But there's another part. A louder part. A part that looked at that clean black hull and did math. A ship that size, that intact, with no registry and no witnesses—every pound of alloy, every sealed system, and every shred of unfamiliar tech is worth more than I'll see in a lifetime of honest runs. One haul off her could clear the debt ten times over. One haul off her could buy me a second ship. One haul off her could buy me a life.
And the scream is getting quieter the longer I peer at her.
That is how girls like me die: knowing better and wanting it more anyway.
Marrin went in fast. Marrin went in loud. Marrin tried to jack straight into her power grid before he'd even cleared the hull.
Unlike Marrin, I'll do it smarter. I'll go slothfully; I'll go quietly; I'll read her the way I've read every wreck I've ever stripped, and I'll come out with enough in my hold to buy back every piece of myself the debt has been eating.
That's the lie I tell myself with my hands on the console, anyway. That lie serves its purpose, providing just enough motivation to get me out of my chair.
"K-Seven. I need you to prep my kit," I order, shaking off the paralysis and reaching for my gear.
"Unit strongly—" it begins, its lenses flashing a vibrant warning yellow.
"K," I interrupt sharply, leaving no room for argument.
The drone emits a long, mechanical sigh that I'm absolutely certain it programmed itself just for these moments. "Preppingkit," it relents, hovering toward the storage locker to retrieve my tools.
Here is what I know about ships. Warships like this one, built for long patrol, don't let strange hoppers snuggle up against their docking clamps. She took out Marrin the second he tried to jack in clean. If she is that touchy about a power feed, she is going to be a lot worse about a full hull mate.
So I do the dumb thing. The thing everyone warns against. The thing I’ve done a hundred times on a hundred wrecks. Sometimes the only safe way into a dead ship is through a wound already opened for you.
I'm going in through the breach.
Guiding theHarrowin snail-like speed, I keep her at the lip of the tear but out of contact, close enough to cross on a tether without drifting. Since whatever killed Marrin's hopper was triggered by him jacking in, slipping through the hull in her flank like a fish through a torn net might keep me hidden from her systems.
Maybe.
It is very thin, maybe.
I program theHarrow'sautopilot with a station-keeping loop, an idle drift pattern that holds her parallel to the warship at a fixed distance, far enough out that she isn't in line of any system the warship might wake up and point at her. I set a proximity kill-switch: anything that pings her, anything that reaches for her, the autopilot pulls her back on a preplotted burn and sits her out of range until I signal for pickup. It's the best I can do with a ship I'm leaving empty. I've done worse on worse jobs.
"K-Seven. You're with me."
"Acknowledged."
“You stay on my shoulder. No interaction with that ship unless I authorize it. If anything speaks to you, you log it, report it, and remain silent. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Good drone."
"Unit accepts the compliment under protest," it mutters, seamlessly falling into line behind me.
My mag-boots clamp downas I stand, and I grab my full prep kit from the wall rack. Cutter. Pry bar. Two oxygen cells, one spare. Deliberately including my pulse pistol as part of the kit, I clip it securely at my hip. Sliding the charge pack home, the little hum of it settles reassuringly against my thigh.
In the mirror above the airlock, I catch a flash of myself. Dark hair tied back in a quick knot, the shorter pieces escaping around my jaw. Brown skin has gone a shade paler than usual under the bad lighting. A thin scar curls from the corner of my left eyebrow down toward my cheekbone, a souvenir from a job on Calliste I’d rather forget. My amber-brown eyes look too large for my face—hungry and now edged with fear. Fear sits wrong on me.
"Don't look at me like that," I grumble at my reflection. "You want to keep the ship or not?"
K-Seven floats up beside me, tether clipped to its underside, limbs folded neat. "Unit will accompany."
"Stay close," I warn as the airlock cycles.
"Unit is already dead in three previous configurations," it warbles matter-of-factly, floating out ahead of me. "Unit is statistically comfortable."
I pause, giving the little machine a sidelong glance. "That is the darkest thing you have ever said."