If Savoness was a city-state of criminals and space pirates pretending to be otherwise, Varra’s Waystation near Antaare’s fourth moon had no such illusions. The pirate haven sat in the midst of an artificial asteroid in a sea of radiation at the edge of an unstable wyrmhole. It was in an area technically claimed by the Tigrantines, two werewolf Houses, and the Coalition. All that meant was no one was willing to risk war by enforcing rules that weren't really important to anyone anyway.

Everything illegal in the rest of the legit galaxy was fine with Varra, so long as you had the means to pay. You could get a hot meal with a side of whatever you wanted to fuck, snort, or inject. With enough money, you could get all three at the same time.

I wasn’t really looking forward to visiting the place. Last time I had been there, I shipped out with a space pirate crew that decided not to pay their debt to Varra. The crew had been captured by the Coalition, but if Varra saw my face, she would take it out on me.

Which is why there was no way I was coming out of my exo-armor so long as we were on the station.

I walked out of the ship, the exo-armor covering me. I had reprogrammed the plates to reshape my appearance into a more masculine figure with a thick barrel chest and torso. My face was covered by a mirrored visor so that the only thing someone would see would be themselves. Ral was wearing a dirty mech’s overalls and shirt. His hair was tied back in a braid, along with a blue metallic design temporarily tattooed on his face and some plastic scars. Now he looked like a rougher, scarier version of himself.

Which of course made him look more meltingly hot than ever.

The hangar was darker, louder, and far filthier than the one in Savoness. The ships reflected the place we were in: mostly patchjobs that had no business carrying living sentient beings into space. More ominous were the ships that were not only brand-spanking new, but some of the most expensive in the universe. You just knew that ships like those in a place like this meant owners you didn’t want to cross.

The dim lights flickered occasionally, revealing grimy floors with wet patches of long-ignored spilled bodily fluids. It stunk of urine, shit, and people who didn’t have the luxury of water for far too long. Groups hunched around circles, some listening to the preaching of charlatans, others engaged in games of chance, with even more dosing themselves with drugs. But then again, this was a destination for the desperate. No one who had other options would choose to come here.

We split up. Anduin went to gather weapons and supplies. Since he was bankrolling the whole mission, Ral had to come with me. The werewolf was tense. He hadn’t said much to me, well, since the last time we…talked.

It wasn’t that the Tigrantine ship wasn’t a decent ship; it was that we preferred not being tracked by House Stargazer, which they most certainly were doing.

If the hanger bay in Savoness was a show room for ships, the one in the Waystation was a junkyard in comparison. The detritus and cost of war was all around us. The haggard weary faces of refugees seeking safety where they could. Once a colony was wiped off a planet, or taken over, the former residents were often forced out of their homes. The Coalition tried to do right by our own and place them on other colonies, but generally in shifter culture, both tigers and wolves were not so forgiving of losers. In their eyes, it was better to weed the weak out of their society, and so former citizens became homeless refugees.

Ral saw me looking at a haggard family crouched together under a ship that looked like it would fall apart if you so much as breathed on it. Their clothing marked them as shifters; loose stretchy fabrics that could accommodate a change in form.

His mouth was a thin line. “Nightclaw’s motto is loyalty. We don’t do that to our people.”

“Are those werewolves there?”

He grimaced. “Yes. Every House governs their own people and territories as they see fit.”

“You have your own private werewolf kingdoms.”

“Not for long.” Ral straightened. “In the distant past the wolves were one people. Every life was cherished. Now, wolves are little more than prey for the machinations of House politics.” He looked at me directly. “It’s going to change.”

I felt a shiver. In that moment I believed him. I could see any pilot under his command would gladly fly to a certain death for him.

I shivered again. He was more dangerous than a fully charged pulsar cannon and I was an idiot for putting myself in a position that would keep us in such close proximity.

The werewolf family started staring and pointing at him, whispering to each other and sniffing the air.

“I think you’ve been discovered.”

Ral sighed and walked over to the group.

First there were snarls and growls. He said something to them that changed the looks on their faces from desperation to incredulousness to excitement. The older woman clutched Ral’s hand, shaking it. She looked almost as if she were going to bow to him. He shook his head and she stood up.

They watched him walk back to me.

“What did you say to them?”

“I told them they were welcome in Nightclaw lands. I also told them they could take this ship once we were done with it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Surely you don’t do this for every refugee werewolf family you come across.”

“Even Nightclaw has finite resources. No. They’ve come from Tevra, a planet known for its lush growth of houroxin.”

“Spice farmers?”

“We could use them on Nightclaw lands. And in any case, they recognized me. I need them not to sell us out.”

Against the main walls of the hangar, there was a wall of cryostasis chambers stacked, one atop the other. Modern technology had turned human cargo into, well, cargo. And if some of them suffered brain damage from improper handling, then that was the cost of doing business.

You would think that years of fighting slavers undercover would inoculate the ball of fear and anger at the bottom of my stomach, but nope. Some things don’t go away.

I tapped into the mic in my suit, and transmitted into the cuff ringing Ral’s ear. “You asked me why I volunteered to fight space pirates. This is why.”

“Pirates aren’t the problem,” he said, his eyes on the massive pile of weapons being offloaded from the ship in the neighboring landing pad. On another landing pad, there was a group, who by their once-colorful clothing were probably refugees from Taurian, the latest colony being ‘reestablished.’ “They’re a symptom. Peace is a pretense when the status quo is war.”

This situation was clearly making him angry, and the least thing I needed was a pissed off werewolf blowing our cover. “Come on. We’ve got a ship to buy.”

We walked on, visiting various used starship dealers. After seeing a ship that stank of rotting rendergastrolians (a hideously expensive, but atrociously smelly sea fungus beloved by fancy chefs across the system), a ship that looked like it had been flown in the last galaxy-wide war a hundred years ago, and another that was crawling with thousand-legged scapesects, I was almost ready to steal the next ship with decent shielding and a functioning ion engine myself.

Ral could sense my frustration. He patted my shoulder soothingly. “Let’s try this one last merchant. Anduin recommended her.”

“Anduin also recommended the place that stank of rendergastrolians.”

We walked into the berth where a woman with dark hair and pale skin waited for us. She looked like any normal unmodded human, save for the solitary black wing folded up on her back. It was an ancient punishment in angel society, cutting off a wing and sentencing them to the ground, though now of course, there were cybernetic attachments that could change all that. I’m sure having only one wing was supposed to be something of a statement, but it was lost on me. Angels tended to keep to themselves and their own planets.

She introduced herself as Lin. Ral flashed her one of those glittering smiles of his and I think she might have stumbled. “Come this way,” she said with a melodic accent, turning to display a shapely hourglass figure, her single wing fluttering just so. She looked over her shoulder. “I’ve got what you’re looking for right over here.”

And so do I, I thought, clenching my fist.

She brought us to a berth.

It was too good to be true. I took in that lovely green scaled shielding. It was probably a hologram or about to fall apart. I knocked on the hull. Well, at least it sounded intact.

“A Coalition Star Screecher,” I said to no one in particular.

“No,” said Lin. “That would be illegal. This is a copy, or so the original owner told me.”

Copy my ass, judging by the hastily painted-over Coalition insignia on the fins. I walked around the ship. Star Screechers were the ultimate border patrol ships, built and customized by the Regen Corporation out of Ahura-2. If anyone was profiting from all these conflicts, they were. Almost everyone, Coalition or not, used some version of a Star Screecher in their patrols.

Ral walked around the ship, examining it. I followed, trying to look like I was guarding him, while my suit scanned the beautiful piece of machinery.

“Look all you like,” said Lin, following us. A few loose feathers of her wing brushed against Ral. I reminded myself that hurting the only seller with a decent ship probably wasn’t the best negotiating tactic. She leaned toward him, smiling. “This is a good deal. You won’t do better.”

He smiled back. “How has it been modified for offensive deep space missions?” Ral asked Lin.

She pointed at the enlarged weapons modules and scorch marks on the shielding. “This isn’t your standard border patrol ship.”

“Hmm,” he said.

Ral removed the panel and I did an initial scan of the ship’s ion core. It looked fine. He quickly examined the specs on a tablet Lin handed to him, and then handed it back to her. “This ship will do.”

“Great,” she said. “Let me talk to my manager about getting you a better deal.”

“I’d be much obliged.”

Once the one-winged angel had gone, I did my best not to yell at him. “You’re so busy staring at her you haven’t even checked the engine, or the weapons systems.”

He smiled. “Jealous?”

Oh my stars, could I be any more obvious? “No.”

Yes, that was more obvious.

“It’s part of the cover. And I know you’ll do a check on everything but we need to get moving on the contracts and inspections so we can get out of here. This ship is ideal for what we need. Working cloaking tech, strong coms.” He turned to face me. “You’re looking for an excuse for rejection.”

I held my ground. “I try to give things due consideration before opening fire.”

And then all of a sudden, we were not just talking about the ship, but something else altogether. “Sometimes, you have to trust your instinct.”

“You forget what line of work I’m in, but tell me, since you are so sure. Why this one? Why not any other?”

“Sometimes you know.” His eyes were as blue as they had ever been

I had to get away from him.

“I’m going to take a look inside.”

He didn’t follow me as I ducked into the ship. I walked into the common area, past the crew bunks. Deep space transports tended to all have similar interiors: a kitchen/common area that could be transformed into a dining area, a meeting area, a med bay or an exercise pit.

I glanced in the captain’s quarters outside the cockpit. I pulled out the standard bunk-drawer-bed, checking for scapesects. No way Ral would fit in there.

What was I thinking? The drawer clanged as I shoved it back into the wall. I didn’t need to share quarters with him. I wasn’t on an official mission anymore. This was a total off-the-record operation.

I headed for the cockpit. Through the window, I saw Ral chatting with Lin, his arms folded against his chest. She leaned forward, smiling.

I yanked a screen in front of the window to block my view and began running diagnostics. Now that was surprising. The coms equipment was not the kind of stuff you would find on an ordinary Star Screecher, even an OD-class. This one had enough com equipment to bug, jam, and monopolize the transmissions of a squadron of ships.

This wasn’t an ordinary Star Screecher. These were Sector 9 mods. Whose ship had this been?

I knew any form of user profile would have been stripped, but I did it anyway, to be sure.

I checked the cloaking. A-Class, and then some. A degree older than the cloaking on the ship I had left behind.

This ship had been made for someone important. There were bound to be more secrets to this ship. Ral had been right. This ship was perfect.

It was rather annoying to admit that to myself.

But honestly, it didn’t mean anything.

Did it?

* * *

Flying for lengthy amounts of time in deep space meant that when you got an opportunity to stretch your legs and see other living beings other than yourself, you took them, or at least I did. I left Ral to his negotiations, which he seemed to be enjoying too much.

It may not have been the wisest choice to go out shopping, but so long as I kept my exo-armor on I shouldn’t have any problems. Eating and drinking were out of the question because it would reveal too much of my face. Though that didn’t mean I couldn’t splurge on a few real food items, like fruits that had actually been grown planetside, rather than some nutritional facsimile manufactured in a lab. Granted they were frozen and cost as much as a topline spanning bolt, but that was to be expected at Varra’s.

As I carried the cheerful pink shopping tote with a picture of a smiling feline, I decided to head to another street. Turning a corner, I came to an alley of weapons. Almost every kind of weapon that one could possibly conceive of in the known universe was available for sale here. I ducked into a shop to stock up on shard bombs, needles, and other exo-armor projectiles.

The man in the shop looked as if he should be a patriarch in a home surrounded by adoring children. He had a warm welcoming smile and a south Gaian drawl that made you feel instantly at ease.

He held up a small device that looked like a flashlight. “Mind if I scan you, to be sure of weapons compatibility?”

It was a relatively standard request at shops like this. I nodded.

There was a flash of light and the man glanced at the reading. “Hmm. Wait here a second. I’ve got the thing for you.”

He brought out several boxes of various projectiles for me to examine.

“I can tell you’ve been in some fights,” said the man.

I nodded, picking up a box.

“And you’ve also got some top-grade exo-armor. The kind that the Coalition military likes to use.”

I set down the box. He leaned forward.

“The funny thing about exo-armor,” the man drawled, “is that the more you use it, the more you make it unique to you.” He moved out from behind the counter, sauntering past me. “It learns, adapts, and changes based on the situations you’ve been in, until it’s almost another part of you.

Too late, I realized, he was blocking the exit. I scanned the room for another outlet, found one behind me and stepped backward.

I glanced at the device he had used to scan me. Immediately I knew it wasn’t what I had thought it was. An armor identifier.

Gray exo-armor crawled up around his legs, thighs and body. “Until it is a piece of you that can’t be mistaken for anyone else. Sorry, but I have a contract.”

He shot forth a long wire tentacle from his exo-armored forearm, crackling with electricity. Fire shot up my arm, before my suit adjusted to cycle the electricity around me. I grabbed the tentacle and yanked him to me, hammering a punch to his head that would have shattered his skull had he not been wearing exo-armor. He stumbled back.

Drums thudded hot inside me. Varra realized I was here. My mind ran through the route I had taken through the cramped little interior paths of this asteroid. Somehow I had to make my way back to the ship without being caught.

Heat sensors showed the appearance of another exo-armored figure behind me. I tried to turn, but before I could, the second one grabbed me from behind. An armor-piercing blade emerged from its forearm, trying to find its way to my neck. I continued my turn. The knife scraped against my armor.

My limbs were like jelly, trembling with adrenaline. My exo-armor was designed to protect against the vacuum of deep space in the event of an ejection and while it had excellent offensive and defensive capabilities, it wasn’t assassin specialized exo-armor. I jumped and the boosters in my boots propelled us backward. I slammed him into the wall behind us. He let me go and I fell to the floor. A grey boot stepped onto my face. Inside my visor, the structural integrity rating of my helmet dropped as the pressure increased. I shot spikes into the thigh. The grey one fell.

Not too bad for a pilot.

I jumped to my feet, saw the blue one aiming a massive high voltage gun at me, the kind meant to scramble a starship’s systems, melt delicate techwork down to slag.

I had let myself feel relief too soon.

The gun fired.

Time slowed. I tried to move out of the way as quickly as I could, but I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough. Anger and regret entangled my movements. My hand moved in front of me slowly as if I were swimming underwater, trying to get away from a hungry predator. It wouldn’t be enough.

The bolt slammed into my suit, scrambling my suit’s systems. It knocked me backward and sent me sprawling. One after the other in rapid succession the various subsystems of my suit flickered off, the weapons, the countermeasures, the medical readings, and finally the life support systems.

No. No. No.

I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Without power, I was essentially wearing an immobile metal coffin. Worse, my right knee was bent across my left leg with my arms spread wide. It wasn’t an awkward position in itself, but to be trapped that way?

The blue exo-armored figure reached for me. My heart pounded. At this point, I was as helpless as one could be, frozen in a metal shell.

This couldn’t be it.

This couldn’t be the end.

To my surprise, he picked me up and carried me under his arm. We walked out of the building, me only a rigid statue of an armored shell.

Varra wanted me alive.