CLANK! The cage slammed into the ground, the sound echoing through the dark. Greg flinched, squinting as his eyes struggled against the sudden black. The only light came from the faint circle above—the pit mouth, already a distant hole in the rock.
He shoved the cage door open, metal groaning. Hands dipping into his jacket, he fished out a white illumination ball. A press of the button, and it hummed to life, floating upward and spilling pale light across the chamber.
He stepped out, his boots crunching on grit. Then he froze.
Before him rose a mountain—not of stone, but of wreckage. Twisted hulls stacked together . Engines cracked open and life gutted. Shattered wings and blackened platings piled high into a grotesque peak of rubbish.
His throat tightened. How the hell was he supposed to find a flux conduit in this dump heap?
The floor stretched out in a sea of mangled scraps, broken parts littering every corner—save for a narrow winding path that led straight toward the heap. Greg drew in a breath, only to choke on the rancid stench of oil, burnt metal, and ash.
He pulled his jacket tighter, then started forward. The ball drifted ahead, casting its pale glow over the crooked path.
Alan's words gnawed at him. Why had he been so vague? Was Greg supposed to dig through the heap—or search the floor? Questions spiraled through his head, but he shoved them aside. He listened to his gut and went for the heap.
On reaching the foot of the heap, he searched, eyes darting around hoping to catch something promising. Greg's hands dug into the heap, metal screeching and groaning beneath his grip. Nothing but scorched plates, snapped wiring, dead weight. His throat burned from the stench. Then—movement caught his eye.
Metal fingers, half-buried, reaching skyward like something clawing out of the grave.
His heart kicked. "Score!" He scrambled closer, pried it loose. A cybernetic palm—clean lines, jointed plating. Four hundred taps, maybe more. Enough to pay Alan, maybe even buy himself a week's worth of freedom.
He pulled it out quickly.
When the arm came free, so did the rest. Flesh clung to it. Orange skin, once vibrant, now brown and rotten, riddled with holes. Worms squirmed through the gaps. The smell hit him—rotten and repulsive.
Greg gagged, hurling it aside. The sound of it slapping against the wreckage echoed long, too loud.
He wiped his mouth, a bitter laugh scraping out. Fit right in, huh?
Greg wiped his palms on his jacket, breath tight in his chest. The rotten Wever arm still burned in his mind, its worms squirming like they were crawling under his skin.
"A flux conduit," he muttered, forcing the words through gritting teeth. "Not junk. Focus."
He dug again, shifting plates of scorched alloy, yanking wires tangled like veins. Most of it was useless—charred, broken or too small to matter. He found a cracked helmet with the visor spider-webbed, still streaked with blood on the inside. A half-melted console, buttons fused into slag. Everywhere, a reminder that the Pits weren't just wreckage—they were graves.
A sound cut through the stillness.
Metal, scraping against metal. Not from him.
Greg froze. His illumination ball hovered just overhead, throwing pale light over the heap. A shadow shifted. He strained his ears. A clatter—like a metal pipe rolling down the side of the heap.
Scavs. Had to be them.
The ball's light dimmed as Greg crept slowly to the other side of the heap. Greg's hand slid into his jacket, fingers brushing the grip of his teaser-blade. He didn't draw it—not yet. Instead he crouched lower, pretending to sift through more debris, while his ears tracked every scrape and shuffle in the dark.
His heart leapt when he spotted it: a conduit housing, half-buried beneath a curled wing panel. Rectangular, armored casing. Could it be? He yanked it free, pulse racing—only for his gut to drop. The casing split in his hands, the coils inside snapped and blackened. Dead.
"Damn it," he hissed, shoving it aside.
The noises in the dark grew closer. Boots, maybe. Or claws dragging.
Greg forced himself to keep moving, crawling higher onto the heap. The illumination ball drifted ahead, spilling light across a fresh scatter of wreckage. And there—through a jagged gap between two collapsed hulls—he saw it.
A faint glow. Soft, blue, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Greg's breath caught. He knew that glow—energy leakage. A working component. Maybe even the conduit.
He started forward, careful, each step sliding on loose metal. The glow drew him like a beacon, but so did the noise. Whoever or whatever was out there had noticed him too.
But Greg didn't care about that—at least for now. The conduit was more important. He reached through the gap and pulled, a cylindrical metallic device popped out. Greg's eyes scanned—matte black alloy ribbed with heat-dissipation fins and glowing with faint residual lines of blue-white flux energy.
A flux conduit. His heart leapt, it hummed softly, the multi-pronged coupling on both ends blackened but still intact. Greg lifted the conduit. Quite light for something half his height. He placed it on his shoulder, the faint hum vibrating against his neck. He swallowed, forcing down the urge to bolt. Whatever was out there hadn't made a move yet. That meant it was waiting. Watching.
He edged sideways. The illumination ball drifted low, its pale circle of light shrinking with every step. Shadows thickened in the crevices of the wreck mountain, breathing with the scrape-scrape of unseen movement.
Greg's jaw clenched. "Screw this."
He rounded the heap. The smell hit him first—rot and scorched oil. Then he saw it.
Shapes crouched among the wrecks—brown overalls, black gas masks. Zaterman scavs.
Greg's stomach sank. Three of them. Maybe four. One had a bent crowbar across his knees, another dug through a pile with hands wrapped in filthy rags. The masks hissed with each breath, lenses fogged and cracked, some patched with tape.
One lifted its head at the sound of him. The mask's filters wheezed, and Greg swore the lenses fixed right on him. A low, rasping cough rattled out, then a voice followed, muffled through the filter.
"Fresh one…"
The others stilled. Slowly, heads turned his way. The crowbar man rose to his feet, joints popping, and pointed. "That's a flux, it's worth more than all of us."
The pit seemed to shrink around Greg. His pulse thudded in his throat. The flux conduit hummed against his shoulder, far too loud, far too obvious.
Another scav shuffled forward, boots crunching glass. "Drop it," the muffled voice rasped. "That's ours now"
Greg's grip tightened on the conduit. His other hand brushed his teaser-blade. The voices sounded familiar. Too familiar.
Not these creeps again. The Zatermen scavengers that had chased him from Koyta. It had to be them. That voice was now etched in his mind.
The Zatermen seemed to be piecing it together too.The crowbar man tilted his head, a low wheeze leaking through his mask. A black suit—Starhaulers uniform, holding a conduit to fix a ship like that Stellar Runner above.
"Thought you could outrun us, pilot?"
Greg's pulse spiked. His blade was still at his side, but so were four of them—spaced, circling, boots crunching on the wrecks. The conduit on his shoulder pulsed like a beacon, humming louder with every breath.
"Drop it," one rasped. "Or we carve it off your corpse."
The heap creaked beneath them, metal shifting like bones. Greg tightened his grip, heart hammering, hands ready to pull out the teaser-blade. One step, one twitch, and it would all come crashing down.