Alan's workshop spread out like a cathedral of broken things. Walls of jagged rock were stitched with steel plating, pipes hissing faintly where coolant or steam escaped.
Everywhere Greg looked, wreckage stared back at him. Ships gutted to the ribs, their hulls peeled open and patched with mismatched alloys. Engines, cracked and charred, were stacked in rows like corpses waiting for burial. Some still flickered faintly with residual power, casting sickly green glows into the shadows.
But not everything was ruin. In one corner, a sleek shuttle's core hummed with precision. It was half rebuilt, gleaming in contrast to the wrecks around it. Nearby, a row of machines Greg didn't recognize whispered and clicked, their surfaces covered in etched runes of circuitry, glowing faintly like veins under skin. Experimental tech. Black-market, maybe. Or worse—stuff Exnec would kill to get their hands on.
Alan moved through the mess like it was holy ground. His boots never caught on stray wiring, his hands brushed consoles with familiarity, every motion sharp, deliberate. He tossed the rag onto a workbench crowded with parts and grinned again without turning to look at Greg.
"Still glaring, Hale? Thought you'd have learned to bury grudges by now."
Greg's jaw clenched. "You gutted my ship and left me stranded. That cost me years."
Alan spun suddenly, rag snapping down on the bench with a crack. For a heartbeat, his smile dropped, voice sharp enough to cut:
"You're alive, aren't you? Ship or no ship—you crawled out. That's more than most get."
Silence stretched, heavy. Then, just as quick, the grin slid back into place, smooth and mocking.
"Runner's a wreck, sure. But nothing here stays dead long—if you've got the right currency."
Greg's gut tightened. He knew Mends' definition of currency wasn't just Tapil. He didn't have any exotic items that would catch Mends' eye.
"But you owe me. After what you pulled last time, you'd at least—"
"Owe you?" Alan's voice cracked like a whip. He lurched forward, closing the gap until Greg could smell the sharp tang of coolant and oil on his breath. His eyes glittered, fever-bright. "Hale, I saved your sorry ass."
Greg staggered back half a step. Only a lunatic like Mends could call that saving.
His throat was dry. "I'm short on Taps. Only got about a hundred."
Alan chuckled, the sound low and jagged. He reached out, almost casually, and pinched a fold of Greg's jacket between two fingers, then let it drop.
"That's not enough. You know me. No taps means…" His smile widened, too white in the workshop's dim glow. "…valuable items. Or favors."
Greg's stomach turned cold. He knew that grin. Mends already had something in mind.
"What do you have in mind?" Greg asked. Waiting to hear the most absurd thing.
Alan's grin thinned, his eyes glinting under the pale workshop light. He leaned over the bench, tapping a finger on the steel, each sound sharp as a hammer strike.
"No depots here, Hale. Exnec stripped Galu clean years back. Didn't want miners patching up ships and flying off. You want parts, you crawl for them."
Greg stiffened. "Then where—"
Alan cut him off with a flick of his hand, savoring it. "The Lower Pits. Graveyard of failed landings. Hulls cracked open, engines half-burnt, coolant lines snapped like ribs. Poison air thick enough to skin your lungs. Scav gangs that carve you for parts. And worse things, waiting down there. You'll fit right in."
Greg's throat tightened. The Pits were whispered about, not visited. Even miners spat when the name came up.
"And that's just for a flux conduit," Alan went on, ticking off invisible boxes in the air. "You'll need coolant cores too—miners guard those like lungs. Steal one, and you'll have half the station on your back."
Greg's jaw ached from clenching. "What else?"
Alan's grin thinned. "Phase Inverter. Rare. Only smugglers carry one—and they don't trade cheap. Maybe sabotage. Maybe a body. You'll find out."
The workshop hissed around them, steam seeping through the rock walls like warnings.
Alan leaned close again, voice dropping low, knife-sharp. "That's your deal, Hale. Scrap and blood, or the Runner dies here. And if she dies…" His smile returned, slow and poisonous. "You die here too."
Greg's chest felt like stone. ESC wouldn't bail him out this time. Luck had run dry. Hours ago, he'd been curled in the lounge aboard the Runner, drifting in the easy dark. Now her heart was in Alan's hands—and so was his.
Greg didn't answer. He just stared at Alan, the grin burning like a brand in his skull. The silence stretched until Alan finally waved him off, already reaching for another half-gutted engine as if Greg were nothing more than a tool he'd set down.
The door hissed open behind him.
Greg stepped out into the tunnels, and the air hit him like a slap—stale, metallic, laced with the faint reek of coolant. The workshop's dim glow gave way to the wider belly of Galu Station, a hollow carved into the rock where noise and shadow blended into one.
Miners shuffled past, grey suits streaked with dust, eyes hollowed from years underground. Some glanced at him, then away. Outsiders didn't last long here unless they belonged to someone. Greg had no one. Not anymore.
He tightened his jacket around his shoulders, trying to ignore the weight of Alan's words still grinding in his skull. The Lower Pits. Scrap and blood.
A lift clanked somewhere deeper in the station, chains rattling as it rose. The sound echoed like a warning bell. He could almost hear Alan's voice riding the noise: You'll fit right in.
Greg forced his legs to move, heading for the lifts. Every step felt heavier, like the station itself wanted him to stay buried.
He entered the lift, it took him down deeper in the station and stopped on hitting earth. Must be the last floor of the station.
He walked out and pushed forward.
The deeper he walked, the more the station pressed in. Pipes clung to the walls like veins, sweating condensation. Floodlamps buzzed overhead, their light flickering frantically. He passed a group of miners hunched around a barrel fire, trading hushed words. Their eyes tracked him the whole time. He kept silent didn't want anyone envying him more than they already did.
Further on, a guard post blocked the way. Two Exnec wardens leaned against a jury-rigged barricade of steel plates and wiring. Their armor was heavily mismatched, paint flaked away, but their rifles gleamed—well-kept and hungry.
One of them spat into a drain, then gave Greg a slow once-over gaze.
"Pilot," he said flatly. "You heading down?"
Greg kept his voice even. "That's right."
The warden smirked. "Then you'll need more than luck. The Pits eat men. Ships too. You crawl back up, I'll buy you a drink." His grin sharpened. "If you crawl back."
Greg didn't rise to it. He walked past as the barricade groaned open. He didn't want a drink with scav-thin wardens—most were as unpredictable as the Fringe nebula itself.
Beyond the checkpoint, the station hushed. Tunnels narrowed, walls sweating black moisture. The last signs of life vanished, replaced by silence and the groan of metal shifting in the rock.
At the end waited a rusted lift cage, chains hanging slack like nooses. The platform was etched with stains too dark to be just rust.
Greg's stomach knotted as he stepped in. The controls were simple—one lever, down only. He gripped it, exhaled once, and yanked.
The cage shuddered, chains screaming as they dragged him down. The last light of the station blinked out above him, only darkness awaited below.