Chapter 19: Ember Market
Day 110 – 04:10 ship time
Relative velocity: 1 710 km/s
Range to cluster core: 0.4 light-hours
Thrust: 0.18 g steady, drives humming like five distant storms
The brown dwarfs ahead filled the viewport—dim red disks that never became true suns, forever caught between fire and failure. Their infrared glow washed the scopes, turning space into a fever dream. Jun called it "the ember market"—a place where light was currency and darkness the only law.
Passive sensors detected heat blooms: ships drifting, engines cold, running silent like sleeping predators. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. A city of predators trading in cores, cargo, children.
Karl kept the trumpet blues locked in silence. No music now—only the count of heartbeats and the low thrum of Second Star.
Day 110 – 11:45
First contact
A signature bloomed: 70-metre hull, temp 260 K, no transponder. It drifted across their bow at 8 km/s relative. Jun tagged it "Market-1." Heat spectroscopy showed reactor cores in cargo hold—Meridian make. Echo's killers? Maybe. Maybe not. Buyers, certainly.
Karl held course, no burn correction, letting inertia carry them past like another piece of wreckage. Rule one: never speak first in a market of wolves.
Market-1 vanished astern, unaware it had been scoped.
Day 111 – 02:00
Deeper in
More contacts: Market-2 through Market-7. A constellation of predators. Some carried children-sized heat blooms in pressurized holds; others radiated the tell-tale neutrino whisper of weapons-grade plasma. Every signature was logged, plotted, filed for retribution.
Tala spent the shift in med-bay with Ayla's voice looping through comms—recorded messages of calm, stories of gardens, counting exercises that stopped at forty-two. The girl's replies grew stronger, but every new heat signature on the scopes sent her pulse spiking. Trauma lived in the blood, not the deck.
Day 111 – 19:30
The ping
A new signal broke the silence—short, coded, but unmistakable: Meridian freight handshake. Jun's eyes lit. "It's a buyer ping—looking for sellers. We can mimic."
Karl nodded. "Give them a ghost."
Jun hacked the transponder, spoofed a false profile:
Vessel: Meridian Wreck-Recovery "Garden Scout"
Cargo: 4 reactor cores, 12 stasis units (children)
Status: seeking buyer, discreet dock
They transmitted once, then went dark. The bait hung in vacuum like blood in water.
Day 112 – 06:15
The bite
Reply came within minutes—vector and time slot, no names, no questions. A drift meeting inside the cluster's gravity well. Docking ring to docking ring, air-to-air, cargo inspection before payment. Location: coordinates locked to a Lagrange shelf between two dwarf masses—perfect killing ground for ambush or trade.
Karl studied the plot. Gravity turbulence would fuzz sensors, hide weapons fire. Ideal for wolves, deadly for sheep. He smiled thin—the kind that cuts itself on the blade.
"Accept," he said. "We meet. We inspect. We decide who walks away."
Day 112 – 12:00
Approach under dark
They burned late, short, hard—0.18 g for forty minutes, then cold-coast. Hearth-Hammer slid ballistic, drives dead, heat dumped into radiator panels that folded like black wings. External temp dropped to 250 K—near invisible against the infrared haze.
Range to meeting point: 30 000 km. Closing speed: 5 km/s—slow enough to look like a drifting trader, fast enough to pounce.
Karl suited, helmet sealed but visor open. He floated to the observation blister, pressed glove to glass. Ahead, the buyer's ship resolved: 85 m, black hull, dorsal weapon blisters glowing faint. Registry painted on the bow—too small to read, but shape matched files: "Vesper-Ray" class, known slave-runner. Jun tagged it "Market-Alpha."
He whispered, "Steel remembers."
Day 112 – 18:45
Docking under false flag
Both ships matched vectors, rings extended, magnets kissed. Umbilicals pressurised. No one spoke. Karl led the boarding party—Miguel, Selene—rifles slung loose, smiles practiced. Tala stayed behind with Jun, ready to lance drives if guns appeared.
Airlock cycled. They stepped into Market-Alpha's corridor—clean, sterile, walls painted soothing grey. A man waited, alone—tall, shaved head, eyes like cold coins. Behind him two guards in matte armor, rifles lowered but fingers ready.
The man spoke, voice smooth as vacuum. "Welcome, Garden Scout. I am Factor Voss. Let's inspect your wares."
Karl's pulse counted: one, two… forty-three… He smiled the cut-smile. "Of course. Follow me."
He turned, led them back through the umbilical into Hearth-Hammer's cargo bay—now rigged with false crates, lids half-open to show dummy reactor casings and child-sized stasis pods filled with weighted dummies under frost-glass.
Voss inspected, gloved fingers tapping metal. "Cores look fresh. Children?" He leaned toward a pod, wiped frost, saw a face—frozen doll eyes staring. He nodded approval. "Price?"
Karl's voice stayed flat. "Payment in information. Where do the children go?"
Voss's smile never wavered. "Upstream. Beyond my pay-grade."
"Names," Karl pressed.
Voss shrugged. "I can give you coordinates. You want them? Pay cores."
Karl glanced at Miguel—micro-nod. Plan B.
He tapped his wrist-pad. On that signal Jun powered the lance. A violet thread lanced across the 30 m gap, spearing Market-Alpha's drive section. Armor glowed, slagged, parted. The enemy ship jerked, alarms screaming.
Factor Voss spun, rifle rising, but Selene already had muzzle on his temple. "Drop it," she hissed.
Guards raised weapons—too slow. Miguel's burst caught them centre-mass, darts detonating in brief red clouds. Armor cracked, bodies floated, silent.
Voss kept his hands high, smile finally cracked. "You're not traders."
"No," Karl answered. "We're the echo you forgot."
He zip-tied Voss's wrists, pushed him toward the umbilical. "You'll give us names, routes, buyers. Every word buys you breath."
Voss spat blood, laughed once. "You think this ends with me? The market is wide."
Karl leaned close, voice steel. "Then we widen the grave."
They dragged him back to Hearth-Hammer, sealed the lock. Outside, Market-Alpha drifted, drive dead, air bleeding. No surrender offered, none taken.
Day 113 – 00:10
Interrogation under thrust
They burned away at 0.15 g to distance from the dying ship. In the weapons bay they rigged a chair against the bulkhead, gravity gentle but firm. Voss sat, hands bound, eyes defiant.
Karl held the foil star Ayla had given him, turning it slow between fingers. "Every point on this star is a life you sold. Start talking."
Voss talked—coordinates, frequencies, encrypted codes. Names of upstream factors, preferred markets, schedules. Miguel recorded everything, cross-checked against Echo's chip. Matches appeared like fingerprints.
When Voss fell silent Karl stood. "Payment time."
He offered water, medical patch, a blanket—mercy the factor had never shown his cargo. Voss stared, confused. "You're not going to space me?"
Karl's answer was quiet. "We're not you. You'll face Meridian law—if any still lives. Until then you breathe under basil leaves."
They locked him in the brig—a storage pod refitted with cot and strap, air vented to half-pressure to keep him docile. He would live to testify or to watch the market burn—whichever came first.
Day 113 – 06:30
Debrief and decision
In the galley they spread Voss's intel on the table: three major buyer hubs, two child-markets, one core-refit yard. All within 4 light-hours. All operating under black flags.
Miguel's eyes were hard. "We hit them one by one, we free every cage, we burn every ledger."
Selene nodded. "We have the map. We have the lance. We have the will."
Karl touched the foil star in his pocket, feeling the tiny square of nutrient film Ayla had placed inside—food for the hungry, hope for the hunted. He looked at each crew face, saw the same fire.
"Then we start the burn," he said. "Hub by hub, leaf by leaf, until the market forgets how to count."
He opened the log, wrote:
Day 113 – First blood drawn, first map revealed. Buyer network exposed. Prisoner Voss alive, talking. Next target: Hub Aurelia, 2.4 light-hours core-ward. Mission unchanged: free every cage, burn every chain. Steel remembers, garden sends us. – Karl
Outside, Market-Alpha drifted dead, another dark hulk among embers. Inside, five hearts and one foil star counted forward—one, two, three—toward the next docking ring, the next Factor, the next scream waiting to become a name.
The trumpet blues stayed silent. The lance stayed hungry. And the basil leaf on the prow glowed green against the red-dark, leading them deeper into the ember market—where steel would speak again.