The low-tiers of Meridian Station didn't just exist; they endured. The air was thick and metallic, smelling perpetually of burnt insulation and the volatile Aetherial Fault—the impossible thing suspended a kilometer outside the hull that kept their entire orbital habitat running.
Kael Vyr, a runner whose reputation was built on speed and silence, flattened herself against a girder in a pipe-choked service crawl. The station's core hummed with the sound of a thousand synchronized lies: the promise of stability. She knew better. Every three hours, the energy siphon that drew power from the Fault's shimmering, unstable boundary twitched, causing a subtle, momentary dip in gravitational fidelity.
She checked the time stamp projected onto her palm: T-minus three minutes until the next expected flicker. She needed to be gone before then.
Her destination, Cargo Bay Delta-4, was a derelict freezer unit near the outer shield layer. It was where the smuggler, Sixx, was currently nested. Sixx was a risk; the location was a double risk.
Kael slipped into the bay. It was massive, cold, and lit by a single, sickly green emergency beacon hanging from the ceiling. Sixx sat atop a stack of bundled plasma conduit, a silhouette against the far wall. He was a collector of trouble and cheap synthetic alcohol.
"You're late, Kael. Did the Zone-Marshals finally decide to earn their pay?" Sixx asked, his voice slick and mocking.
"I'm here now. The scrimshaw," Kael said, skipping the pleasantries. She didn't trust him, especially not here, so close to the edge of the known universe.
sixx chuckled, digging into a stained inner pocket of his coat. He produced a carved cylinder, no larger than her thumb, made of dull, white material that looked like petrified bone. It was clearly ancient, radiating a strange, faint coldness.
"Old Earth whalebone, they say. Very rare. And the data stored on it? Priceless. Your client is paying for the wrapper, Kael, not the gift." He tossed the scrimshaw, and it spun once before Kael caught it out of the air.