The parking area Sira had chosen sat beneath a cargo platform that trembled whenever a heavy freighter passed above.
Light filtered through grates and steam, painting the concrete a dirty yellow.
Half the spaces held stripped speeders, delivery vehicles and one transport whose missing panels suggested that nobody expected it to move again.
Sira was already there, assembling a short blaster on a cloth.
Darren caught her watching his reflection in a chrome hull panel and stopped where she could see the ramp behind him.
“Three minutes late.”
Darren looked at his empty wrist.
“Sold my watch.”
“Your problem.”
“You’re an inexhaustible source of empathy.”
She fitted the last piece into place and indicated a bag beside her.
Gray clothes, a cap and a simple communicator lay inside.
“Change the jacket. You wore that one on the escort.”
He picked up the communicator.
Its small display showed the time and an empty map.
Sira had come prepared for him to lack more than a watch.
“Anyone following me?” he asked.
“I didn’t see anyone.”
He glanced toward the ramps before moving behind the stripped transport to change.
The bruise across his abdomen pulled when he raised his arms.
A night on a transit bench had done it no favors.
When he returned, Sira pushed the assembled blaster across the cloth.
“Loan. Bring it back.”
“Working on an inventory of things I owe you?”
“Yes.”
He checked the weapon before settling it at his hip.
The grip differed from the practice model, but the controls were familiar enough.
He kept the Earth pistol concealed.
Nineteen rounds stayed nineteen if he left it alone.
Sira opened the warehouse map.
Darren took the tracker from the pocket where he had put it the night before and set it beside the display.
“Voran’s expecting you,” she said.
“You take the shift. We follow when he leaves without the freight.”
Darren studied the loading area.
“This lift moves across the camera?”
“When it’s in use.”
“And the one covering the corridor?”
“Still sees the door. Going in isn’t the problem. Standing somewhere you shouldn’t is.”
They walked around the stripped transport once, comparing its frame with the marked vehicle on her display.
Darren chose an approach; Sira pointed out where the maintenance droid normally stood.
He changed sides rather than argue with a machine he had not met.
“Will the tracker survive a sweep?” he asked.
“Not if they know what they’re looking for.”
“And if the signal drops?”
“We wait for it to return. We don’t drive up beside him to check.”
Darren moved his finger back along the map, looking for somewhere they could wait without blocking the road.
Sira tapped the map where the lift would cross.
“If you don’t get the chance, leave it.”
Darren nodded.
“No opening, no tracker,” he said.
“We agreed.”
She closed the map.
Darren put the tracker away.
His eyes went to the time on the communicator and then, absurdly, to his bare wrist.
“You miss it?” she asked.
“The watch?”
“You keep checking.”
“Habit.”
“Who gave it to you?”
He could have invented someone.
Instead he looked beyond her at the traffic crawling between the levels.
“Someone who doesn’t matter anymore.”
Sira waited.
He heard his own answer and disliked it.
“That’s what I told myself when I sold it.”
“Buy another when you can.”
He smiled a little and fastened the borrowed jacket.
His old one went into the bag; he checked the pocket for his identity chip before folding it away.
They left separately.
Darren followed the directions on the communicator, checking the level before he took each lift.
Warehouse 816 occupied an entire slice of an industrial level.
Cargo drones traveled along rails under the low ceiling; workers waited for them with the impatience of people whose pay depended on something they could not hurry.
Voran met Darren at the entrance.
“You came back.”
“Money helps.”
“Sira says you learn.”
“She say anything nice?”
“No.”
He handed Darren a temporary badge.
The day’s work was generator components between two workshops, paid through the next payroll settlement.
Darren asked him to confirm that before taking the badge.
Darren kept his thumb on the badge until Voran repeated the arrangement.
He had enough money for today.
That did not make unpaid work a favor.
“Vesk’s out. Marel too,” Voran said.
“You cover the shift.”
“Wounds?”
“Vesk’s back in two days. Marel in a week, if he stops being an idiot.”
“The shoulder?”
“The shoulder and the head.”
The transport on the dock was broader than the speeders used in the ambush.
A short droid stood beside it, inspecting the repulsor suspension.
Darren approached with the temporary badge visible.
“Unregistered employee,” the droid said.
He held out the badge.
“Security.”
“No authorized security inspection appears in the program.”
“Then ask Voran where he wants me.”
The machine turned its head.
“Wait.”
Darren waited.
A Nikto guard came over, checked the badge and swore at whatever the droid told him.
He went to find Voran.
The machine returned its attention to a display on the opposite side of the suspension.
Above Darren, the cargo lift started down.
Its loaded platform slid between the transport and the main camera, leaving the corridor camera pointed at an empty doorway behind him.
The droid was still on the far side of the vehicle.
Darren crouched as though checking his boot.
His abdomen tightened sharply, and for a moment he could not reach the plate he had chosen.
He moved one knee forward instead of forcing the stretch.
The disk touched metal and held.
The lift was almost level with his shoulder.
He withdrew his hand, rested it on his knee and stood as the platform passed below the camera’s view.
Across the frame, the droid finished with its display and turned toward him.
“Do not obstruct the loading area.”
“Waiting for instructions.”
“Wait elsewhere.”
He moved.
No one shouted.
The droid continued its inspection.
“Signal,” Sira said quietly through the communicator.
Darren adjusted the badge on his jacket.
“Done.”
The Nikto returned and pointed him toward the cab.
Darren went where he was told, resisting the urge to look back at the place his hand had been.
The delivery itself gave him several hours to wonder whether he had been seen.
No one mentioned the tracker.
He helped guide components onto loading frames, waited for signatures and learned which edges of a cargo casing cut through a glove.
When a worker asked him to lift one end, he called another man over.
The bruise had already told him what trying to look useful would cost.
Voran spent most of the shift irritated by delays that had nothing to do with Darren.
Sira met them at the second workshop, where the unloading had stalled.
She greeted Voran before coming over, making no attempt to conceal that she knew Darren.
He kept his hands on the loading frame until she leaned beside it.
During the wait, her communicator brought a call from Marel.
She held it out so Darren could hear.
The younger man was at the clinic, audibly bored.
“How’s the shoulder?” Darren asked.
“Hurts.”
“Useful medical update.”
“They won’t let me lift anything.”
“Try obeying them. New experience.”
A short silence followed.
Darren thought the connection had failed.
“You came back for me,” Marel said.
“Sira did too.”
“I thanked her.”
Darren looked at the stacked components, searching for something that needed his attention.
“Then stop lifting things and let us get our money’s worth.”
“You’re bad at this.”
“At gratitude?”
“At letting people thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Darren said.
Marel went quiet again, then asked whether Voran had found someone who could do his job properly.
“I’m standing here listening to you.”
“That bad?”
Sira took the communicator back before Darren could answer.
She stayed on the call a little longer, asking whether anyone had brought Marel clean clothes.
At the end of the run, Voran told them to clear the transport.
Darren returned the temporary badge and joined Sira in her vehicle.
They waited through a change in the overhead traffic.
Then the marked transport left the warehouse with Voran alone at the controls.
They followed across four sectors.
Sira drove; Darren watched the display.
The signal faded behind a cluster of industrial structures and returned on a lower level.
He checked the route they could actually take before pointing her toward it.
At one junction Sira slowed, watching the ramps ahead while the mark on the display continued moving.
Darren started to point, then checked the level number.
The road beneath them led toward the right district and the wrong height.
“Next ramp,” he said.
She took it without questioning him.
He watched the distance shrink again and felt a brief satisfaction disproportionate to the task.
A day earlier, he had needed a stranger to tell him how to find a street directly beneath his feet.
He did not mention it.
Sira had enough to watch.
Once, the transport appeared ahead through a gap in traffic.
Darren saw it and let it go.
The moving mark on the display was enough.
It stopped at an old processing center.
The chimneys still stood, but metal plates covered the lower windows.
A heavily armored Gank guarded the entrance beside a smoking human.
Darren recognized the species uncertainly from things he had read years ago.
He trusted the visible weapon more than the memory.
Sira parked beyond the processing center, where a wall hid her vehicle from the main entrance.
They went back on foot through a narrow service passage.
A broken metal screen near its far end let them look into the yard without stepping out.
Voran had parked diagonally beside a loading wall.
The main entrance and its two guards were to their left; the building’s side door stood beyond the transport to their right.
Between Darren and the vehicle, a row of structural beams supported an abandoned loading rail.
He checked the passage behind them before settling at the screen.
“Ever fought one?” she asked.
“No.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
She selected the tracker’s short-range audio function.
Voran’s voice came through broken by interference.
“…wasn’t the agreement, Canto.”
Another man answered, smoother and much less angry.
“The agreement changed.”
Darren found him in the yard: expensive clothes, empty hands, guards positioned where he did not have to turn to see them.
“You got the cargo,” Voran said.
“Five crates.”
“You got six.”
Sira looked at Darren.
He shook his head slightly.
Hearing the number again did not tell them where the missing crate had gone, or which delivery the men meant.
“I want Renn,” Voran said.
A side door opened.
Two men brought out a prisoner, holding him by the arms.
His face was swollen and one eyebrow had split.
He tried to straighten when he saw Voran, then gave up the effort.
“Renn Tal,” Sira whispered.
Voran stepped closer.
“You sold my route.”
Renn spat blood onto the ground.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Del dead. You gone. Three thousand in your account. Then another ambush.”
Voran’s hand moved to his blaster.
Darren watched Sira lean forward, one palm against the edge of the screen.
“I was locked up here when the second one happened, you idiot,” Renn said.
Voran drew the weapon.
For a moment it pointed at the prisoner.
Renn stared at it, swaying between the guards.
“Ask him how he knew the second route.”
Canto’s smile disappeared.
Voran looked from Renn to him, and the muzzle lowered a little.
The Gank moved at a small gesture from Canto.
Sira lowered the receiver and drew her blaster.
“We’re going.”
Darren touched her arm.
“Two at the gate, two with Renn. We don’t know inside.”
The Gank raised his weapon toward Voran.
One of Renn’s guards seized the prisoner’s collar and began hauling him back toward the door.
“Then we don’t go inside,” Sira said, and pulled free.
Darren followed her to the end of the passage, drawing the borrowed blaster.
Sira shot out the lamp above the opening before either of them crossed beneath it.
Darkness took the strip between the screen and the first beam.
The rest of the yard remained lit from the building.
The Gank turned toward the shot.
Darren reached the beam as a bolt melted its edge, spraying hot fragments past his face.
He pulled back, blinking, and found Renn again.
The prisoner had dropped his weight, dragging his captor off balance.
Voran dived behind the transport while Canto retreated toward the side door.
Sira fired from the mouth of the passage and hit the human beside the main gate.
The guard holding Renn let go to reach for his weapon.
Darren fired twice at him: the first bolt struck the paving; the second hit the low wall close enough to send him scrambling behind it.
Renn crawled toward the rear of the transport with his wrists bound.
The Gank still had the crossing.
Darren pressed against the beam, unable to move without offering him a clear shot.
“Voran! Gate!”
Voran looked up from behind the vehicle.
For an instant Darren thought he would keep watching Canto escape.
Then Voran leaned around the front of the transport and fired at the Gank.
The armored guard stepped behind the gatepost to answer him.
Darren crossed.
He stayed low along the loading wall while Sira drove the other prisoner guard back toward the building.
At the transport’s rear corner, he caught Renn by the jacket and pulled him out of sight of the door.
The effort sent pain through his abdomen; he braced one hand against the vehicle until it eased enough to breathe.
“Can you walk?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Answer first.”
“I can try.”
Darren holstered the blaster to cut the restraints.
Renn held his wrists apart as the knife worked between them, then planted both hands against the vehicle.
His legs shook, but they held.
Darren put the knife away and took his arm.
Voran backed along the transport toward them, firing once more at the gate.
“Deckard?”
“Help me with him.”
A bolt struck the panel above their heads.
They ducked together.
Beyond the vehicle, Canto paused in the side doorway, then vanished into the building.
Voran rose to follow him.
Darren caught his jacket.
“Leave him.”
Voran turned, bringing the blaster with him.
“Take your hand off me.”
Darren released the jacket, but kept himself between Voran and the end of the transport.
“He knows that building. You don’t. Renn needs to get across.”
Renn laughed, then coughed so hard he bent double.
“Listen to him, Voran. Canto loves angry men.”
Sira shouted from the passage.
“Move!”
Voran looked at the open doorway once more.
Then he put his shoulder against the transport and aimed toward the gate.
“Go.”
Darren took Renn’s arm over his shoulders.
Renn pushed away from the panel, trying to keep his feet beneath him as they moved along the loading wall.
They reached the first beam before the Gank fired again.
Darren felt Renn flinch against him, but the bolt struck metal behind them.
Sira answered from the passage, forcing the guard who had crawled behind the low wall to stay there.
At the next beam Renn’s knee folded.
Darren could not carry him.
He lowered him against the upright, both of them breathing hard.
“Look at me. One more crossing.”
Renn nodded without lifting his head.
Darren waited until Sira fired again, then hauled him upright.
This time Renn found his footing and stayed with him.
They reached the screen as a siren started beyond the processing center.
“Voran,” Renn said.
Darren looked back.
Voran was coming along the wall, leaving the transport behind.
Getting into the cab would have put him in the Gank’s sights; starting it would have meant waiting there while the others ran.
He reached the nearest beam and waved them on.
“He’s coming.”
Renn kept looking until Voran appeared at the turn.
Then he let Darren take more of his weight.
Blood from the restraint marks had soaked into Darren’s sleeve.
Neither man could spare a hand to stop it.
Sira held the passage until Voran reached her, then they withdrew together.
Around the corner, Darren got Renn into the rear of her vehicle and climbed beside him.
Voran took the front passenger seat.
Sira pulled away before his door had fully closed.
The siren grew louder at the first junction, then faded as she turned down a ramp.
Darren watched the passage disappear behind them.
No vehicle emerged from it before the next building blocked the view.
No one spoke until the vehicle had made two turns.
Renn sat folded against the side, one hand over his ribs.
Darren offered him the folded cloth from Sira’s emergency compartment.
He took it and held it beneath his bleeding mouth.
“You were going to shoot me,” he said to Voran.
“I thought you sold us.”
“You were going to shoot me.”
Voran looked away.
“Yes.”
Sira kept driving.
Darren watched Renn absorb the answer without any visible relief.
“The money,” Voran said.
“Three thousand.”
“I saw it after they grabbed me. I didn’t put it there.”
“And you knew the route.”
“I knew it because I was on it.”
Voran turned to Darren, perhaps hoping for an answer that did not come with years of anger attached.
“What do you think?”
“That knowing a route and receiving money aren’t the same as selling it.”
“Convenient.”
“Neither is being taken prisoner. You need to find who paid him.”
“I told you I didn’t—” Renn began.
“I heard you,” Darren said.
“We still need the record.”
Voran stared at the floor.
“And the second route?”
“When did you assign it?”
Voran did not answer.
Renn lifted the cloth from his mouth.
“Ask me what they asked,” he said.
“I was there.”
He pressed the cloth to his lip, then lowered it.
“They beat me. They wanted names. I couldn’t give them a route I hadn’t seen.”
Sira changed lanes without looking back.
In the front seat, Voran turned far enough to see Renn, then faced the road again.
Darren gave the injured man a fresh fold of the cloth.
The questions could wait until someone had looked at his ribs.
They reached a discreet clinic with a narrow entrance and no visible interest in the blood on their clothes.
At the desk, Renn pulled his arm free when Voran reached to steady him.
He nearly lost his balance.
Darren stayed close but let him put his own hand on the counter.
“Name?” the droid asked.
“Renn Tal.”
Voran started to answer the next question.
Renn cut him off.
“I can speak.”
The droid waited.
Renn gave the answers slowly, stopping once to spit into the cloth.
When it asked for an emergency contact, he looked past Voran.
“Sira.”
She stepped forward and gave the number.
Voran moved away to leave his billing details with the receptionist.
No one thanked him.
Darren could see the effort it took him not to turn payment into another argument.
A droid took Renn through a side door.
Voran followed as far as he was allowed and stopped with his hand still against the frame.
In the waiting area, Sira sat opposite him.
Darren stayed near the entrance, watching the traffic beyond the glass.
“Next time,” Sira said, “you check before you point a gun at him.”
Voran’s eyes hardened.
“You want a confession?”
“I want him alive long enough to answer.”
He looked toward the treatment room.
“He’s alive.”
Sira turned her chair away from him.
Voran stayed where he was, watching the treatment door.
Later a droid let them see Renn.
He was bandaged and exhausted, but awake.
When Voran stepped in, Renn turned toward the wall.
Voran stood at the foot of the bed without speaking.
“Deckard, right?” Renn asked Darren.
“Temporarily.”
“You always collect people in firefights?”
“Only the expensive ones.”
The attempted smile hurt Renn’s split lip.
He stopped trying.
“Marel said you went back for him.”
Darren glanced at the terminal beside the bed.
Renn had been given time to make a call while they waited.
“Sira went back too.”
“She does that.”
For the first time, Darren heard it said without a joke attached.
He looked at Sira; she was checking the droid’s discharge estimate, giving Renn somewhere else to direct his attention.
“You military?” Renn asked.
Darren remembered the occupation Pell had entered.
“Used to work security.”
“Same difference to men like Voran.”
Voran said nothing.
Darren did not offer his own distinctions.
Renn had earned the right to be angry without a stranger correcting his terminology.
The droid wanted him to stay overnight.
Sira drew Darren back into the corridor and transferred the remaining hundred and twenty-five credits.
He checked the payment against the seventy-five she had advanced.
The full two hundred was his now; with his own forty-eight, it was more money than he had held since arriving.
“You followed him,” Sira said.
“I changed the job.”
“Once the shooting started, I preferred changing it with you.”
“Pell.”
He looked up.
“Information costs,” she said.
“Of course it does.”
She took back the borrowed blaster.
Darren changed into his old jacket in the visitors’ washroom and returned the borrowed clothes and bag; she left him the communicator until they had finished with the tracker.
Its signal still marked the processing center.
It told them where Voran’s vehicle had remained, not what Canto was doing inside.
Darren lowered the display.
“You let him have the last word,” Sira said.
“Wasn’t my argument.”
“You usually act like every argument is your hobby.”
“Growth.”
Her mouth moved slightly.
“Don’t ruin it.”
Sira sent Pell a message asking her to come to the clinic in the morning.
The reply asked whether Renn would authorize access to his account.
Darren went back to ask him; Renn agreed, provided he got to see whatever she found.
Darren stayed in the clinic’s public waiting area after Sira left, unwilling to spend the money he might need for answers on another six-hour room.
When the receptionist asked whom he was waiting for, he gave Renn’s name.
She pointed him toward the chairs clear of the treatment doors.
He checked the tracker once more, then put the communicator away.
Behind one of those doors, Renn had survived long enough to contradict the story being told about him.
That was something.
Darren let it be enough until morning.
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Thanks for reading — and for supporting Darren’s increasingly questionable life choices.