Ariston of Dethocoles strode down the dark gray metal-and-rivets corridor of the Pleasant Journey, a hulking salvage ship out of Speka on his home world. The name was about as apropos as a four-hundred-pound snarling svenkar called Li’l Miss, but it was probably the reason neither the planetary police nor the Star Guardians had batted an eye at the fact that the ship had enough weapons to demolish a small moon.

Until now.

Before Ariston reached the bridge, two men turned around a corner at an intersection ahead of him. Drak and Makk, brothers and crewmates with the personalities of sledgehammers and the looks to match. Their dark eyes lit up when they saw Ariston, and they exchanged looks with each other, looks that promised trouble.

Ariston didn’t let his expression change, but inwardly, he sighed. He’d expected this since Captain Draco had promoted him to second-in-command of engineering.

“Whatcha doing, Ston?” Drak asked as he and his brother strolled forward, shaking out their arms for a fight.

The way Drak emphasized the name Ariston had given the captain when he signed on made him hesitate. These two mental giants couldn’t have figured out who he was, could they?

“Reporting to my duty station,” Ariston said, meeting their eyes fearlessly. “As you two should be doing.”

“Your duty station on the bridge? Kissing the captain’s ass?”

“Nah,” Makk said, “he must be sucking the captain’s cock. You don’t get paid a double-share for kisses.”

They shared smirks, but there was no humor in their eyes. Ariston could see them seething under their thuggish exteriors, resenting that he’d been on board six weeks and was making more than they were after however long they’d been part of the crew. Years, likely.

“Do your jobs instead of whining in the corridors, and maybe you’ll get more of a share too,” Ariston said, flexing his shoulders as he approached them.

He knew from past experience that diplomacy would be wasted on them. Besides, he always struggled to keep his commander’s don’t-give-me-shit-you-lower-ranking-slug tone out of his voice. After all, he’d been a space fleet and then a Star Guardian engineering chief for a lot longer than he’d been working undercover.

His wife, who’d been even tougher than he, would have known how to deal with these idiots without resorting to blows. After more than four years, he still missed her. Her death had left a sucking black hole in his life.

“We do our jobs,” Drak said. “We just don’t suck dick while we do it.”

“And we can’t kiss ass as well as you because we haven’t made buddies with the first officer and can’t talk to him and the captain about the good old days in the fleet.”

Ariston would push by them if he could. Even though they stood shoulder to shoulder and made it clear they didn’t intend to let him pass, he might barrel through if they reacted slowly. At six feet tall, Ariston wasn’t a towering man, but he had broad, powerful shoulders and a muscled physique, despite being north of forty now. His job, his real job, demanded superior physical fitness.

Makk turned and reached for him as Ariston tried to push past. Though he had hoped to get by without a skirmish, Ariston was prepared.

He lashed out like a whip, catching Makk’s wrist in a lock. He twisted it under the man’s arm, spun him, and yanked it up behind his back.

Drak tried to stop him by throwing a punch, but Ariston ducked it while completing his maneuver, then shifted his weight and slammed a side kick into Drak’s solar plexus. The thug stumbled back to the bulkhead, eyes widening when he tried to gasp for air and his stunned lungs couldn’t grab any.

Knowing it wouldn’t take him long to recover, Ariston jammed Makk’s face into the opposite bulkhead hard enough to smash his nose. These thugs didn’t respond to threats. Only pain. He yanked up higher on Makk’s arm, and the man screamed, a mixture of sheer pain and a mangled curse toward Ariston and his ancestors.

As Ariston opened his mouth to ask if they were going to have more trouble, he saw Drak out of the corner of his eye, recovered enough to renew his attack. He sprang toward Ariston, fingers groping for his neck.

Without releasing Makk, Ariston slammed another kick into Drak, aiming lower this time.

Drak cried out, grabbing his groin and crumpling to the deck. He joined his brother in cursing Ariston’s ancestors.

Ariston grew aware of someone else stepping into the intersection a second before an irritated voice snapped, “Didn’t you idiots hear the comm? Get to your battle stations before I space all three of you.”

“Shit.” Drak leaped to his feet, still grabbing his groin, and scurried down the corridor in the opposite direction.

Ariston released Makk, and the man also bolted, shaking out his wrist as he ran.

Ariston turned toward the speaker, Captain Eryx. The white-haired man wore a perpetual scowl, and he had a tendency to flex and loosen the gloved fingers of his bionic arm. The men speculated about that arm, as to whether it appeared human or machine underneath his sleeve and glove, but apparently, nobody had ever seen it. Ariston had seen some of the seat backs and consoles the man had crushed with it when irked. As the ship’s new assistant engineer, he got tasked with fixing such things.

“You men can handle your problems however you see fit,” Eryx said, spearing Ariston with his steel-eyed gaze, “but not when we’re heading into battle.”

“You didn’t mention battles when you called us to our duty stations,” Ariston pointed out, not flinching from the gaze. His first instinct had been to utter a meek yes, sir, but he’d learned early on that Eryx didn’t care for what he called “spineless suck-ups.” He seemed to prefer people who spoke their minds—while obeying him.

“I don’t explain myself to the entire crew over the comm,” Eryx growled before spinning and stalking toward the bridge. “What’d you think we were doing in this gods’ forsaken system?”

“Salvaging a ship.”

Eryx smirked over his shoulder. “And so we are. Maybe two. This system was unexpectedly busy when we came out of the gate. You may get to buy yourself a new set of combat armor with your double share of this salvage gig, so you’re not walking around in that dented fleet suit you stole off who knows what dead soldier.”

Ariston walked after him without defending the piecemeal armor he’d shown up with, a set he’d assembled from his old gear, mixing and matching the parts to make it appear like the suit had been scrounged. None of the pieces were dented. What kind of engineer would let himself walk around in dented equipment?

Not important, he told his wandering mind, snorting at the indignation that had arisen. As if what Eryx thought mattered.

He was here to catch these people breaking the law, and he had a feeling he was about to get his chance. That was what he needed to be focused on.

As Ariston walked onto the bridge, the captain barked, “Status report.”

“They’re trying to evade us,” the helmsman said, “but we’re not having any trouble tagging them. They fired back, but our shields are still at one hundred percent. They’d do more damage spitting at us.” The man snickered.

Ariston rubbed his chest, thumbing on a camera integrated into one of his shirt’s fasteners. He took careful note of the helmsman, the captain, and the other bridge crewmen, then turned so it would record the view screen. It showed a passenger ship ahead of them, smoke coming from its thrusters as it spiraled down toward the desolate brown planet below.

“That a Kukulcani cruiser?” Ariston asked, though he wouldn’t be surprised if the captain berated him for speaking—and for standing in the middle of the bridge instead of at the engineering station.

“That’s a Kukulcani bastard ship full of relic thieves,” Eryx growled. “We’re catching them before they loot the ruins down there.”

“I wasn’t aware that Mustikos’s ruins had anything worth looting.”

“There’s a new rumor going around that scans from a science vessel mapping the system with upgraded equipment caught signs of ancient Wanderer tech down there. It figures that Kukulcani scum would be the first ones here to loot.” Eryx truly seemed indignant at the idea of thieving, even as he ordered his weapons officer to keep firing to destroy the unsuspecting ship.

Ariston’s jaw clenched as he recorded the event, though he wanted nothing more than to leap at the weapons officer and stop him. And to club Eryx in the gut on the way past.

This, he reminded himself, was exactly what he’d been waiting for. Rumors had said Eryx was destroying ships in backwater systems with no witnesses around, killing the crews, scrapping their vessels, and selling the parts on the black market. So far, Ariston had been on three completely legitimate salvage missions, funded by insurance companies wanting the remains of wrecked ships. He had begun to believe that the Pleasant Journey, no matter how heavily armed and how brutish its crew, was part of a legitimate business, despite what the rumors said. Now, as smoke wafted out of the ship ahead, Ariston had evidence to the contrary, the evidence he’d been sent out here to get.

“You have a problem with this?” Eryx asked softly, his eyes narrowing.

Lost in his pondering, Ariston hadn’t noticed the captain looking at him. He did his best to wipe his feelings off his face.

“No problem with taking down relic thieves,” Ariston said. “Just wasn’t expecting life on a salvage ship to be so exciting.”

“No? You look like a man who seeks out excitement.” Eryx waved at him, or maybe at his physique.

Actually, he was a man who’d been contemplating retirement. Forty-three was young for it, but space adventures had lost a lot of their appeal since Zya had died. He just had no idea what else he would do with himself.

“Not anymore,” he said quietly.

“Well, I need you to salvage that wreck as soon as we get it pulled into the bay. You can make it as unexciting as you want, but I want anything valuable beaten into shape.”

“What if there are survivors?”

“Shoot them.”

Ariston arched his eyebrows.

“They’re criminals,” Eryx said fiercely. “Thieves. They chose to live by this life, and they’ll accept the consequences and die by this life. I’ll come down there and do it myself if you don’t have the stomach for it.”

“Criminals should be tried in courts by judges. They’ll—”

“Give them a couple of licks with the lash and let them go back to their planet to be punished by their own government. Which will never happen. They’ll get away with it all and go back to thieving. And killing. Those people kill to cover their tracks. Don’t tell me they don’t.”

“As we’re doing to ensure nobody finds out that you’re destroying a ship so that you can salvage it?” Ariston shouldn’t pick a fight with the captain, especially when it might blow his cover. But it was hard to keep his mouth shut about ships being shot down and their crews murdered. No matter who they were.

“A little profit to keep our outfit operating,” Eryx said. “That’s all. We only kill those who deserve to be killed. Most of the time, their ships have been stolen so many times that we couldn’t find the legal owner to send ’em back to anyway. You stick with us, and you’ll see, Ston. We’re fighting for justice, justice the government is too wishy washy to mete out on their own.”

“Sir?” the helmsman asked, an uncertain note to his voice. “They fell too fast, and the atmosphere has been tricky to navigate. I didn’t get a tow beam on them.”

“Meaning they’re going to crash?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I—”

Eryx interrupted him with a disgusted noise. “You’ll go on the away team to pick up the pieces. Damn it.” He pounded a fist against his thigh. “There won’t be much to salvage from a ship crashing from forty thousand feet.”

Ariston tamped down a smile, pleased the captain would lose out on some of the money he’d thought he would earn from this stunt. Also pleased that he’d recorded enough at this point to condemn Eryx in front of Confederation judges.

The challenging part would be getting Eryx to court to be tried. Ariston was all alone out here, and the Journey had a crew of over fifty.

“There is that second ship,” the helmsman said. “It didn’t crash. It landed down there. Next to some pyramid.”

“So, it’s fully intact?” the captain asked, his tone switching from irritation to contemplation.

“Yes, sir. I see life signs… crew of seven or eight, it looks like.”

Ariston shifted his weight, a stone of unease settling into his stomach. Would Eryx send his away team out there to kill the people in this other ship? To murder them as surely as he’d done with the first ship?

“More relic thieves?” Eryx stroked his white beard.

“It’s a ship of Dethocolean origins,” the helmsman said, peering over at a sensor reading.

Still recording, Ariston watched Eryx carefully.

“An old hunter ship,” the helmsman added. “Almost as fast as us and maybe more maneuverable—when they’re in the air. Those ships have a lot of hidden nooks inside. They’re favored by smugglers. Pirates and bounty hunters too.”

“All the more likely it’s another group of relic thieves,” Eryx said. “According to the Confederation, the ruins of Mustikos are off limits to all but sanctioned research teams. Which means these people are here illegally. Which means…” A wolfish smile stretched across Eryx’s face. “Nobody’s going to miss them. Prepare two shuttles to go down.”

“Isn’t this planet haunted?” The helmsman shared an uneasy glance with the weapons officer.

“Stories, nothing more. Even if they’re true, we’re not staying long enough for it to matter.” Eryx turned toward the weapons officer, a quiet, bloodthirsty man who was a lot more dangerous than the brothers Ariston had faced. “Get two teams together, Arrow. Ston, get your tools. You’re going. I want the wreck searched and anything valuable that survived the crash brought on board. And then I want that other ship brought into Bay Three. We’ll take it apart piece by piece and sell it.”

“Do we kill the survivors?” Arrow asked, his expression dispassionate, as if he were asking about the weather. “And the crew of the other ship?”

“Leave no witnesses,” Eryx said. “I’m not going to have some thieving criminals showing up on Dethocoles to whine about us to the archons, to tell them we didn’t follow proper protocols when arresting them. We’re not some uptight, cock-sucking Star Guardians.”

Ariston jerked, clenching a fist at the insult to his agency, just as Eryx turned toward him, his eyes narrowing again.

“You have any problem with that, assistant engineer?”

“Not if we’re sure they’re criminals.” Ariston forced his fist to unclench, even though he had many problems with the scenario unfolding. And he had no idea how he was going to stop it.

“They’re here, trespassing on ruins under government jurisdiction. That makes them criminals. They’ve condemned themselves with their actions.”