Elias, now freed, moved past the security checkpoints near ports and hangars and into the dock district without hurry.
Neon signs lit up cheap shops, bad hotels, bars, and other businesses quilted into the walls of the steel-reinforced street. Above, the station's spine opened into a cavernous ceiling, throwing hundreds of holo ads across the steel that cycled through every hour like they never slept.
Below street level, there were more businesses. The lights thinned. The doors multiplied. Alleys opened between stalls and shuttered entrances; some places had no signage at all, just hours and assumptions.
Elias didn't linger. He slipped into the lower transit and boarded a train that ran the length of the column, carrying him to the end of the station he actually knew. Sixty kilometers away.
He came to a sign that flickered in and out in neon green. Words in a language he couldn't read. A shop wedged into what used to be an alleyway, like someone had built it in a hurry and never bothered to apologize.
But he knew the store.
And the store didn't know him.
That was why he chose it.
The business didn't greet him with words, just eyes.
Elias moved through claustrophobic aisles that seemed to carry anything and everything. He took a stuff sack made of thick, heavy material, reinforced stitching, one strap, big enough for essentials and small enough to live by his feet in an interceptor. He tossed in dense nutrition blocks, a water bottle, a med-kit, seals, toiletries, and a thin hoodie, then brought it to the counter.
"Anything else?" the scaly clerk asked, eyes dipping to the hexagonal thermal pleating under Elias'shalf-zipped jacket. His voice, like gravel.
Pilot. Merc. Scav. Smuggler. Didn't matter.
Elias nodded toward the unmarked boxes stacked behind him.
"Forty 10mm sabot cartridges. Aluminum and tungsten. Four three-hundred-gram breaching charges. Remote activation."
The clerk didn't blink. "We don't sell those here."
"Yes, you do."
"No, we don't."
Elias held his stare, voice level. "You do. Get them."
For a moment, the only sound was the buzz of the neon sign outside, stuttering through the wall.
Then the clerk turned and set six unmarked boxes on the counter with a long, clawed hand. He cracked them open just enough to show Elias he'd get what he paid for.
"Charges are forty k. Aluminum is one. Tungsten is ten. The fluff is nine hundred."
He slid a reader onto the counter like he'd done it a thousand times.
Elias pressed his terminal to it. A chime. Transaction verified.
As Elias packed the goods, the clerk took the same reader and tapped it against the mounted terminal on the counter. Another chime.
Elias'sscreen lit with a receipt listing groceries, booze, and a dozen forgettable items. Total: 51,900 credits.
A perfectly boring transaction.
He left. Heading for the contractor docks.
Food stalls lined the routes' turns and back streets, heat lamps and grease-smoke fighting the station's cold metal breath. He knew exactly which stall was safe. He also knew he didn't have the energy to stand there and chew synthetic food.
He was hungry, sure. But he was exhausted first.
Staying vertical was starting to feel optional after operating for more than eighty-two hours straight, with half a dozen near-death moments still rattling around behind his eyes. All he wanted now was a room that locked from the inside.
He flashed his guild ID at a gate terminal and cut through a hangar bay instead of taking the long public route.
The space opened wide around him. Fifty ships at least, lined wing-to-wing in cradles and clamps. Contractors, couriers, ugly private frames with patched plating and tired paint.
Then he saw it.
A dark, gangly silhouette with sickle wings.
Hangman.
So they moved it here.
Elias slowed to a stop. His throat went dry.
They didn't say anything about my sleeping in an unregistered frame.
He pictured the hotel again. The walk. The check-in. The eyes. Another kilometer of pretending he wasn't running on fumes.
He took a step toward the interceptor.
A hand clamped his shoulder.
"Are you sleepwalking, Eli, or have you finally lost it?"
Elias'shand went to his holster on instinct. Muscle memory. Reflex. Then the voice registered, and he forced it down.
He turned.
A man a couple years younger than him. Late twenties. Blonde hair cut short. A neck corded thick in the way pilots got from straps and long pulls under G. He wore a bomber jacket a size too big and a duffle slung over one shoulder, heavy enough to drag his posture and tug his flight-suit collar into view. His build was wiry, his eyes tired, like he'd just stepped out of a cockpit and hadn't decided whether to sleep or keep moving.
"Mike."
Mike stepped into view with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You look like a wrecked-out pilot."
Elias didn't answer.
Mike glanced past him at the interceptor. "Seriously, though. Why are you walking toward another merc's rust bucket?"
A beat.
"I did wreck out," Elias said.
Mike blinked. "You did what?"
"And that's my rust bucket."
Mike's grin twitched. "Since when did you end up in that coffin?"
Elias stared at Hangman like it was a dare. "Since today."
"I have so many questions. Wait, don't tell me you plan on sleeping in that thing."
"Well, it's secure. And it has a seat."
"Eli, no. It's freezing in here."
"I'll live."
"If you need to crash, choose my couch over a metal chair."
Elias exhaled through his nose. "Fair point. I'll hit the hotel. It's closer, and it has fewer kids with a million questions."
"Are you sure?" Mike's grin came back, sharper. "I just got back from a transport run to a Beta-sector farm-world."
Elias narrowed his eyes. "You're not saying…"
"Yep. Six hundred grams of real red meat." Mike patted the duffel like it was sacred. "We're having it for dinner tonight."
Elias could barely remember his last real meal. Real meat was a noble commodity this far from habitable worlds.
"Are you sure?" he said, and hated how honest it sounded. "That's a six-week run. Seems like a waste to offer it on a whim."
"It's not a whim. And it's not a waste." Mike jerked his head toward the exit. "Come on, while it's still frozen. I want to hear how the platinum pride of the Second Ring wrecked out."
Elias started walking. "Alright. But don't call me that again."