Chapter 47 · The Graveyard Shift

The Mynock came out of hyperspace like a sigh.

Stars reasserted themselves one by one, cold and indifferent. In front of them hung a pale moon wrapped in a ring so dense it blurred at the edges—metallic dust, broken hulls, shattered ships caught in slow, patient orbit. The sight filled the cockpit window until it felt like the world itself was rusting.

Eli throttled down, jaw slack. “Well,” he said quietly, “someone’s been busy.”

“Correction,” Stent said. “Someone’s been dying.”

The sensors struggled to find a baseline. Wreckage confused the readings—too many power cores long since bled dry, too many metallic echoes overlapping. The computer chirped, defeated.

He’d seen graveyards before—old battlefields, forgotten convoys—but never anything like this. The derelicts turned slowly in the pale light of the moon, hulls overlapping in impossible shapes. Imperial destroyers, Chiss transports, freighters, colony ships: all crushed into a slow dance of decay. Some still bore the faint gleam of their paint, names half-visible before being swallowed by corrosion. Others had no markings left at all.

It was beautiful in the way a wound could be.

“Any heat signatures?” Eli asked.

Stent’s eyes flicked to the display. “Minor. Sparse ion trails. Scavenger activity, most likely.”

“Figures.” Eli rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This close to the Chaos, people’ll pick apart ghosts if there’s a profit in it.”

He leaned forward, peering at the readings. “Coolant valves are standard issue for a lot of these old hulls. We might find a replacement in there.”

“That assumes we can reach it without drawing attention.”

“Since when do you mind attention?” Eli said.

“When it interferes with survival.”

Eli grinned faintly. “You’re learning.”

He guided the ship into the ring, easing between the first layer of debris. Massive shadows slid past, blotting out the stars—broken hulls that looked big enough to contain cities. The sensors kept flickering, unable to tell where one wreck ended and another began.

The comm filled with the faint whine of static as they passed through interference zones. Micrometeorites sparked like fireflies against the Mynock’s deflectors. Somewhere deep in the ring, a broken reactor still leaked plasma in long blue ribbons.

“Keep us at sub-thrust,” Stent said. “Power output low enough to blend with background radiation.”

Eli nodded. “Right. Quiet as corpses.”

They moved deeper, the ship’s lights cutting a narrow tunnel through darkness. The ring thickened around them until the field looked alive—wrecks drifting in slow synchrony, old hulls brushing each other with metallic sighs.

He caught himself holding his breath. The scale was overwhelming. It wasn’t just a graveyard; it was a harvest. Someone had been collecting.

The proximity alarm chirped once. A voice speaking in Basic followed—flat, distorted, filtered through too many repeaters.

“Unidentified vessel, you are entering the protected salvage perimeter of Ragpicker Nine. Cut engines and transmit cargo manifest.”

Eli arched an eyebrow. “Protected perimeter. That’s a new way to say ‘mine.’”

Stent adjusted the comm. “Respond?”

“Yeah. Nicely.” Eli keyed the mic. “Ragpicker Nine, this is trader Mynock. Just passing through, looking for coolant valve lines. Not here to cut your profits.”

“Every hull in this ring is claimed, Mynock. You want to scavenge, you pay.”

“Pay how much?”

“Depends on what you’ve got.”

Eli muted the channel and looked at Stent. “We’ve got… what, exactly?”

“Two coolant cartridges, a box of ration packs, and my patience. I doubt they are interested in cloth.”

Eli sighed. “So nothing, then.” He thought for a moment. “Navigation data. That’s our only currency.”

Stent turned toward him. “Unwise. Routes are strategic information.”

“Out here, they’re worth more than money,” Eli said. “We can trade partial coordinates—old ones, incomplete. Just enough to look tempting.”

He unmuted the mic. “Ragpicker Nine, we’ve got coolant gel, stabilizer packs, and a set of jump coordinates skirting the Chaos. Fresh. Untested.”

A pause. Then a different voice—older, rasping, interested.

“Routes? You’re either very bold or very stupid, Mynock. Send a sample. If it checks, we’ll talk.”

Eli cut transmission, glanced at Stent. “Bold or stupid?”

“Both are frequently synonymous.”

Eli smirked. “Good. I’d hate to be predictable.”

He sent the dummy data—a fragment of an old patrol vector stitched with harmless distortion. It looked authentic enough to a surface check but would fold in on itself long before hitting anything valuable.

Within moments, the other ship’s beacon brightened on their scanners. A hulk pieced together from at least three vessels lumbered out of the wreckage—a freighter’s body, a corvette’s engines, and a shuttle cockpit welded on like an afterthought. Lights flickered across its patchwork hull. The words RAGPICKER NINE were stenciled upside down on one of the plating strips.

Eli grinned. “She’s beautiful.”

“She is an abomination,” Stent said flatly.

“That’s what I meant.”

“Coordinates check,” the comm crackled. “You can approach, Mynock. Stay under half-thrust and keep weapons offline. No funny moves.”

Eli switched to external view. “Half-thrust it is.”

“They are outnumbered,” Stent said. “Their formation indicates defensive posture only.”

“I’ll try not to test it,” Eli said. “We’ll make the trade, grab what we need, and leave before they change their minds.”

“Assuming they have minds.”

“I’ll take that as optimism,” Eli said, and smiled as the Mynock slid deeper into the shadow of the scavenger fleet—
lights flickering like votive candles across the bones of dead ships.

The Mynock drifted through the tangle of wrecks until the patchwork freighter of Ragpicker Nine filled the viewport—its lights flickering yellow, hull scarred, docking port outlined in red hazard paint. Someone had attached the port upside down. Eli found that oddly endearing.

“Transmit docking handshake,” Stent said.

Eli keyed it in. “Handshakes and smiles, that’s our specialty.”

“Then I will expect neither to work.”

The port alignment took three tries and a gentle bump before the clamps latched. The airlock groaned like an old throat clearing. Docking complete, such as it was.

The scavenger ship’s interior smelled like stall ozone and warm metal, the scent of too many power cells burning too close together. The corridor was narrow, panels stripped for scrap. They were led through by a woman in mismatched armor plates who introduced herself as Captain Yanda. Her voice carried the clipped rhythm of someone who’d stopped trusting long ago.

They reached a cramped hold doubling as a negotiation chamber. Screens flickered against the walls, each showing a feed from different sections of the ring. Wrecks everywhere—industrial skeletons, forgotten wars, the leftovers of centuries.

Eli rested a hand casually on the table. “Coolant valves, type C—two if you’ve got them. And maybe a secondary pump. Our recycler’s developed a sense of humor.”

Yanda studied him from across the table. “That depends on what you’re offering.”

“Coolant gel, reactor stabilizers, and coordinates along the edge of the Chaos.”

That got everyone’s attention. Heads turned. Someone behind Yanda muttered, “Keep your gel and stabilizers. Coordinates are blood money.”

“Exactly,” Eli said with an easy smile. “And we’re bleeding value.”

While he spoke, Stent stood slightly behind him, silent and perfectly still. His eyes moved without seeming to—tracking each scavenger, each weapon half-hidden under a coat or behind a crate. He was the only one who noticed the hull outside the viewport: a massive freighter, half-absorbed by the ring, its engines still marked with an insignia that didn’t belong to any known syndicate.

The pattern—a curling set of interlocking arcs—made his pulse race.

Grysk.

He hadn’t seen their design in this area yet, and the realization hit like a knife behind the ribs.

He didn’t react outwardly. Chiss discipline was a language of stillness. But his breathing changed. He scanned again—other scavenger ships in the distance, patched with pieces of that same alien metal. A clear pattern. The Grysk were here. They had stablished an outpost.

The Mynock, he realized, was the only thing keeping them invisible. Its hull carried no Chiss markings, no familiar energy signature. A scrap ship among scraps.

“Problem?” Eli’s voice drifted back softly.

“None,” Stent said. “Continue.”

The deal went on. Yanda’s crew examined the data Eli had offered—a set of cut-up border coordinates stitched into a believable map. Their tech pronounced them “good enough.”

“You get your valves,” Yanda said. “We keep the routes.”

Eli’s gaze drifted past her to a rack of sealed suits leaning against the bulkhead—gray, boxy, Imperial-issue, the kind of equipment that looked both ancient and indestructible. He tilted his head toward them. “What about one of those? Looks like you’ve got a few to spare.”

Yanda followed his eyes, suspicious. “Surplus stock. Old Imperial make. Not part of the deal.”

“I can sweeten it,” Eli said. “Another partial vector, nothing critical. Half a jump east of the Chaos line—clean and unregistered.”

Her expression shifted. Greed always had a tell. “Fine. One suit. But you throw in that vector.”

“Deal.”

Stent’s gaze flicked to him, unreadable. “Ensure it lacks a tail port,” he said quietly.

Eli smirked. “I’ll check before I model it.”

They completed the transfer in uneasy quiet. A loader droid trundled up, carrying two coolant valves, one half-busted pump, and a faded gray spacesuit tagged with a peeling serial number. The seal along the collar still bore the faint outline of the Imperial cog. Eli gave it a once-over, nodding.

“Functional enough,” he said. “Smells like regret.”

“Then it will match the ship,” Stent murmured.

Eli caught the tone but didn’t comment. He was too busy watching the scavengers glance over their shoulders, too busy noticing how nervous everyone suddenly looked. Outside the viewport, the debris field shimmered with a slow pulse of light—somewhere, something big moved in the ring, a shadow larger than any freighter.

“Did you see that?” Eli asked.

“Nothing significant,” Stent said quickly. “We should depart.”

Yanda’s eyes darted to the same spot, her jaw tightening. “Trade’s done,” she said. “You got what you came for. I’d leave while you still can.”

“Noted,” Eli said. “Thanks for the hospitality.”

“Don’t thank me,” Yanda said. “Just don’t come back.”

Back aboard the Mynock, the new coolant valves sat strapped down beside the engineering console, still sealed in their crates. Eli reached for his tools, but Stent intercepted the gesture.

“Not here,” Stent said.

Eli blinked. “What do you mean, not here? We’ve got half the system about to fail, and if one of the regulators blows we’ll cook the drive—or ourselves.”

“We will make the replacement once we are clear of this orbit.”

Eli frowned, heat rising in his voice. “That’s not smart. The coolant’s running at a quarter pressure and the stabilizer’s whining. We should patch it here while we’ve got a graveyard full of parts and people who actually know what’s been happening to the buoys.”

Stent’s reply came sharp, final. “No. We leave. Now.”

Eli studied him. The measured calm was still there, but beneath it ran something else—tightness at the edges, the coiled stillness of someone listening for a sound he didn’t want to hear.

He gave a slow nod. “You saw something out there.”

“I saw enough,” Stent said. “Prepare for departure.”

Eli sealed the old suit into the locker, brushing a smear of dust from its chest plate. “Imperial surplus,” he said quietly. “Kind of poetic, isn’t it?”

“Poetry is rarely safe,” Stent replied, already at the controls.

“Neither’s breathing,” Eli muttered, strapping in. “But I guess we’ll risk that too.”

The engines came alive with a shudder, lights flickering along the cockpit walls.

“You think they’ll come after us?” Eli asked.

“No,” Stent said after a moment. “They have larger prey to hunt.”

Eli turned toward him. “Meaning?”

“Meaning we are fortunate to be small.”

He didn’t elaborate, and Eli didn’t press

The Mynock began to slip through the metallic haze of the ring, leaving Ragpicker Nine behind. The scavenger freighter’s beacon passing by the nav screen—one more sickly star in the wreck field.

Eli kept the ship at low thrust, sensors dimmed. “You sure you don’t want to stop for ten minutes and bolt those valves in?”

“No,” Stent said. “We put distance first.”

“Right,” Eli muttered. “Because nothing says safety like flying with a cracked coolant line through a field of exploding antiques.”

He adjusted the trim tabs. The Mynock groaned in response, her pitch unsteady. The nav controls tugged to the left. He corrected, but the drag came back stronger.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “We’ve got lateral resistance on port side.”

“Micrometeorite strike?”

Eli shook his head. “Feels heavier than that.”

He toggled the external feed. The rear camera flickered to life, showing the ship’s flank bathed in ghost light from the ring. A line gleamed faintly across the plating—taut, metallic, stretching back into the dark.

“Cables,” he said. “Docking cables. Someone’s still got us leashed.”

Stent leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “They attached during docking.”

Eli’s throat went dry. “To keep us from leaving, or to reel us back in?”

“Both,” Stent said, already unstrapping. “Take the controls. Maintain vector and counter thrust as needed.”

“Where are you going?”

“To remove them.”

“You can’t EVA here; the debris field’s alive.”

“That is preferable to remaining tethered to hostiles.”

Eli grabbed his arm. “At least let me—”

“No.” Stent’s tone had the weight of command again, cold and precise. “You will keep the ship steady.”

Eli stared at him, jaw tight. “Fine. But if you get clipped out there, I’m taking the Mynock straight through that freighter’s bridge.”

“Noted,” Stent said, already moving toward the airlock.

The airlock cycled with its usual stubborn delay. Eli kept the sensors tuned low, fingers hovering over the throttle. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but running with a tether was suicide.

The external cameras showed Stent emerging into the black, the borrowed alien suit gleaming faintly in reflected light. He moved with brutal efficiency, hand over hand along the hull until he reached the first anchor clamp.

Through the comm, Eli heard his voice, calm but edged. “Four cables total. Magnetic seals. Cutting.”

“Make it quick.”

“Efficiency is speed,” Stent said.

The first clamp blew free with a flash of sparks. The second came harder; Eli saw the arc of the cutter’s light and a thin spray of molten metal drifting away like dust.

Then the proximity alarm wailed.

Three signals on approach—fast, closing from astern. Ragpicker Nine’s escorts.

“Of course,” Eli muttered. “They couldn’t just let us leave.” He slapped the comm. “Stent, we’ve got company.”

“I am aware,” Stent said. “Two clamps remaining.”

“Make it one.”

Outside, the first burst of ion fire streaked past, lighting the viewport in electric blue. The blast grazed their aft deflector, rattling the hull. The Mynock shuddered like a living thing.

Eli throttled up the engines just enough to keep momentum without ripping the cables—and nearly tore the starboard mount loose.

“Hold steady,” Stent ordered.

“Hard to hold steady when they’re trying to turn us into art.”

“Then improvise.”

The second clamp came free. The third refused. Stent braced himself against the hull and fired the cutter again, sparks flying like small stars. One of the pursuing ships swept into view—an ugly skiff welded together from a dozen hulls, its forward cannon already charging.

Eli cursed under his breath. “They’re locking on!”

“Evasive pattern delta-four,” Stent said.

Eli rolled the ship hard to port, dragging the tether line taut. The motion snapped the final cable loose, sending the anchor spinning off into the dark. “You’re clear!”

“Then go.”

“Not without you.”

“I am aboard in ten seconds.”

Eli’s jaw clenched. “You’ve got five.”

The airlock indicator flickered green at the exact moment the next ion volley slammed into the ring debris nearby, scattering a cloud of molten fragments. The Mynock’s hull screamed under the stress.

“Now!” Stent’s voice cut through the comm. “Full thrust.”

Eli hit the throttle. The engines howled, throwing them forward through the debris. Jagged hulls spun past like falling blades. A scavenger ship fired a grappler; it missed by meters, the cable snapping harmlessly against a drifting freighter.

The Mynock clawed its way free of the ring, shaking violently as she punched through the last layer of wreckage. Then the sensors cleared, the noise fell away, and the stars stretched wide again.

Inside, the airlock cycled open. Stent stepped through, cutting torch still in hand, suit scorched along one arm. He sealed the hatch behind him, voice level. “Cables removed.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Eli said, hands trembling slightly on the controls. “Next time, maybe we ask for a receipt before we pay.”

“Next time,” Stent said, unstrapping his helmet, “we will not dock.”

Eli glanced at him. “They wanted more than cargo, didn’t they?”

“Possibly information,” Stent said. His expression gave away nothing. “Possibly something else.”

He sat, silent, as Eli brought the ship to cruising speed. In the viewport, the scavenger moon shrank to a speck, the ring gleaming like a wound stitched shut by gravity.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Eli exhaled a shaky laugh. “For traders, we’re very bad at trading.”

Stent’s answer was dry as vacuum. “We are improving.”

The Mynock limped through space for hours after the skirmish, engines muttering their grievances with every course correction. The coolant system wheezed at low pressure, and the stabilizers hummed like a tired choir. The ship felt wounded but stubborn—like her crew.

Eli watched the gravitic readings flatten back to normal. His pulse took longer. “You still don’t want to fix it here?” he asked quietly.

“No,” Stent said from the co-pilot’s chair. “We are far enough to drift unnoticed. We will perform the repairs at the next viable mass shadow.”

“‘Viable’ as in ‘not a field of angry scavengers,’ I hope.”

“Precisely.”

Eli ran a hand through the long hair on top of his head, he carried it loose now, staring at the sensor board. The afterimage of the ring still glowed faintly there—a scar on the map. “You think they were just after parts?”

Stent’s eyes stayed on the displays. “No. They were searching for something. They were too organized for random piracy.”

“Something like us?”

“Or something we carry.”

Eli didn’t like that phrasing. He looked down at his datapad instead—the one loaded with his harmonic-coordinate software. The same program that had dragged them out of the Ascendancy’s edge in a long chain of small, nerve-wracking jumps. Crude, painful, but functional after he’d bullied it into working. The lines of numbers blinked on the screen, steady and obedient, while everything else around them felt ready to break.

They found the derelict by accident, while trying to find a gravitational mass wich could shadow them.

A weak metallic echo pulsed on the long-range sensors—barely a blip at first, dismissed as debris. But it persisted, steady, faintly rhythmic. Stent magnified the image. “Transponder residue,” he said. “Ascendancy signature, very old.”

Eli looked at the coordinates. “You sure that’s not just another corpse in the pile?”

“I am sure,” Stent said. “We will investigate.”

“Of course we will,” Eli said under his breath. “We’ve done so well with first impressions lately.”

The wreck floated on the edge of a pale dust belt—a scout ship, or what had once been one. Its hull was folded inward, bridge gone, interior decks collapsed into a jagged mouth. A ribbon of metal trailed behind it, frozen mid-spin.

Whatever had destroyed the ship, had happened only a couple months ago.

The wreck’s registration came up in fractured bursts: Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet—Designation Redacted. That was the first bad sign. No Chiss record ever came up redacted in open relay; it meant someone had scrubbed it manually, and recently. Stent leaned forward, expression tightening as if the silence on the record was louder than static.

The second was the heat signature—a faint, repeating pulse buried deep in the broken hull.

“Residual power,” Stent said. “Minimal, but active.”

Eli frowned. “What’s still running in a ship that dead?”

Stent didn’t answer. He was already at the locker, pulling out his suit.

Eli groaned. “You know, for someone who hates risk, you’re addicted to it.”

“The difference,” Stent said, “is that I am proficient.”

Eli grinned despite himself. “Then let me be the reckless one for a change. I’ve got the new suit, and you can stay in here and calculate the odds.”

Stent regarded him for a long moment, then inclined his head slightly. “Agreed. You will take the cutter.”

“Finally,” Eli said, picking up the tool, “a promotion.”

The Imperial suit was heavier than he liked, but it sealed properly and didn’t leak, which already put it several leagues ahead of Stent’s alien relic. The visor’s HUD flickered in dull military font, cycling through oxygen levels and orientation. Every sound was magnified: the slow rasp of his breath, the faint hum of the thrusters, the muted click of mag boots on cold metal.

He drifted through the wreck’s fractured corridor, the beam from his wrist lamp slicing the dark. Dust motes hung suspended like frozen rain, tiny reflections of what had once been a ceiling. Insulation, metal fragments, the soft glitter of decompressed frost—it all drifted together in a slow, endless ballet. The silence pressed against his chest until he could hear his pulse in his ears.

“Pressure’s stable,” he reported. “No major radiation pockets.”

“Proceed,” Stent said through the comm. “Signal source is fifty meters forward, port side.”

Eli eased around a ruptured bulkhead, his boots scraping faintly. Then he saw it—half-fused into the inner plating, a relay buoy’s data core. Its casing was scorched, edges melted, but the interface light blinked faintly, stubborn as a heartbeat.

“Well, hello again,” he murmured. “Guess you didn’t make it home either.”

He waited for the inevitable order to fall back, but it didn’t come. Stent’s silence over the comm stretched until it became permission. “Continue,” the commander said at last, voice low and unreadable.

Eli anchored himself by the bulkhead and started his scan. The relay’s power cell hummed weakly, emitting a shallow, pulsing signature. Whatever had been done to it, someone had wanted it alive but wounded.

“Core’s stable,” he said. “Looks like someone patched in an auxiliary feed, then cut it loose.”

“Understood,” Stent said. “Maintain position. I will survey the forward compartment.”

“Going exploring, huh?”

“Affirmative.”

“Be careful,” Eli said, before he could stop himself.

A pause. “Always.”

The comm line stayed open. He could hear faint bursts of static—Stent moving through broken corridors ahead. Eli bent over the relay again, running diagnostics with one gloved hand, half his focus on the soft rhythm of Stent’s breathing in the background.

Minutes passed. Then Stent’s voice, softer than usual. “No bodies.”

Eli straightened. “None?”

“None. The crew quarters are empty. All sealed doors were opened manually from inside.”

“Maybe they got out.”

“Possibly.”

The channel went quiet again, filled only by the soft hiss of Eli’s own exhale. “What about escape pods?”

“Four mounts,” Stent said after a moment. “One remains. Three gone.”

Eli frowned behind the visor. “So at least some of them made it off.”

“Perhaps,” Stent said. The hesitation in that single word was new. “The remaining pod shows no launch marks. It was never used.”

Eli didn’t like the sound of that. “Then where the hell did the others go?”

No answer. Just the faint crackle of comm interference, like someone breathing on the line who wasn’t either of them.

The comm stayed open, the line filled with the faint whisper of static. Eli crouched beside the relay core, his wrist lamp throwing a circle of light across the melted casing. The buoy’s pulse was faint, a heartbeat half-buried in ice. He tuned it manually, fingers clumsy inside the thick gloves.

“Still operational,” he murmured. “Whatever hit it didn’t kill the core. Maybe they tried to reroute data through the ship’s grid.”

Static. Then Stent’s voice, quiet but clipped: “Continue. Do not attempt to access the external splice.”

Eli frowned. “It’s the only open interface.”

“Do not touch it,” Stent said, the emphasis sharper now. Then, more evenly: “Proceed with the internal logs only.”

Eli paused, glancing toward the corridor. “Copy that.”

He got back to work, running a scan to identify the buoy’s memory nodes. Around him, the ship seemed to shift—panels creaking as the metal cooled and expanded, the echo carrying through the vacuum like something alive. He kept one hand braced on the bulkhead to steady himself.

Farther forward, Stent moved through the wreck. His suit lights swept across silent consoles and the brittle remains of shattered terminals. No bodies. No uniforms. Not a trace of anyone, only loose straps where safety harnesses should have held them.

He reached the escape bay. Four pod mounts lined the wall, arranged with Ascendancy precision. Three were gone. The fourth remained, pristine, its hatch still sealed. No burn residue on the floor. No scoring from launch thrusters. It had never been used.

He stared at it for a long time.

The silence of the wreck pressed close—too still, too absolute. A wrong kind of emptiness. Something about the hull’s damage pattern, the arcs of melted alloy near the bridge, the faint residue of ionization along the outer plating—patterns that didn’t match any known Imperial or pirate weaponry. The spacing of the burns was... familiar. It made a part of him he didn’t like to think about go cold.

He flexed his gloved hand once before keying the comm. “Report.”

“Core’s may still hold a few logs,” Eli said. “I’ve got fragmentary metadata—mostly chatter. Nothing that looks like system diagnostics.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning this thing was sending messages. Personal ones, I think.” He shifted, trying to find better leverage on the casing. “I can strip the core out, but I’ll need to reroute its power first. Whoever was messing with it left a bunch of open leads.”

Stent didn’t answer immediately. He could see, even in his mind’s eye, what that entanglement would look like: alien filaments, smooth and organic, grown into the Chiss circuits like veins.

“Eli,” he said at last, voice tight. “Stop. Step away from the core.”

Eli hesitated. “What? It’s stable. I’ve almost got—”

“Stop.” The command came sharper this time.

Eli frowned. “You want a visual? I can patch my feed through—”

“No,” Stent said. “The suit’s receiver is nonfunctional. Just leave it. I’m coming for you.”

“Seriously? You’re making it sound like the thing’s contagious.”

“Do as I say.”

The edge in Stent’s tone left no room for argument. He cut the channel before Eli could protest.

He turned toward the corridor, forcing his breath into rhythm. His heart was racing again, that same old animal pulse he hadn’t felt since the campaigns in the deep regions. Grysk. The thought was a reflex, unwanted and absolute. He pushed it down, but it stayed—a cold thrum under the calm.

He moved faster than he meant to, light sweeping in narrow arcs across twisted bulkheads. Every scrape of his boots sounded too loud.

By the time he reached the relay chamber, Eli was waiting, arms crossed, cutter floating at his side.

“Stent,” Eli said dryly, “you look like you just ran a marathon.”

Stent ignored the comment, crouching to inspect the buoy. The spliced interface glinted faintly in the lamp’s glow. He didn’t touch it. “We’re done here.”

Eli sighed. “You’re really that rattled by seeing one of your ships like this, huh?”

“It is… unpleasant,” Stent said carefully. “Derelicts always are.”

“Yeah,” Eli said, softer now. “They always feel like they’re watching you.”

Stent didn’t reply. He reached for the relay core, disconnected the last lead with careful precision, and sealed it in a containment pouch. Then he stood and gestured toward the corridor. “Return to the ship.”

Eli didn’t argue. Whatever was sitting behind that composure wasn’t something he wanted to poke.

They crossed back through the broken hull in silence, passing the sealed escape pod one last time. Eli’s wrist lamp caught it as they passed—the clean lines of the Chiss insignia still visible on its side. Untouched. Perfect.

Back aboard the Mynock, Eli peeled out of the suit, sweat cooling on his neck. Stent moved like he always did: precise, economical, but quieter than usual. He stowed the sealed data core without a word and began running post-flight diagnostics.

Eli decided to give him space—or as much space as the Mynock’s two rooms allowed. He busied himself with the suit seals and tried not to think about the silence between them.

Later, as they broke orbit, Eli leaned forward in his chair. “You notice something weird?” he asked. “That Chiss ship’s not far from the graveyard moon. And it’s just… sitting there. Intact. No one’s stripped it. Not even those vultures from Ragpicker Nine. Out here, that’s unheard of.”

Stent didn’t look up from the console. “Its power signature is faint. Scavengers rely on active scans. They would have missed it.”

Eli frowned. “Maybe. Still feels wrong. It’s right under their noses.”

“Superstition travels faster than opportunity,” Stent said. “Perhaps they’ve decided the wreck is cursed.”

Eli snorted. “I’ve heard worse excuses.”

“Then accept it,” Stent said, closing the discussion. “We have the core. That’s all that matters.”

Eli watched him for a moment, noting the stiffness in his shoulders, the way his hands rested too still on the controls. He looked like a man who’d seen something and was pretending not to.

The Mynock rose from the wreck’s shadow, engines rumbling low. The stars ahead were clean again—no metal debris, no ghosts on the sensors—just the long, empty dark.

Eli ran the post-jump checklist from muscle memory. Each green light that blinked back at him felt hollow. The hum of the ship filled the silence, steady and impersonal.

“You want to plot the next buoy?” he asked without looking up.

Stent didn’t answer right away. “Not yet,” he said finally.

His voice was quieter than usual, like it had to pass through something heavy before reaching the air. He sat with his hands resting on his knees, eyes on the viewport but seeing something else entirely.

Eli tried again. “Coolant lines are still holding. No leaks. Maybe your paranoia’s contagious. We can perform the repairs later… tomorrow.”

Nothing. Not even the ghost of the usual correction about “paranoia” and “prudence.”

Eli exhaled and leaned back. “All right,” he said softly. “We’ll just... drift for a while.”

He didn’t push further. Whatever Stent had seen in that wreck, it had followed him back. Some silences weren’t meant to be filled.

The Mynock drifted on, a small, stubborn shape cutting through the dark. Starlight pooled on the viewport, cold and indifferent. For the first time in weeks, Eli didn’t try to name the constellations.