Chapter 9
Greg jolted awake, chest tight, heart pounding, alarms still shrieking in his head. For a moment he thought he was back at the fence—floodlights sweeping, guards shouting. Then the silence pressed in. Heavy. Broken only by his ragged breath. The shack smelled of rust, dust, and damp wood. Safe, for now.
He dragged a hand over his face. Yesterday—was it really just one day? Jumping to Koyta. Scavengers on his heels. The Runner crippled. Zatermen. The Fadui. The refinery heist. Pain knifed through his ribs at the memory. All that, and he still didn't have the last part.
His body begged for more rest, but the ship demanded otherwise. ESC should have sent a message by now—if the relay reached this backwater. He forced himself upright. In the corner, the coolant cores and the flux conduit waited in the gloom, mute reminders of how far he still had to go. He slung them into his pack. Now all that remained was the phase inverter.
He thumbed his wrist screen. The date glared back: 32 February 157 Exon Era. A dry laugh slipped from his throat. Exnec and their bright idea of reviving the Arens system—twelve months, thirty-two days apiece—but still calling them by the old human names. Progress painted with nostalgia.
Outside, daylight had burned away the mist. He squinted at the sky, then scanned the tree line. The vegetation looked thicker than the last time he passed this way—wild growth pushing back against Exnec's grip. The miners weren't being perfectly obedient, either; he'd noticed the signs. Lucky them. If this were Earth, the overlords would've crushed such defiance before it sprouted. The Fringe nebula had its advantages.
Still, Greg couldn't shake the prickle crawling up the back of his neck. Like the silence in the shack, it felt too complete. Too expectant.
Greg tightened the straps of his pack, fixed the scarf over his head like a hood and pushed into the undergrowth. Vines snagged at his boots, damp leaves brushing against his arms as if the forest itself wanted him to stay hidden. Each step jarred his ribs, but he forced the pain down and kept moving.
The path wasn't much of a path—just a thin scar of trampled brush where miners sometimes cut through to town. Birds scattered at his approach. Somewhere deeper in the growth, something heavier moved, branches snapping before fading back into silence.
He checked his wrist screen again. No signal, no map. He'd have to trust his memory.
After half an hour, the forest began to thin, the wild green giving way to soot-black poles and stripped ground. The smell changed too—less earth, more iron, more smoke. Then he saw them: the low roofs of the miners' town crouched under a haze of dust and exhaust.
The settlement was nothing but rows of old buildings and prefabs welded from ship scrap, sagging under rust and patched with whatever the miners could salvage. Makeshift lanterns burned with weak blue fire along the main street, though daylight already washed most of them out. A handful of people shuffled between stalls where contraband was traded as casually as food.
Greg pulled his hood low. He recognized the look in their eyes—wary, ground down, but always watching. In towns like this, strangers stood out, and standing out meant trouble. Somewhere among them, the smugglers would be waiting, phase inverters tucked away behind crates of ore and ration cans.
He kept moving, letting the noise of the crowd swallow him, ribs aching, every sense sharp. If the miners noticed him, they didn't show it. But the prickling at his neck told him someone had.
His stomach growled. The smugglers could wait—he needed food first. He pushed deeper into the street until a larger structure loomed ahead, warped metal stitched together from different eras of scrap. Its doorway gaped like a broken jaw.
Inside, darkness swallowed him. Only a single bulb buzzed overhead, casting a weak circle of light on the floor. Rows of battered food dispensers lined the walls. Most were dead husks, their slots fused shut. A few still blinked dimly, panels smeared with grease and dust.
Greg stepped up to one, slipped a ration card from his pocket, and slid it into the slot. The machine groaned, coughed, and finally spat a stream of gray-green broth onto the dented tray. It smelled like salt, iron, and something sour.
He stared at it a moment, then shook his head and picked it up. Out here, food was food.
Greg sipped the thin broth slowly, grimacing at the way it clung to his teet. It was warm, at least, and it settled the hollow in his stomach enough to keep him upright. Around him, the few other diners hunched over their bowls in silence. No chatter. No music. Just the scrape of spoons and the dull hum of the overhead bulb.
Halfway through the meal, that crawling prickle returned. The same one from the forest. He didn't look up right away—he'd learned not to. But after a beat, his eyes lifted, pretending to sweep the room.
Someone was watching him. He couldn't pin who—the shapes at the far end were just shadows—but the weight of their gaze pressed cold against his neck. Greg kept his expression flat, forced another mouthful down, and shoved the empty plate aside. If there was a tail, better to let them think he hadn't noticed.
Outside, the town buzzed with more life. Miners bargaining loud over ore samples, hawkers shouting prices for stale bread, children darting between stalls with tin toys. Greg pulled his hood lower, weaving through the crowd until he found the one place he'd been told to look for: a scrap-metal stall stacked high with broken conduits, cooling fins, and hull plates too bent for use.
The man behind it was broad-shouldered, with a burn scar dragging down one side of his face. His smile didn't reach his eyes.
"You lookin' for parts, traveler?" he asked, voice low and smooth.
Greg glanced at the pile, then back at him. "Depends on the kind of parts."
The scarred man tapped a piece of scrap twice. A signal. From the back of the stall, a curtain lifted, and another figure emerged—a wiry woman with sharp eyes and grease-stained gloves. She sized Greg up in one sweep, then jerked her head toward the rear.
"Not here," she said. "Come inside."
Greg hesitated. The shiver on his neck returned, sharper this time, like the shadows themselves were following him. He shrugged it off and ducked behind the curtain. Inside was a cramped workshop, racks of stripped machinery lining the walls. And there, on a bench in the center, sat a phase inverter—scarred, secondhand, but intact.
His chest tightened. One piece left.
"How much?" he asked.
The woman smiled faintly, as if she'd been waiting for that. "Depends how bad you want it."
They could smell his desperation, and their price was bound to be outrageous.
"Badly," Greg said.
The woman's smile curved thin. "Five hundred taps."
Greg frowned. "I don't have that. But I've got something better."
He pulled out the fran sphere, stolen precisely for this reason. The woman's eyes lit up; greed sharpened her face.
"Not enough," she said. "Add something of equal value."
Greg's stomach sank. He had nothing like that. Maybe his teaser-blade. Maybe the illumination ball. But those weren't options.
Then an idea sparked. He studied her, noting the grease under her nails, the faint rebel tattoos on her wrist. Most smugglers out here weren't loyalists—they hated Exnec even more than the miners did.
Slowly, Greg slid the teaser-blade into view. His smile was thin, mischievous. He leaned in close and whispered the words like a secret prayer:
"Bury Exnec. Bury the Concord. Bury the Aren—for freedom."
The woman froze. Her eyes narrowed, weighing him. Then she gave a single nod. Without another word, she pushed the phase inverter across the bench.
Greg's chest tightened as he wrapped his hands around it. One step closer. The slogan was more than words—it was a cheat code with rebels. And today, it had just bought him the part he needed.
But the relief didn't last. As he turned to leave, the prickle returned—sharper now, crawling down his spine. Outside, the market noise roared like nothing was wrong, but he could feel it. Someone had been watching him since the food hall.
He pulled his hood lower and stepped back into the street, the inverter heavy in his pack. Every shadow seemed thicker, every laugh edged with malice. Whoever was tailing him hadn't shown their face yet.
Greg tightened his grip on the pack strap and kept walking. He'd secured the inverter, but in towns like this, nothing ever came without a cost.