigan, then one of the triplets—thin, awkward, holding a stun baton like she'd rather be holding a book. Behind them walked Vasha.
Star Captain Vasha didn't wear her Clan pressure suit now. She wore ship clothes—plain, gray, borrowed—because Dack refused to give her anything that looked like a uniform. She moved like she was still in a cockpit, shoulders tight, chin high, eyes hard and furious at the indignity of breathing the same air as freebirths.
The chains on the Timber Wolf clinked as she passed, and for half a second her gaze flicked up to it—something raw passing behind the anger.
Dack didn't give her time to romanticize it.
"Jade Shadow," he said.
Vasha's eyes snapped to him. "Jade Falcon."
"Not what I asked," Dack said.
Jinx slid off the crate and padded closer, boots soft on deck, grin bright. "He means the other Clanners. The ones hiding behind contracts and cleanup crews. The ones who want to erase you."
Vasha's jaw clenched. She didn't look at Jinx. She looked at Dack like he was the only thing in the room that mattered.
"You speak of shadows," Vasha said carefully. "You have no standing to name them."
Dack's voice stayed flat. "They tried to sanitize you. They'll try again. I want the spine."
Quill's eyes narrowed. "Spine?"
"Logistics," Dack said. "Mobility."
Lyra's voice came from the cockpit speakers, quiet but present. "JumpShip."
That word landed heavy.
Even Morrigan stopped pretending she didn't care.
Vasha's nostrils flared. She understood exactly what they were asking.
"You believe you can take a JumpShip," she said, tone contemptuous—then a thin edge of respect cut under it. "Like you took my Timber Wolf."
Dack didn't blink. "Tell me how they move."
Vasha looked at Quill briefly, like she hated that Quill was here, hated that Quill had been part of the Clan machine and now stood in the merc bay wearing the same air as traitors.
Then Vasha spoke anyway, because bondsman reality was harsh and she wasn't stupid.
"There is a ship," she said. "Not Falcon. Not mine. A shadow carrier. Three collars. It does not linger. It charges where no one watches."
Lyra's voice sharpened. "Name."
Vasha's lips tightened. "I do not know its true name. The one spoken in their circles is… Shrike's Step."
Quill went still. "Invader-class cadence."
Vasha's eyes flashed at the correction but she didn't deny it. "It carries their teeth and their cleaners. It brings them to worlds and takes them away before consequences can touch them."
Dack's voice didn't change. "Where's the ground key."
Vasha paused.
Then she said, "You cannot board a JumpShip blind. You will die in corridors before you see the bridge."
"I know," Dack said. "So where's the key."
Vasha's gaze moved toward the bay doors—toward the black canyon outside. Her voice went lower.
"Ground nodes," she said. "Support points. Fuel, parts, comms. They keep authorization there. Transponder spools, cipher matrices, jump windows. The JumpShip does not speak openly. It whispers through nodes."
Lyra's voice turned sharp. "Where."
Vasha hesitated—just long enough to prove she understood bargaining.
Dack stepped closer, until Vasha had to tilt her chin up to keep looking down her nose at him.
"You don't get leverage," Dack said. "You already lost."
Vasha's eyes burned. "I am bondsman. Not slave."
"Then earn it," Dack said. "Tell me where."
Silence.
Then Vasha exhaled once and gave it up.
"There is a yard," she said. "Night side. Old relay scrapyard, refit sheds. It wears a pirate mask, but it is not pirates. The group that runs it calls themselves the Sableglass Reavers."
Morrigan spat the name like she hated it. "Never heard of them."
"Because you were not meant to," Vasha said.
Jinx grinned. "I already hate them."
Vasha kept going, voice clipped. "The node's internal name is Sailhook. They keep an encrypted shipping core there—portable. Not a simple ledger. A key package. If you take it intact, you can impersonate their traffic control long enough to get close to the Shrike's Step."
Lyra's voice was careful now. "Long enough to dock."
Vasha's eyes flicked to Lyra's speaker. "If you are clever. If you are fast. If you are willing to kill people who are not in mechs."
The bay held its breath.
Dack didn't flinch. "We are."
Jinx's grin didn't change, but her eyes sharpened. "We already did."
Taila swallowed hard and said nothing.
Cassia looked like she might throw up.
Quill's voice was calm. "How guarded."
Vasha's answer came immediate. "Not like a fortress. Like a trap that expects small thieves. Heavy mechs as 'security.' Vehicles. Turrets. And one Clan response element nearby—fast. They will try to burn the node before you can take it."
Dack nodded once. "Good."
Lyra's voice came low. "That weird cleanup contract… it's probably tied to this."
Dack looked up at the bay lights like they were stars. "Yeah."
Morrigan leaned closer, voice quiet. "So we hit Sailhook first."
Dack's reply was blunt. "We take the key. Then we hunt the ship."
Jinx bounced on her toes like a kid before a fight. "We're stealing a JumpShip."
Dack stared at her. "We're stealing options."
Jinx beamed. "Same thing."
---
They rolled out an hour later.
The Leopard went first—low, fast, lights out, Lyra flying like she was cutting through black water. It skimmed the ridge line and vanished into the night side haze to recon the yard and paint lanes.
The Union stayed hidden, engines cold, waiting for Lyra's mark.
In the mech bay, Dack climbed into the Dire Wolf and sealed the canopy. The world tightened into instruments and hard air. He ran a last check: gauss charge stable, LRMs loaded, AC/10 feed good. Heat sinks strained but functional. Armor patched but not whole.
He keyed the lance net. "Same rules. We're not here to win a duel. We're here to take an object."
Quill's voice came steady from the Awesome cockpit. "Objective first."
Taila's voice came low from the Marauder. "Copy."
Morrigan from the Orion: "Copy."
Cassia from the Griffin: "Copy."
Jinx from the Highlander: "Copy. Can I kill someone?"
Dack's voice didn't change. "If they make you."
Jinx sighed dramatically. "Fine."
Lyra's voice came over comms from the Leopard, hushed. "Eyes on Sailhook. It's not a yard—it's a corpse they keep animating. Heat signatures inside three main sheds. Perimeter turrets. Vehicle patrols. I see a mech bay door on the south side. Three heavy silhouettes inside. One assault—maybe."
"Names," Dack said.
Lyra hesitated. "I'm reading them through scrap shielding. One looks like a Warhammer. One's a Catapult. One's… Thunderbolt. Assault is a Victor—I think."
Morrigan made a pleased sound. "Victor's salvage is good."
"We're not here for salvage," Dack said.
Jinx: "We can be here for both."
Dack ignored her. "Any Clan shapes?"
Lyra's pause was longer. "Not inside. But I've got faint signatures fifteen klicks out—fast movers. Could be a reaction element holding outside sensor range."
Quill's voice went colder. "They're waiting to burn it."
Dack nodded inside his cockpit. "We go hard. We go fast."
Lyra's voice tightened. "I can drop you on the north lip in the Leopard—fast insert."
"We use the Union," Dack said. "Leopard stays clean. We may need it later."
Lyra didn't argue. "Copy. I'll mark the landing cut."
A minute later, the Union lifted—quiet but heavy, hugging terrain, engines throttled to avoid painting the sky.
They came down behind a basalt ridge three klicks from Sailhook, ramp dropping into cold dark.
Moonjaw deployed.
Night swallowed them.
---
Sailhook looked like a pirate yard until you stared too long.
Scrap piles formed lanes like someone had organized them, not piled them. Floodlights were angled for kill-zones. The perimeter turrets were old models, but their tracking servos were smooth and recently serviced. Vehicles patrolled with discipline pirates didn't have.
The sign welded above the main gate read:
SABLEGLASS REAVERS — PRIVATE PROPERTY
Below it were skulls. Real ones. Painted.
Dack's Dire Wolf crested a ridge and stared down at the yard like it was prey.
He keyed comms. "Morrigan. Block south exit. Quill. You and Jinx hit the mech shed. Taila—right flank with Cassia. Don't chase. We cut to the comm bunker."
Jinx's voice lit up. "Finally."
Quill: "Copy."
Taila: "Copy."
Cassia: "Copy."
Morrigan: "Copy."
Dack stepped forward.
The Dire Wolf's first LRM ripple rose into the night and fell into the yard's outer vehicle line. Explosions tore trucks apart. A fuel hauler caught fire and turned into a rolling torch. Men ran in the floodlight glare—some of them burning.
The perimeter turrets swung immediately, tracking Dack's Dire Wolf.
Quill fired first—one PPC bolt from the Awesome, blue-white and brutal, shearing a turret mount off its base.
Jinx followed with a gauss shot from the Highlander that punched through a second turret and turned its internal mechanism into shrapnel.
"Door," Dack said.
The mech shed doors began to open.
Three silhouettes moved inside—heavy and fast for their size.
The Warhammer stepped out first, PPCs flashing. A bolt struck Dack's torso armor and peeled plating away.
Dack answered with his AC/10—one shell into the Warhammer's shoulder, forcing it to twist.
The Catapult emerged next, missile racks rising.
Jinx laughed and fired her LRMs, not to kill, but to force the Catapult into a stagger.
The Thunderbolt came out last, autocannon barking toward Quill's Awesome.
Quill didn't retreat. She planted and answered with a steady PPC cadence—one bolt into the Thunderbolt's chest that made it glow and smoke.
Taila and Cassia moved along the right flank, hugging scrap piles and the shadowed edge of the yard.
A Jenner darted out of cover and tried to intercept them—fast, angry, confident.
Cassia called it. "Jenner right—close."
Taila's Marauder fired a PPC bolt that caught the Jenner's torso and made it stumble.
Cassia followed with an LRM volley that forced it to back off, armor sparking.
"Good," Dack said.
He didn't praise often. The one word hit harder than a speech.
In the yard, men in light armor tried to swarm the mechs with shoulder rockets and satchel charges like this was a movie.
It wasn't.
A man sprinted with a charge toward Quill's Awesome, screaming.
Quill's Awesome stepped forward once—one heavy footfall—crushing him into the dirt so fast the scream ended mid-breath.
Dack saw another one sprinting toward Taila's Marauder.
He put a gauss shot into the ground in front of the runner—not as a warning.
As a lesson.
The impact turned basalt and flesh into a wet mist. Pieces rained down.
The rest of the infantry stopped trying to be brave.
Then the comm bunker lights blinked on.
A low structure at the center of the yard—half-buried, armored doors, antenna mast rising like a black spear.
Dack turned toward it. "Objective."
Jinx and Quill were already grinding the heavy mechs back with controlled brutality.
Jinx's gauss shot clipped the Catapult's launcher housing and tore armor away. The Catapult tried to reposition, missiles firing wide.
Quill's PPCs hammered the Warhammer's midsection, heat spiking it, forcing it to slow.
The Thunderbolt tried to push Quill off the line—
—and Jinx put an AC/20-like thump of her own (gauss recoil) into its center mass and made it step back.
Dack didn't linger.
He advanced on the comm bunker.
The yard's Victor finally rose from behind a scrap ridge—assault silhouette, jump jets flaring.
It landed hard, autocannon roaring at Dack's Dire Wolf.
The shells chewed plating off Dack's left torso. Warnings screamed.
Dack didn't back up.
He fired an LRM ripple into the Victor's upper body, forcing it to twist, then followed with the AC/10 into its knee plating.
The Victor staggered—didn't fall.
"Boss," Jinx said, voice sharp now. "We've got movement outside the yard. Fast. Clan-fast."
Lyra's voice came in over comms from the Leopard, confirming. "Contacts just broke cover. Two mediums, one heavy. They're coming in hot."
Quill's voice stayed cold. "They'll burn the bunker."
Dack's eyes locked on the comm bunker door.
"Taila," he said. "Cassia. Door."
Taila's Marauder moved in, covering the approach. Cassia's Griffin stayed back, overwatch steady, feeding target data and calling angles.
Dack stepped up to the bunker door and fired his AC/10 once—not to blow it apart, but to crack the locking mechanism. Metal screamed. The door buckled.
Taila fired her PPC into the seam, heat and force tearing the hinge line.
The door gave.
Inside, people screamed.
Dack's Dire Wolf leaned down and used a torso laser sweep—not elegant, not merciful—just enough to stop anyone inside from reaching for the console.
Silence followed, broken by crackling electrical fire.
Dack's voice was flat. "Lyra. Bring the salvage crawler forward."
"I don't have a crawler," Lyra said.
Dack paused. "Then use the winch cart."
Rook's voice came over ship net, eager and tense. "We can remote the deck winch and a cargo sled."
Rafe: "We built—"
Rook: "—one."
Dack didn't ask how. "Do it."
The bunker shook as something heavy hit its far wall—an incoming PPC bolt, close.
The Clan response element had arrived.
A sleek medium silhouette sprinted into the yard—Shadow Cat, moving like a blade. Behind it came a Hellhound (Conjurer), jump jets flaring. And behind them—a heavy shape with shoulder racks and hunched posture—
Mad Dog (Vulture).
Jade Shadow teeth.
Not raiders.
Not pirates.
Real.
The Shadow Cat fired first, long-range and precise, clipping the comm mast and detonating it in a shower of sparks.
The Hellhound jumped, landing on a scrap ridge to get a clear lane—
—and fired into the bunker area, trying to ignite what mattered.
The Mad Dog launched missiles high.
Dack's cockpit lit with warning tones.
"Ring," he said. "Same as before. Don't let them burn it."
The yard turned into a slaughterhouse.
Quill's Awesome pivoted and fired a PPC bolt into the Hellhound mid-landing, forcing it to stumble. Jinx fired a gauss shot at the Shadow Cat's leg, making it break its run and change angle.
Morrigan's Orion held the south lane like a locked door, AC/10 barking into a Sableglass truck that tried to flee with something in its bed—maybe another copy of the key. The truck exploded, flipping end over end, bodies thrown like rag dolls.
Taila's Marauder took a hit from the Victor—autocannon rounds tearing plating from her right arm.
Taila's breathing went fast over comms.
Dack's voice cut in. "Stay with me."
Taila swallowed. "Copy."
Cassia called targets, voice tight but steady now. "Shadow Cat shifting left. Mad Dog is setting up missile saturation on the bunker. Hellhound pushing for a burn angle."
Dack stepped in front of the bunker entrance and fired his LRMs into the Mad Dog's approach lane—not to kill it, but to force it to reposition.
The Mad Dog ignored him and launched anyway.
Missiles fell toward the comm bunker like steel rain.
Dack moved without thinking—Dire Wolf torso turning, stepping into the impact line, taking the missile wash across his own armor.
Explosions hammered him. Armor flaked away. Alarms screamed.
He stayed upright.
Because if he didn't, the bunker burned—and the key died with it.
Quill's voice cut in, low. "You're taking too much."
Dack's reply was blunt. "I can."
Jinx's voice snapped bright. "And we're not letting you do it alone."
Her Highlander moved in, gauss rifle firing once into the Mad Dog's torso, forcing it to twist and bleed armor. Quill followed with two PPC bolts into the Hellhound's chest, heat spiking it hard.
The Hellhound tried to jump again—
—and taila's Marauder put a PPC bolt into its leg assembly mid-boost, making it land ugly.
Cassia fired a single LRM volley—authorized without asking because the situation demanded it—into the Hellhound's flank, finishing the destabilization.
The Hellhound toppled sideways into scrap, metal screaming.
The Shadow Cat tried to slip around the ring to get a clean shot into the bunker's exposed interior.
Morrigan saw it and moved the Orion despite the knee chatter.
Her AC/10 fired once, catching the Shadow Cat's shoulder plating and forcing it to break off.
Morrigan's voice was vicious. "Not touching my ship."
The Victor roared again and fired at Taila—trying to knock her away from the bunker.
Dack pivoted and put an AC/10 shell into the Victor's knee plating again, then followed with a gauss shot that tore armor away at the joint.
The Victor staggered hard.
Taila used the moment to shift and keep her body between the Victor and the bunker entrance.
She was learning.
Under fire.
In the worst way.
Then the cargo sled appeared—rolling down the Union's ramp lane on remote control, winch cable singing, guided by the twins' hands like a puppet.
Rook: "Sled—"
Rafe: "—in—"
Rook: "—motion."
Dack keyed them. "Get the core."
Rafe: "Where—"
Rook: "—exact—"
Dack: "Back wall. Steel crate. Marked with a white hook."
The sled rolled into the bunker entrance area.
Inside, a man in a stained comm vest crawled toward the crate, shaking, trying to drag it deeper.
Dack didn't shoot him.
He stepped his Dire Wolf forward, lowering the cockpit line like a predator leaning in.
The man froze.
Dack's voice came over external speakers, filtered and monstrous. "Hands."
The man lifted his hands, sobbing.
Dack keyed comms. "Taila. Grab him. Not dead."
Taila's Marauder stepped in and pinned the man with its shadow, then extended a manipulator to snatch him up carefully enough not to crush him.
The man screamed anyway.
Dack didn't care. "He lives."
Jinx laughed. "You're getting soft."
Dack's reply was immediate. "No."
The twins' sled winch clamped onto the crate and began hauling it out of the bunker.
The Mad Dog realized what was happening and surged forward, missile racks rising again.
Quill's Awesome planted itself in its lane, PPCs firing in steady cadence. One bolt peeled armor from the Mad Dog's torso. Another forced it to twist.
Jinx's Highlander fired her gauss rifle again into the Mad Dog's shoulder assembly, making it stumble.
The Shadow Cat darted wide, trying to find a lane past Morrigan—
—and Morrigan shifted the Orion again, knee chattering like it wanted to break, blocking the angle anyway.
The Shadow Cat fired.
A shot hit the Orion's damaged knee plating.
Morrigan hissed through comms, pain and anger. "Son of—"
Dack's voice went hard. "Fall back two steps. Don't lose the leg."
Morrigan didn't want to obey.
She did anyway.
Taila stayed on the Victor, keeping it from pressing the bunker. The Victor tried to jump and reposition—
—and Taila's PPC hit it mid-shift, forcing it to land wrong. It staggered.
Cassia called it. "Victor's unstable. Joint damage."
Dack didn't waste it. He fired the AC/10 into the Victor's knee and the gauss into the same joint a heartbeat later.
The Victor collapsed to one knee.
Its pilot tried to eject.
The canopy blew.
The seat launched—
—and clipped the scrap ridge on the way out.
The pilot spun, hit the ground wrong, and stopped moving.
Dack didn't watch long. He turned back to the objective.
The crate hit the sled ramp and rolled back toward the Union on winch tension, sparks flying.
Rook's voice came fast. "Core—"
Rafe: "—secured—"
Rook: "—moving."
Lyra's voice cut in, sharp. "More heat signatures. The yard's trying to light off fuel bladders. If it goes up, your bay's going to feel it."
Dack's eyes flicked to the yard's fuel stacks—massive bladders, hoses, tanks. A Sableglass crew was running with igniters toward them like rats trying to burn the nest.
Dack keyed the net. "Jinx. Stop them."
Jinx sounded delighted. "With pleasure."
Her Highlander fired a tight LRM spread into the fuel stack area—not enough to detonate the whole yard, but enough to turn the running men into shredded meat and force the rest to dive for cover.
The Mad Dog fired again—missiles saturating the yard.
Dack took part of it. Quill took part of it. Taila took part of it.
They held.
The crate reached the Union ramp.
Lyra's voice went tight and satisfied. "Got it."
Dack didn't relax. "Extract."
Moonjaw began to fall back in disciplined order, still firing controlled shots to deny lanes.
The Shadow Cat tried to chase.
Jinx fired gauss into the ground in front of it, forcing it to veer.
Quill's PPC bolts punished it as it moved.
The Mad Dog tried to hold the yard long enough to burn the bunker anyway—
—and Dack fired one final LRM ripple into the bunker roof, collapsing it inward on the remaining Sableglass staff like a closing fist.
No key inside anymore.
Just bodies.
Then Moonjaw disappeared behind the basalt ridge and into the Union's shadow.
The yard behind them burned.
Not from a clean sanitizer strike.
From chaos.
From a fight that went wrong.
From a merc unit that refused to die quietly.
---
Inside the Union, the bay doors sealed and the air turned thick with heat and smoke.
The crate sat on the deck like a coffin.
Lyra stood over it with a slate in hand, eyes calm and sharp. The triplets hovered nearby, awkward and tense, watching the crate like it might explode into romance and they wouldn't know what to do with it.
Rook and Rafe were already cutting seals with practiced hands, eyes shining.
Rafe: "This—"
Rook: "—is—"
Rafe: "—not—"
Rook: "—pirate—"
Rafe: "—gear."
Rook: "Too—"
Rafe: "—clean."
Dack climbed down from the Dire Wolf, sweat cooling on his skin. He looked at Morrigan's limp and the Orion's damaged knee readouts and said nothing—but his eyes held it.
He looked at Taila's scorched Marauder arm plating and said, "You stayed."
Taila swallowed, cheeks hot, voice small. "Yeah."
Dack nodded once. "Good."
Jinx wandered up beside him, still grinning, but she held one hand against her stomach like she was trying to pretend the movement meant nothing.
Lyra noticed, and her eyes softened for a fraction—then went hard again.
Quill stood at Dack's shoulder like a blade that didn't sleep.
"Open it," Dack said.
The twins popped the crate.
Inside wasn't gold.
It was worse.
A compact, armored data core with layered housings and a white hook symbol stamped into the metal. Beside it: a sealed spool of transponder chips and a small, shock-proof case labeled in tidy block text:
CIPHER MATRIX — SAILHOOK
Lyra's fingers moved fast over her slate as she plugged a reader in.
Data spilled.
Routing chains. Timetables. Jump windows. Docking collar assignments.
And the one line that made the whole room go cold:
SHRIKE'S STEP — COLLAR 2 — AUTH WINDOW: 07:10–07:18
Lyra looked up at Dack. "We can get close."
Quill's voice was calm. "Close enough to die."
Jinx's grin returned, fierce and bright. "Close enough to steal it."
Morrigan's mouth curled. "Close enough to make them bleed."
Taila stared at the line like it was a future she didn't know how to hold yet.
Dack looked at the data and felt the shape of the next war forming.
He didn't smile.
But he didn't hesitate either.
"Good," he said. "Now we make them chase."
He turned back toward the Dire Wolf's cockpit ladder, because the only place he let himself count was inside the machine—where numbers were just another piece of truth.
He climbed in and sealed the canopy.
The world tightened into instruments and heat.
He said the number quietly, for himself.
"Eighty-nine."
Then he looked at the new problem sitting on his ship's deck—a key that could open a JumpShip—and started planning how to take a spine without letting the teeth bite his throat out.