Through the viewport, Greg watched the miners. Grey suits, stained and patched, shuffled across the landing platform. Some faces were hidden behind filters, others behind the slump of their shoulders. A few paused to stare at the Runner—burn-scorched, limping, barely alive. Their gazes lingered too long, like silent verdicts. Greg hated that look: envy and pity wrapped into one.
Most of them were Human. Some were Wevers, their tall, sinewy and bulky frames unmistakable, pale orange skin tinged with faint blue veins. Greg knew their home—Ferser, Torv system, Kiev Nebula—though most here had probably never seen it again.
He leaned back in his chair, chest rising and falling. Freedom felt fragile, thinner than the glass in front of him. One mistake, one late shipment, and he could be out there with them—lungs filled with poison haze, dreams stripped away.
The console pinged. His inbox. Greg's stomach tightened as he pulled it open. Nothing. No commands from ESC.
He frowned. "So they don't even know I'm alive…" The words came out flat, half relief, half dread. That was the Fringe—Exnec's hand stretched weak here, almost out of reach. It bought him time: time to fix the Runner, time to breathe before reporting in.
Greg pushed himself up, legs heavy. He walked out of the cockpit, through the quiet passenger lounge and down the narrow corridor to the cargo bay. His hand gripped the lever by the hatch. For a second he hesitated, listening to the faint groan of the ship's hull cooling, to the muffled drone of Galu beyond. Then he pulled.
The door slid open with a hiss, and the world outside bled in.
A wall of heat slapped Greg in the face. The air carried a bitter tang—burnt metal, chemical haze and dust so fine it clung to his tongue. He squinted against the blinding glare of floodlights mounted high on steel pylons. The platform stretched out before him. It was scarred and stained, patched in places with mismatched plates. More like a body kept alive by a crude surgery.
Engines droned somewhere above, a shuttle lifting away on a trail of shimmering exhaust. Cranes swung slowly across the landing bays, chains rattling with hooks sinking into crates of Xilvi.
Beyond the edge of the platform, the world itself loomed. Galu's plains stretched into shadow, cracked and jagged, glowing faintly where veins of Xilvi cut through the rock like molten scars. A haze hung low, shifting green and gold under the floodlights, swallowing the horizon.
Greg stepped down the ramp, boots thudding against metal, each sound drowned quickly by the roar of machinery. The Runner groaned behind him, cooling, its scars raw and obvious as the planet's own. He pulled his jacket tighter and exhaled, the taste of ore dust burning in his throat. Freedom, sure. But it felt just as fragile here as it did out in the void.
The station swallowed him whole. Heat, dust, and noise pressed in from every side—pistons hammering, ore carts grinding, cranes swinging overhead with chains clattering like steel rain. Floodlamps cast long shadows that moved across the walls like restless ghosts.
Greg kept his head down and pushed through. Some miners ignored him. Others didn't.
"Another pilot who thinks he's better than dirt," one voice muttered.
An old Wever with a scar splitting his lip gave him a long look and rumbled, "Your ship won't last. Nothing does here."
Greg almost smirked. Old Kazi, never optimistic. Not once in all his runs here. But he didn't answer. The Runner was already half-dead— he didn't need reminding.
He passed a line of pipes that hissed as molten Xilvi surged through, glowing faintly like liquid fire. The refinery roared ahead, belching steam that stank of metal and conc acid. Off to one side, living quarters rose in stacked containers, vents rattling with every breath.
Somewhere above, a comms tower flickered and spat static. Cut off. Always cut off.
A few miners traded glances as he went by. One spat. Another smirked. A third just whispered to his friend: "If Mends can't fix it, he's done."
Alan Mends. The name hung in the air like a curse, or a prayer. Greg kept walking towards the only man on Galu who could decide whether the Runner remained or died.
Greg left the noise of the platform behind, his heavy legs carrying him down a narrow stairwell eaten with rust. The sounds of engines and shouting miners dulled into echoes. Down here, the air felt cooler—calm, but heavy with the tang of fuel and scorched metal.
The stairwell led into a corridor cut from raw stone, the walls were patched with steel beams and flickering cables. Cracks in the rock glowed faintly, veins of Xilvi bleeding light that tainted the corridor in a sickly gold-green.
A pair of miners passed him on their way up. One glanced back, eyeing him like a man already condemned. "You heading to Mends?" he asked, voice low. When Greg didn't answer, the miner chuckled darkly. "He'll fix your ship. Question is—what's he gonna take from you in return?"
Greg pressed on. A glint of anger flashed in his eyes.
That thought was for later.
The tunnel widened at last into a cavern, shadows clinging thick to its jagged ceiling. The air reeked of hot oil and burnt circuits. Before him, welded into the rock itself, stood a pair of massive blast doors—scored, patched, and scarred by time. Around them lay heaps of twisted hull plates and shattered engines, stacked together like offerings to some metal god.
Greg's stomach tightened. This was it. Alan Mends' place. The only chance the Runner had left.
The blast doors slid open, smooth despite their scars. Light bled out, bright and sharp painting the cavern in pale blue.
Then Alan Mends stepped into view.
Not big, not armored, not the hulking figure the miners' whispers had conjured—but lean. Too lean. His coveralls were patched in a dozen places, but certain spots were scrubbed spotless, as though he wanted you to notice. His hands were black with grease, yet his nails caught the light, gleaming sharp like blades. He smiled when he saw Greg but it was the kind that didn't reach the eyes. One of those slow, knowing smiles that made you wonder what he'd already decided about you.
"Well," he drawled, wiping his fingers on a rag that had been white once. "Look who limped in from the void. Runner's still flying, then? Miracles do happen." He tilted his head, studying Greg the way a man might test the give in a faulty bolt. "Question is… how much of her soul you willing to trade to keep it that way?"
The words were calm, almost casual, but they pressed heavy as a threat.
Greg's jaw locked. He remembered the last time—his Void Pacer, reduced to carcass metal in this very cavern. Weeks stranded on Galu, clawing at dead comms until he forced a rescue signal through. ESC hadn't forgiven him. Rank cut. Leave denied. Two more years chained to their leash. All of it traced back to one man.
And here that man stood again—Alan Mends, the knife-sharp operator grinning at his misery. Greg's hands curled into fists at his sides. Not this time.