The Runner eased beyond Galu's orbit, slipping into the quiet hum of deep transit. Four hours, thirty minutes left on the timer.
Greg leaned back, exhaling through his teeth. At least Alan had refueled the ship—whether out of hidden loyalty or sheer accident, he didn't know. Either way, it saved him the trouble of begging for a refill at some backwater depot.
Space stretched endlessly outside the viewport—black, cold, and dusted with faint trails of gas from the planet's exhaust ring. The silence should've been peaceful. It wasn't.
Behind him, the slow rhythm of breathing reminded him he wasn't alone. He needed to get to the Exnec base at Datork fast—where the Xilvi would be processed into energizers for blasters.
"Where to now?" The now-familiar voice of Edin rumbled from the lounge.
"Datork," Greg replied.
Datork lay deep within the Sapien Nebula—where he'd jumped from the hyper gate on his way to Koyta's orbit. Now that he needed to get there quickly, his only option was to find a warp lane back to the same gate and make the jump across.
He enlarged the holographic starmap floating over the console. Threads of blue light stretched across the dark void—warp lanes connecting the known sectors. He zoomed in on the Galu system, tracing a route toward Koyta's orbit.
Greg adjusted the throttle, aligning the Runner with the nearest warp lane. The console flickered faintly—lines of data rolling across the glass in quiet rhythm. He tapped a sequence, marking the jump coordinates.
The ship rumbled as the drives stabilized. Outside, a faint shimmer cut through the dark—a thin blue ribbon of light bending through the void. The warp lane.
He'd flown through plenty before, but something about this one looked… off. The edges bled too bright, the current pulsing unevenly like a vein under stress.
"Looks unstable," Greg muttered.
"Still faster than drifting," Edin said, calm as ever.
Greg steadied the yoke and pulled the throttle. The Runner shot forward.
The void tore open ahead—an explosion of blue light that swallowed the ship whole. The hull stretched and groaned as they slipped between folds of space.
Static flooded the comms, then silence.
Inside the tunnel, streaks of light rushed past the cockpit. Greg steadied his breathing, eyes flicking across the monitors. The warp lane held—for now.
For a heartbeat, Edin's form flickered, like the light itself couldn't decide if he was really there. Greg blinked, rubbed his eyes, checked the instruments again. Everything looked normal.
And yet… something felt wrong.
The console lights dimmed, then flared. The hum of the engines dropped half a note.
"Power fluctuation?" Greg frowned.
The ship shuddered. DRIVE OVERHEATING.
"Damn," Greg hissed. "Knew those coolant cores weren't trustworthy."
The speed was dropping fast. If the Runner stopped, they'd be crushed with it.
"Damn it!" He yanked the throttle, but nothing. The warp lane twisted around them, the tunnel rippling like liquid glass.
He slammed the emergency stabilizer. The ship groaned, metal screaming against the strain—
—and then, suddenly, silence.
The blue tunnel folded in on itself and spat them out.
The Runner lurched hard, alarms shrieking, before settling into the still black of open space. Greg's chest heaved as he slammed the controls into manual override.
Outside the viewport, a familiar sight filled the void—Koyta's orbit.
Greg leaned back, releasing a shaky laugh. "Still alive. For real?"
The navigation display flickered, rerouting automatically. The hyper gate glowed faintly in the distance—a massive ring suspended between the stars, its rim pulsing with soft blue light.
He glanced back toward Edin, who stood perfectly still, eyes fixed on the gate ahead—as if he hadn't noticed their near-death spin through the void. Maybe he hadn't. He was Kasman, after all.
Greg checked the timer: two hours, fourteen minutes left.
What had felt like a few minutes in the warp lane had been over an hour in real space.
The Runner zoomed forward, straight into the hyper gate. A loud sound erupted as the centre of the ring exploded with bright blue light and sucked them in. The ship emerged at the other end of the gate into the Sapien Nebula.
Greg expected to see some Enforcers manning the gate but there was no one. Well that's good, I just have to beat the odds and reach Datork in two hours.
He turned the yoke, the ship banked hard right. The Runner shot forward at full speed. Stars sped past the viewport. The ship had nearly been torn apart in the warp lane, it probably wouldn't last long at full speed. But Greg had no choice, Datork beckoned.
...
Forty-seven minutes later, the Runner eased up on a planet wrapped in silver-blue haze. Greg's heart lifted — he'd made it.
Unlike the two worlds he'd visited in the Fringe, this one was… beautiful. No oily clouds, no burnt-red smog, just clean skies and sunlight glinting off calm oceans. It didn't look like a place that turned energy into weapons.
He brought the ship lower, thrusters whispering as the clouds parted. The landscape below shimmered with metal and glass — endless industrial platforms stitched together like a floating city. In the distance, towers rose in perfect symmetry, blinking with faint white lights.
The Runner touched down at a sprawling facility marked with bold letters that filled the viewport:
EXON NEBULIC CONCORD [EXNEC] ENERGIZER PLANTS
A burst of static cut through the comms. Then a voice crackled through:
"Star Runner 312, check in at Hangar Seven."
Greg sighed. "Right on time."
He nudged the throttle, lifting the ship off the pad and gliding toward the open hangar bay. Floodlights washed over the hull as he guided the Runner inside, past long rows of identical freighters. The bay doors sealed shut behind him with a deep metallic thud.
He sat back, eyes on the glowing EXNEC emblem projected across the hangar wall.
"Datork," he murmured under his breath.
A low hiss filled the air as a group of workers approached the Runner. They wore dull gray EXNEC suits, faces hidden behind clear respirator visors. None of them spoke.
Hydraulic clamps hissed as they connected to the cargo bay. The deck trembled beneath Greg's boots as the rear doors slid open and thick mist spilled out. Inside, the Xilvi cores glowed faintly through their containment cases—pale, pulsing light like caged stars.
The workers moved in precise rhythm, guided by scanners on their wrists. Each case was detached, sealed, and lifted onto grav-pallets. Within minutes, the hold was empty. Efficient and mechanical. Like they'd done it a thousand times before.
One of the workers glanced briefly toward the cockpit window, gave a single nod, then tapped his wristpad. The hangar lights dimmed and the bay's pressure seals locked in with a final clang.
Greg sat quietly, watching the last of the Xilvi disappear behind the closing freight doors. He didn't feel relief. Just… emptiness.
A soft tone pinged from the console.
He frowned, leaned over—and saw a new alert flashing on the comm: TRANSFER COMPLETE.
He opened it.
Payment Received: 500 TAPIL
Source: EXON STAR COMMAND [ESC]
Greg gave a dry chuckle. "Guess that's all I get for almost getting maimed by a fadui."
He sat back, staring out through the viewport at the sprawling EXNEC complex. The place looked sterile—perfect, efficient, and utterly soulless. The kind of place that turned things like Xilvi into fire and profit.
He powered up the engines. The hum steadied beneath him, smoother now that the ship was light again. The payment was nothing much, wouldn't take him anywhere. Always plenty of work and never enough pay. At least he'd have two days of rest before his next assignment. Good thing he'd agreed to Edin's deal - a load of extra cash was on the way.
"Where to now?" Edin asked from behind, his voice calm, unreadable.
Greg turned. Thought he'd gone mute.
He checked the starmap. "Rekov," he said. "Time to collect my next headache."
The Runner lifted from the hangar, engines flaring to life. The blast of light rippled across the metal floor, and then the ship was gone—cutting through Datork's atmosphere and vanishing into the silver-blue sky.