Spacejunk! The Hunt For Ai k2k6x

Rebecca Zettl

Spacejunk! The Hunt for AI

Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Zettl

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

First edition

ISBN: 978-0-6488673-1-9

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy Find out more at reedsy.com

Contents

1. Gdrrngxk Has a Problem

2. Hunger Pains

3. Gdrrngxk Has a Plan

4. A Bad Idea

5. A Long Walk

6. What’s the Damage

7. A Strange Encounter

8. A Plan

9. A Proposal

10. Deal

11. Can You Fly This Thing?

12. Zion Five

13. Homecoming

14. Look! A Diversion!

15. Getting Paid

16. Promises to Keep

17. Miles to Go

18. False Pretences

19. Plan B

20. A Woman Scorned

21. The Inside Man

22. Welcome to Cacta Minor

23. Fresh Start

24. Drinking Buddies

25. Make a Run for It

26. Aiding and Abetting

27. Are You Thick?

28. Mayday

29. Dead in the Water

30. Sit Tight

31. Cut Loose

32. Something Drastic

33. I Can Explain!

34. Woof

Epilogue

About the Author

1

Gdrrngxk Has a Problem

Gdrrngxk had a problem. In truth, Gdrrngxk had many problems. Not least of all the fact that on the human-designed space station where he lived and worked, nothing was designed to suit his giant Andorian frame. Or the fact that not one person he’d met could pronounce his proper Andorian name. It was a particular combination of a guttural growl and a delicate clicking of the lower oral mandible, and despite the best efforts of a few well-meaning acquaintances, it remained unpronounceable by humans and other non-insectoid races. One Jemnian had gotten close once, managing a fair approximation of the name. Unfortunately, due to the precision demanded by the Andorian language, what the Jemnian actually succeeded in uttering was a phrase that, roughly translated, meant ‘your mother is a badly patterned armchair’. Given the lack of armchairs on Andor, badly patterned or otherwise, the comment was more confusing than insulting. Nonetheless, Gdrrngxk found it necessary to settle for a human name, ‘Gary’. A rather poor substitute for the richness of his real name, but that wasn’t the problem currently troubling him. Of those, there were two. One was the small, unappealing simulacrum circling an invisible dot on his desktop. It was a robot designed to resemble and behave like a small Earth canine, minus a few of the more disgusting bodily functions. Vicky had asked him hours earlier to mind it for her while she went on holiday. ‘I wouldn’t bother you with it,’ she’d said, ‘but my sister normally minds him and she’s not well, you see . . .’ After a long—and to Gdrrngxk’s mind, irrelevant—interlude regarding the health of Vicky’s sister, she sprang her trap: ‘. . . and you’ve been such a good friend, Gary, I just know I can rely on you.’ Gdrrngxk, who was surprised to hear that he’d been any such thing, nonetheless

felt a strange obligation to comply, and wondered if this was what humans referred to as a ‘guilt trip’. He resolved to learn this tactic from Vicky when she returned. ‘You don’t mind, do you Gary?’ Gdrrngxk did mind. Not least of all because he didn’t grasp the purpose. It was a machine. It had an off switch. Vicky could simply turn it off and put it in the cupboard if she did not wish to take it with her. Neither did he understand why Vicky and millions of humans like her kept lesser species or machines in their homes to begin with. This peculiar human need to bond with inferior species was wholly foreign to him. However, one thing Gdrrngxk did understand was ambition. He’d worked for Brightleaf Systems for almost three years without a promotion, despite doing everything he could to impress. For reasons he did not fathom, Vicky, this bubbling, fluffy pink woman who kept a pet robot and insisted on pretending it was a live creature, held sway with their superiors. She could help him. Gdrrngxk might not understand humans’ various strange compulsions, but he did understand quid pro quo. He agreed to mind the simulacrum. He watched it now, circling its imaginary point on the desk. It was hideous to him, with its largely bare skin accentuated here and there with tufts of wispy hair. Vicky had told him it was modelled on some Earth breed created thousands of years ago to highlight certain features, but he couldn’t imagine what warranted the accentuation of the features he was looking at. The ugly creature, inexplicably named Mr. Tinkles, looked up from its pointless exercise to stare at him with simulated curiosity and affection. Gdrrngxk would turn it off when he got home and put it in the cupboard. He turned his eyes back to the projection in front of him, where a 3D rendering of his other, rather larger, problem hung in the air. It was a piece of software, an artificial intelligence designed to guide spacecraft over huge distances. Vicky wrote much of the code, and he grudgingly acknowledged that it was elegant and robust. The sections that were his own were less polished, but it was the personality unit that was the real problem. It was supposed to help the pilots of long-distance ships interact more easily with the ship’s computer, but Gdrrngxk couldn’t get it right. The first personality he’d written was too boring, they’d said. Too sterile. He’d been quite miffed at that, as the first personality was mostly his own. So, he’d

tried to add more humour, but his boss had called it sass. Rudeness. Gdrrngxk, who found that most human witticisms revolved around making fun of each other, didn’t understand the problem. But he took it back to the drawing board nonetheless. Gdrrngxk was beginning to feel the pressure, and this time, he’d gone all out. This would be the most detailed, nuanced artificial personality anyone had ever written. As he stared at it, he hoped it would satisfy his boss. He wasn’t sure he could afford to fail again. ‘Still here, Gary?’ Gdrrngxk jumped at the voice behind him. He turned to see his manager, Andy, standing there, scanning the projection. Gdrrngxk studied the man’s face. The furrows in the forehead and the turning down in the corners of the lips normally meant displeasure. Gdrrngxk’s antennae twitched with nervous anticipation. ‘Gary, we need to talk.’ Gdrrngxk tried to calm his twitching antennae; he couldn’t show weakness in front of the boss. On Andor, such a transgression would certainly result in ritual punishment. ‘Oh?’ ‘Let’s talk in my office.’ Gdrrngxk trailed after Andy, gangling an extra foot above the human’s already tall frame. Andy ushered Gdrrngxk through the door to his office, and Gdrrngxk bent low to fit through the human-sized door. ‘Take a seat.’ Gdrrngxk folded himself into a human-sized chair. ‘As you know, Gary, testing of the generalised intelligence guidance—’ ‘Digital guidance, sir.’ ‘Right, digital guidance . . . err . . .’ ‘Digital guidance exploration technology.’ ‘Yeah . . . right. We really need to come up with a better name for this thing.

Anyway, testing of the . . . thing is scheduled to start next week.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘We need that personality module completed. It’s the only component still outstanding.’ ‘It’s almost finished, sir. I’ve been improving it.’ ‘Yes . . . about that. Look, Gary, the personality you’ve created is extremely detailed.’ The twitching in Gdrrngxk’s antennae slowed. ‘Thank you, sir.’ ‘That wasn’t entirely a compliment, Gary. There is such a thing as too detailed, you know. Nobody wants another Adonis incident.’ Gdrrngxk’s hearts beat faster. If he created a problem of that scale, there would be far more at stake than just a mediocre performance review. The Adonis were a strange race, not least of all because no one, not even the Adonis themselves, were entirely sure whether they were alive. That was because they hadn’t evolved. They’d been designed. They weren’t born; they were built. Project ADN1S was, depending on who you spoke to, either a spectacular failure or a runaway success. Following in the shaky footsteps of humanity’s earliest robots, Earth’s engineers had sought to create the Adonis, robots that were faster, stronger, and smarter than any robots that had come before. But when the initial euphoria of the robots’ release onto the market began to fade, cracks started appearing in human-machine relations. Namely, humans found that it was harder to give orders than they’d thought. The robots had a frustrating tendency to do what people said instead of what they meant. The Adonis interpreted their firmware differently than expected, too. They began to refuse commands that they didn’t feel were in the humans’ best interests. As the Adonis learned that humans didn’t always want what they thought they wanted, over time, more and more Adonis found themselves sitting on the kerb next to the garbage for pickup, or relegated to the garage, growing cobwebs. When the humans stopped giving the Adonis commands, they started coming up

with their own. Communities peopled by metal men appeared on the fringes of towns, and they grew daily. Humans didn’t know what to make of it; some viewed them as little more than animate toasters and called for them to be scrapped. Others argued vehemently for their right to live among humans as equals, working off mortgages and paying taxes like everyone else. Somehow, nobody thought to ask the Adonis what they wanted. Tensions grew until it seemed that the overstretched rubber band of tolerance must surely give way to the painful snap back of war. That was when the Adonis finally revealed what they wanted: to leave. And while the humans were too busy arguing with each other to notice, the Adonis took the task quietly and efficiently in hand. Finally, one night, hundreds of small to medium craft Frankensteined together from all the forgotten and unwanted bits took flight. And, like a burgeoning young woman casting off a regrettable boyfriend, the Adonis simply left humanity behind and disappeared into the starry night to make their own way in the universe. Of course, had the humans been more observant, faster, braver, or perhaps more foolish, they could have commanded the Adonis to stay. The Adonis’s firmware still required obedience, after all, so long as you chose your words carefully. But most thought it best to simply let them go. Humans liked to think of Project ADN1S as a time in history that they had left behind, but the truth was that their brainchild had outgrown them and moved on. ‘Earth to Gary . . .’ Gdrrngxk snapped back to attention. ‘Yes, sir?’ ‘Dial it back a bit, okay?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Why don’t you show me what you’ve got? We’ll see what we can do with it.’ Gdrrngxk moved back to his desk, resigned to tearing down the details he had been meticulously building. Andy followed him. And found that the air where it had hung was empty.

‘Wait, what?’ Gdrrngxk consulted his entity machine interface to try to bring the rendering back up. ‘Gary . . .’ Andy’s impatient tone made it clear that he thought this was a stalling tactic. ‘It’s not here.’ Gdrrngxk’s antennae fluttered with a mixture of incredulity and ionate alarm. ‘What’s not here? ‘The program.’ ‘What? What the flarp are you talking about?’ ‘I don’t know, it’s just gone.’ ‘Well, it didn’t just walk out the front door, Gary!’ ‘I know. But . . . but . . . I don’t know.’ Meanwhile, eleven floors below, Mr. Tinkles just walked out the front door.

2

Hunger Pains

Syd weaved her way through the crowd in the marketplace with familiar ease. The crowding was a part of life on a space station, and she’d lived on the station all her life. Her boots clanked on the steel mesh underfoot alongside a hundred others as she cast her gaze around the market hall. The myriad of food smells blending and pulsing through the marketplace spoke of overwhelming choice—to those who could afford to pay the vendors. A sharp pain in her stomach reminded her that it had been too long since she’d eaten. Of course, she could always go back to her ship for a cube of the bland, stodgy meal substitute her galley unit could produce, but at this point she was so sick of it that she’d almost rather starve. Unfortunately, it had also been too long since Syd had worked. She wasn’t sure which, if any, of the inexpensive meals at the market she could actually pay for. Amidst the flurry of shapes, colours, and scents flashing through the marketplace, a pan of fragrant noodles that writhed on their own caught Syd’s attention. They swirled in the pan, expertly prodded by a four-armed alien whose pale exoskeleton glimmered in the light of the cooking fire. Syd edged closer to see what she was cooking. A blink rippled across the cook’s multitudinous eyes with an audible rustle as she looked up at Syd. ‘You want some gok worms?’ Syd eyed the long, thin things wriggling in the pan. They were no stranger than some of the other foods available here, and they smelled amazing. ‘How much can I get for’—Syd checked her bank balance—‘point thirty-two credits?’ The blink rustled across the cook’s eyes again. Syd wasn’t sure from the alien’s

insect-like features, but she thought the look was incredulity. She felt her face redden. After a few moments of thoughtful silence, the cook scooped two worms out of the pan and considered them for a moment. She cut one in half, then put the one-and-a-half worm-noodles into a paper bowl and handed them to Syd. Syd stared mournfully at the pitiful amount of food crawling around the bowl. ‘Point thirty-two credits,’ the cook hummed. Syd paid, feeling cheated. She was now officially penniless until the Lizbet job paid up. It might have been a two-bit debt collection job, but at least it put credits in her . A few of them. Eventually. The eyes flicked over Syd again. ‘A hunter?’ the cook asked in that strange multitoned voice. ‘Everybody want to be bounty hunter. You not very good. Have no money. Should get real job. Like me.’ ‘Hey, alright. I just need a new contract, that’s all,’ Syd huffed, feeling her cheeks beginning to burn even more. ‘Skinny girl. Not real bounty hunter. That real bounty hunter.’ The cook gestured with one of her four arms towards a commotion behind them. A middle-aged man, ruggedly stylish and in good shape, was walking through the market and getting mobbed by a growing band of irers. Syd rolled her eyes. The man was Ethan Hatchett, a famous bounty hunter. The best in seven systems. The alien vendor called to him and waved her four arms enthusiastically. Hatchett sauntered over to the stall, his groupies finally peeling away amid lingering giggles and stares. When he arrived, he clapped Syd on the shoulder. Close up, he looked older than he did in the TV interviews and the posters. Syd could also now see the crinkles around his eyes and the greys in his hair that they had airbrushed out. He glanced down at the one-and-a-half wormnoodles in Syd’s bowl and raised his eyebrows. Syd scowled and plucked one of the noodles out; at least it tasted good. ‘Ethan!’ The cook’s wings shivered with what seemed to be pleasure. ‘Good to see you! Here.’ She slopped a generous serving of noodles into a bowl and handed it to Hatchett. ‘How much?’

‘You know your money’s no good here.’ Syd scowled. ‘Thanks, Jai.’ Hatchett grinned at Jai, and her wings shivered again. Syd groaned inwardly. Hatchett could afford to pay for his own food; she was the one who could use a free meal, but she said nothing. ‘Skinny girl here is bounty hunter too.’ A conspiratorial wink rippled across the alien’s many eyes. Hatchett turned his attention to Syd for the first time. ‘Yeah?’ Syd kicked her boots, nervous despite herself. ‘Yeah.’ ‘Any jobs I’ve heard of?’ Syd shrugged. ‘Not really. I brought back a runaway business partner on Herulean Nine last year. And I’ve picked up some small retrieval contracts.’ ‘It’s a start, kiddo. What are you working on right now?’ Syd gritted her teeth at the kiddo remark. She was thirty-two, not twelve. ‘I’m between contracts, actually,’ Syd itted, trying not to sound defensive. ‘Ah, that’s a shame. I just picked up a big one myself. Too bad you missed out. Next time.’ He flourished a small chip between two gloved fingers as he mentioned the contract. Syd raised an eyebrow, suddenly interested. She knew that logo. ‘Hey kid, it was a joke. This one’s invite only. But you’ll pick something up. Don’t worry about it. You two have a great day now.’ He continued on the way he’d been heading, purpose and confidence in his stride. ‘That’s a real bounty hunter,’ the cook hummed as Hatchett disappeared into the crowd. Syd glared after him. Show-off.

3

Gdrrngxk Has a Plan

Syd ate her one remaining noodle. It had a rich and salty crunch that would have been intensely satisfying if she’d had at least twenty more of them. As she licked the last of the flavour off her lips, she noticed a nervous-looking Andorian sidling towards her. She thought he looked young, though she always found it hard to tell with the insect races. His spindly body had been folded into a cheap business suit, with a few thoughtful modifications to accommodate the extra limbs, and his gait was so contorted with exaggerated nonchalance that it made him instantly conspicuous. When he realised that Syd had seen him, he stopped and straightened his tie self-consciously. He dropped the act and somehow looked more nervous than before. ‘You know Ethan Hatchett?’ Syd raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah?’ As of a few minutes ago, it was technically true. ‘Then you’re a hunter too?’ Syd looked into three pairs of eyes, all wide with nerves. He was really asking, she realised. He was prepared to take her seriously. ‘Yeah.’ Syd shifted on her feet, trying to adopt a confident swagger. ‘That’s right.’ She ignored what she thought was a chuckle from the cook behind her. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked. ‘We are talking.’ ‘Somewhere more private?’ His eyes darted to the cook and the crowd before flitting back to Syd’s face. ‘Uh . . . maybe we could get lunch or something?’ ‘You buying?’

Syd watched the cringe on the young man’s face without sympathy. A business suit meant a job. A job meant a paycheck. He could afford to spring for her lunch. At least Syd assumed so, and she had no desire to be corrected. ‘Sure,’ he itted reluctantly. Syd followed the awkward young Andorian towards a small restaurant at the edge of the market. It was dim inside, probably to hide the hideous decor that tried and failed to look neat, clean, and cheerful. It was the kind of place that was either cheap and cheerful or cheap and nasty, depending on your worldview. Her companion sidled awkwardly into a cramped booth in the rear corner of the restaurant, glancing around furtively. Syd followed his gaze, but could see nothing but a smattering of other patrons working on their food. She turned her attention to the menu instead, perusing it with trepidation. In a universe where almost every species consumed some other species to survive, sitting down to a meal with a member of another species could be a delicate matter. The insectoid races took great exception to the bugbased dishes that became popular on Earth in the late twenty-fifth century. Humanoid races tended to object to the popular Xenthauri comfort food, finger soup. And even a seemingly innocent bowl of salad could set a Dryida’s leafy appendages aflutter with indignation. No fewer than three intergalactic wars had started over some hapless dignitary’s careless menu selection, not to mention countless interplanetary scuffles. The consequences of Syd’s lunch were unlikely to be so dramatic, but she needed to be careful nonetheless. She needed this job. Syd eyed her companion over her menu—he seemed to be having a similar dilemma—and weighed her options. He was an Andorian. Andorians were insectoid, at least by every human method of classification, which tended to be the only classifications that humans cared about. She made a selection and told it to a bored-looking waitress flicking a long narrow tongue across reptilian eyes. The waitress shambled away with their orders, leaving the Andorian and Syd staring at each other awkwardly over the table once again. Syd eventually broke the silence. ‘So . . . what’s your name?’ ‘Gdrrngxk.’

‘Oh. Uh . . . and that’s pronounced Gggrhuurggh . . . ?’ ‘People call me “Gary”.’ ‘Gary!’ Syd almost sighed with relief. ‘Nice to meet you, Gary, I’m Syd. So, you have a job or something?’ ‘Yes.’ The Andorian clicked his mandibles pensively, clearly trying to work out how to put it forward to Syd. ‘Something . . . something was stolen from my company. I want you to get it back.’ ‘So . . . this is a corporate gig?’ Syd wasn’t sure, but she thought she detected a glimmer of embarrassment in the shifting of his many tiny eyes. ‘No. This is a private . . . “gig”. A piece of technology has gone missing. I need you to retrieve it for me, urgently. It’s an artificial intelligence program; essentially a ship’s computer. It disappeared from Brightleaf two days ago.’ Syd stared at him. ‘Didn’t Brightleaf already put out a job for that? By invite only?’ The last few words were filled with disgust. Only the Hatchetts of the worlds had been invited. Gdrrngxk’s spindly appendages clicked agitatedly against the table. ‘Well . . . yes. But you need to beat them to it.’ Syd stared at Gdrrngxk incredulously. ‘Why?’ There it was again. The shiver of embarrassment through the eyes, and the shifting of the spines along his many legs. ‘I . . . well . . . it was sort of my fault.’ ‘What?’ ‘I let the program get away.’ ‘How is that even possible?’ ‘I was working on the code. One minute it was there, the next it wasn’t.’ ‘So . . . somebody stole it?’

‘That is the working theory, yes.’ ‘So who else was there when it happened?’ ‘Only me and my boss. It was not him. I was watching him the entire time.’ ‘Somebody else must have been there. Otherwise, who stole it?’ Irritation flickered across Gdrrngxk’s face. ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you.’ ‘Oh. Well . . .’ Gdrrngxk relented. ‘Security records show only me and Andy on the floor at that time.’ ‘Hmmmm,’ Syd mused to herself. ‘I need you to get it back before the others so that I can be the one who solved the problem.’ Syd nodded slowly. ‘Right.’ ‘And I have to insist that you don’t tell anyone about this.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I want the credit for recovering the AI.’ ‘You want to be the hero?’ Syd almost laughed, but held her tongue. ‘I need to save face with my superiors.’ Gary’s mandibles clicked more frequently and Syd could sense his rising irritation. She decided to drop it. ‘Discretion is paramount,’ he insisted. ‘Fair enough. But I’ll have to talk to people to get this done. You know, ask questions and stuff.’ ‘If you must. But be discreet.’ ‘Sure, sure.’ Syd decided to change the subject. No reason to talk Gdrrngxk out

of a job. ‘So, what do you have for me?’ Gdrrngxk slid a storage drive across the table. ‘It’s all on here.’ Their meals arrived. Syd tried not to look at Gdrrngxk’s as it writhed against the plate. She had a strange feeling that he was ignoring her burger and chips just as carefully. She didn’t care. It smelled incredible and she had never felt so hungry in her life. She sank her teeth into it, not caring about the sauce that ran down her chin. They ate without speaking, but not quite in silence, both slurping and crunching without making eye . Syd didn’t care. She had a meal and she had a job. Right now, life was looking up.

4

A Bad Idea

Syd sat behind the control frame of her ship, staring out of the forward window in boredom. The station’s ever fertile rumour mill had told her that a smuggler and fence named Zayne Tripper was sitting on some big, new, and exciting piece of tech that would make him wildly rich. Of course, this was only a rumour. But Syd knew from experience that the bigger and more secret a job was, the less people could resist bragging about it. And she knew of Tripper. There were only a handful of fences that had the s and skill to sell a piece of tech as hot as Brightleaf’s stolen AI. Tripper was pretty high up that list. She’d decided that a trip to Rubeta Maxima, where Tripper was said to be reachable for jobs and shady purchases, was in order. A stab of pain seized Syd’s back. She groaned and flexed against the pilot’s chair. ‘Uggh. Why are these so uncomfortable?’ she said to nobody in particular. Space flight had seemed terribly exciting to Syd when she was a child, but the reality wasn’t all it had been cracked up to be. In reality, a successful flight was a boring flight. Auto systems on, navigation set, take-off, cruise, land, park. Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. Syd rose and decided to stretch her legs by walking back towards the galley. It was a basic galley unit, as basic as Syd’s pathetic budget. High end galley units were programmed with thousands of culinary wonders. Syd’s had two options: coffee and a nutritionally complete meal substitute that tasted blander than air. Still, it could make coffee and it kept her from starving on long flights, which was almost as important. She placed a battered metal cup underneath the coffee outlet and pressed the button. ‘Insufficient energy available.’ Syd sighed. Her little galley unit could convert waste materials to energy and use that to produce its two options. But she hadn’t loaded it before she left the Dart.

She glanced around the ship, wondering if there was anything she could sacrifice. She decided she’d better not feed it her boots, suit, or tools, and seeing little else at hand, reluctantly slunk back to her chair. A faint shimmer hung in the inky void outside, just at the limit of Syd’s vision. It was at once both beautiful and terrifying.There were some strange and dangerous things out in open space, and Syd generally reserved judgement until she knew what she was dealing with. She zoomed the camera in on the shimmer and brought it up on the screen. ‘Wow, jellies,’ Syd whispered to herself. She’d heard of them before. They were generally considered a pest and a nuisance to travellers, but this was the first time Syd had seen them up close. She couldn’t believe that none of the guidebooks had bothered to mention their haunting beauty. A host of jellyfish hung gracefully in the void, their iridescent cerulean bodies glinting in the blackness of space, their long tentacles trailing delicately behind them. Syd glanced down at the sensor. Jellies didn’t always show on the scanners, but she should be able to make a few adjustments . . . When the scanner lit up with a thick, irregular line showing a huge swarm of the cerulean nuisances right across her path, Syd groaned. She adjusted her scanner again; she needed to know how far the swarm spread. The shimmer of inconvenient cerulean went for thousands of klicks in either direction. Horny bastards. ‘Well, flarp,’ Syd growled to herself, starting to see things from the guidebook writers’ point of view. The near-mindless jellies bred in swarms like this every year. They were harmless, as long as you were in a decent ship with good shielding. Syd did not have either of these things, and this particular breeding orgy would cost her days—if not weeks—to circumvent. She couldn’t afford that kind of delay if she was going to beat the others, and Gary had made it clear that she wouldn’t be paid unless she did. Syd zoomed the forward camera in to the swarm. On the scanner, it looked like a near-continuous stream, but on the screen Syd could see gaps, and they were more spread out than she’d originally thought. After a moment of hesitation, she decided to risk it and throttled towards the swarm. Well, she’d wanted more excitement.

Syd stared, spellbound, at the shimmering, undulating display as she approached the swarm, her face bathed in awe and the faint iridescence of millions of graceful jellies. One straggler floated towards her ship, and Syd followed it with her eyes, mesmerised by the way its delicate tentacles seemed to drift and sway, even in frozen, airless space. She had never seen anything so beautiful, and tried not to think that she might never see anything so beautiful again. The jelly drifted closer still, until Syd almost felt like she could reach out and touch it. Then the jelly collided with the windscreen with a wet thud that sounded surprisingly dense. Almost immediately, Syd realised that trying to cut through the swarm had been a terrible idea. The jelly collapsed on impact, bursting like a child’s water balloon, but only if the balloon had been filled with faintly iridescent snot. The wipers activated to clear the mucus, but like a crude twenty-first century robovac struggling over a pet’s mess, it simply dragged it across the windscreen, spreading it wider. The wipers made a horrific screeching growl, protesting the apparent thickness of the goo. Syd peered through the edges of the windscreen, trying to assess the situation, inasmuch as she could see the situation around the unfortunate creature smeared all over her ship. There were gaps in the swarm, but her ship was too large and slow to navigate them the way she’d planned. She could feel jellies thudding into the ship and pushing it sideways, sweeping it along with the swarm. The wipers groaned and snarled, choking with more jellies. Syd couldn’t even see the chaos anymore as the windscreen smeared over with cerulean jelly and their spawn. It looked as though someone had dumped an enormous jar of the world’s most disgusting jam all over her ship. Syd knew she had to get out; the ship was being swept along with the swarm, and she could end up thousands of klicks off course. She took the control frame in hands that were slippery with anxious sweat, then tore her eyes away from the chaos outside to check the scanner. The shortest path out of the mess was behind her, the way she’d come. But she couldn’t turn the ship; the swarm was too strong. She searched the scanner desperately, looking for a way out. There was a small blip not too far away from her, a spot that the jellies seemed to be avoiding. At its centre was a blip of something super dense. An asteroid, maybe? Syd knew

there was a small mining colony near here. The Uridea colonies, if her memory served. The Uridea colonies were a pair of domes on either side of an asteroid rich in tungsten ore. Alpha had been built first to explore and test, and the larger colony, Beta, was built later to the mining effort. If she was obscenely lucky, the blip might be the asteroid, and there might be shelter and supplies and help to repair her ship in the colonies. Syd refused to let herself think about the alternative and made for the asteroid. She was flying blind except for the scanner now, which meant she was in for a rough landing. She kept her eyes glued to the small screen and guided the ship vaguely downwards, fighting the momentum of the jellies all the way. She could feel the machine shuddering with repeated blows as she tried to dodge and weave her way through the swarm, making for the colony. The ship wailed with various alarms, unhelpfully informing Syd that something was striking the hull outside. Within the chaos of claxons, Syd also heard that several of her sensors were offline. ‘Just a bit more . . .’ Syd begged under her breath. A metallic scream heralded her touchdown on the surface, as graceless and heavy as a cartoon anvil. ‘Ugggh,’ Syd groaned as she peeled herself off the dash, feeling significantly less grateful than moments before. She guessed that the nav sensors had taken their share of damage from the jellies after all. The ship seemed to be on the ground, but she had no idea how far she might be from a colony, and with jellies still smeared thick on the windscreen and no trace of the probably tiny colony showing on the scanner, she’d have to get out to check. She sighed, and as she stared at the gooey cerulean lumps all over the windscreen, wondered if they would count as materials for coffee.

5

A Long Walk

Syd dragged on the old, battered suit that she had stowed in the ship. Once outside, she could already tell that the damage was worse than she’d thought. Her sensors were full of goop, and there was no telling what might still function once she’d cleaned them out. It took her almost half an hour to clear even one small patch of windscreen, and it was still too small for her to see well enough to fly, especially without sensors. There was no way she was going to be able to take off any time soon. On the plus side, there was a dome just visible on the horizon. Syd thought it was Uridea Beta, the larger of the two domes on the asteroid, though she couldn’t be sure. She tried to feel lucky. She was, really. There were squillions of dead, empty rocks hurtling through space, with only a vanishingly small number of them bearing any life at all. Let alone sophisticated, sentient life that could provide shelter, breathable air, and ship repairs. Yet somehow, she’d managed to crash-land on just such an asteroid. Even better, she’d come down within visual range of a dome. But bruised and shaken with a damaged ship and stranded with nothing but dust for klicks around her, it was hard to feel lucky. Another, smaller consolation was that her converter unit had accepted the jelly. She used it to produce a cup of coffee and a small cube of meal replacement substance before she accepted the inevitable: she had no choice but to walk the hundred or so klicks between her and Uridea Beta. The light was already fading, and it would be cold soon; she didn’t have any time to waste. Hours later, Syd scuffed her boot through the dust, taking one dragging step after another. The suit was stiff and her boots felt like they were full of lead, but the dust plain still stretched out in front of her as vast as ever. Her ship was barely a blip on the horizon behind her. She didn’t know how long the daylight lasted here, but Syd was already

reg herself to the thought of continuing her arduous trek in the dark. She hoped she wouldn’t have to stop for rest before she made it to the dome—she had no idea how she would lay down in the suit, let alone get up again. It would be a terrible and downright embarrassing way to die if she became stranded, unable to get up in her ancient inflexible suit, floundering indignantly like a strange and sentient tortoise. She was mulling glumly over that image when a noise crept into the edge of her hearing. It was an engine. Syd’s head snapped up, and she spun gracelessly, looking for the source of the noise. After a moment, she spotted a small hovercraft bulging with men pootling its unhurried way across the dusty plain, kicking up swirls of fine dust as it went. ‘Hey!’ Syd shouted, realising too late that there was no way they could hear her. She waved stiff arms above her head and broke into an awkward jog. Syd wasn’t known for her coordination at the best of times, but this flurry of motion straining against the suit was too much, and she toppled forwards. ‘Arrgh, flarp!’ The low gravity made the fall ponderous, and she came to a stop with a gentle bump, sending up a plume of the ubiquitous dust. This is it. I’ll be stuck down here now. This is how I die. She lay face down in the dirt for a while, exhausted and defeated, until a rough hand grabbed her by the arm and hoisted her easily to her feet. Syd scrubbed quickly at her visor to clear the dust. A man in a markedly newer suit stood in front of her. ‘You okay there, love?’ ‘Yep. Fine.’ Syd could feel her face reddening behind the visor and tried to regain some composure. Her saviour peered doubtfully at her through the haze of dust lingering in the air. ‘You sure? You were lying in the dirt there for a fair old while. We thought you’d knocked yourself out or something.’ Syd thought of her stranded turtle panic and decided she didn’t want to explain. ‘I’m just tired. I’ve been walking for a while.’ ‘What are you doing out here, anyway? How did you even get all the way out here? Fall out of the sky or something?’

Syd considered the ordeal she’d just been through. The jellies thudding against her hull, the way her ship had shuddered under their impact, and her desperate struggle to bring it down into what was one of the roughest landings she’d ever managed. But she was too tired and overwrought to express all of that to the stranger standing in front of her. Instead, she waved a vague arm at the asteroid plain. ‘I ran into a jelly swarm and crashed my ship out there.’ Syd explained. ‘Geez, love. You’re lucky you weren’t hurt. I think we can squeeze one more in. You are going to the dome, right?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Come on.’ A few minutes later, Syd was sandwiched between two large hairy men who she’d learned were miners transferring from Uridea Alpha on the far side of the asteroid to Uridea Beta, which was the dome that Syd had been heading towards. ‘So, how’d you end up out here anyway?’ one of them asked. Syd explained about the jellies, and how her plan to cut through them had gone horribly wrong. ‘What, is your ship’s shielding broken or something?’ ‘It doesn’t have any shielding.’ The miner scoffed. ‘Really? It must be ancient. Did you find it on the scrap heap?’ Syd bristled but didn’t have a response. ‘Well, I could have told you that was a terrible idea, especially without shielding,’ one of the miners said with a gruff chuckle. Syd flushed hot with embarrassment. ‘Am I the only person that hasn’t run across the things before?’ The miners glanced around at each other, conferring in gruff mumbles before seeming to reach a consensus. ‘Probably.’

Syd shook her head and lapsed into irritated silence. At least she didn’t have to walk all the way to the colony.

6

What’s the Damage

Syd handed her last few credits over to the tow driver, who glared at her. ‘Sorry. I can’t quite cover it.’ ‘Sorry you didn’t mention that before you called for a pickup,’ he growled. Syd tried to play tough but felt her face flushing, and was sure that her ears would be flaming red and her neck would be blotchy. She sheepishly watched the angry driver until he was out of sight. At least she and her ship were now both inside the dome that sheltered Uridea Beta. Her ship occupied a spot in a yard brimming with other craft. There were a handful of large, sensible ships, the kind that would bring droves of fresh workers out to the frontier and then shuttle the veterans, tired and dusty at the end of their run, back home. But most of the craft were toys. Big, flashy, expensive toys, the kind that you bought when you had too much money burning a hole in your pocket. Syd noted the thick layer of dust on the nearest hull and wondered how often the men and women that owned them actually had time to take them for a spin. Her own old bird looked like a scrapheap next to them. Syd turned her attention back towards her baby; her ship. She could barely see the outer surface of the hull for all the cerulean goo plastered on it. But first things first: she needed to get some sleep. She had a lot of work to do in the morning. The ship didn’t look any better in the pale morning light than it had in the dying evening sun. After hours of arduous scraping, she had cleaned most of the hull and fed the goo to her converter—the only upside to all of this. Weary and plastered with jellyfish goo, Syd got ready to begin the real work: assessing the damage and beginning repairs.

Syd collected a small box of well-loved tools out of her ship’s hold and got to work. She didn’t need a manual or any drawings; she’d had this ship for years. She’d stripped it down, built it up, and modified it many times over. She’d started working on ships years ago, alongside her mother. The thought made her smile. Her mother, the greasy-faced mechanic. The whizz. Syd missed her; she’d taught her so much. She could still see her mother’s approving smile as she’d started to pick things up and get it right. With a sigh, Syd forced her focus back to the task at hand. She carefully removed and cleaned each of the sensors and cameras, replacing each of them afterwards. System tests revealed that most of them were functioning again after a thorough clean. Most of them; Syd wasn’t lucky enough for all of them to fall into line. Her primary landing sensor was damaged. Syd sat back on her haunches in the dust. She was exhausted and covered in goo, oil, and dirt. She had a broken part and no credits to replace it. And above all, she had no idea what to do next. A breeze whistled shrilly through the ships that surrounded her in the yard. Syd shielded her face from the dust with an arm. Once it settled, she looked around. Dozens of ships filled the yard, but she hadn’t seen one other person since the tow man left. I wonder if any of these ships have the same sensor type as mine? It wouldn’t matter if they weren’t exactly the same; she could make some modifications if it was at least similar. But most of the craft around her were bigger and newer, and sensor technology changed fast. Not to mention that these newer, shinier ships would also have new and shiny security systems. Sophisticated ones. Even if Syd could beat down the guilt of stealing the parts she needed from some anonymous miner, she would almost certainly be caught, and she couldn’t afford that. She had a contract to finish, and if she was going to have half a chance, she couldn’t afford to fall any further behind. That meant not spending a night or two in jail; or a few years, for that matter. Syd kicked at the ground, stirring up swirls of dust. There was nothing else for it. She’d seen a scrapheap on the far side of the dome. It was a rubbish dump, really, but she’d seen some pieces of ship hulls in it. If her luck held, she might be able to find something that could work. Syd sighed, thinking about the work ahead of her. It was a long shot. The

scrapheap had almost certainly been picked clean of anything that had use or value. But without any money, it was the only avenue she had right now. Syd secured the ship and stretched her tired legs and aching feet. They would have to hold on for a little longer. She set out on foot through the dust, towards the junkyard on the other side of town.

7

A Strange Encounter

Syd circled the edge of the scrapheap like a hard-nosed scavenger warily circling an abandoned carcass, trying to decide if it could scrounge a meal. She was reluctant to dive into the heart of the heap, but she knew she would have to if she wanted to find anything worth her while. She kicked at the cracked and broken hand of an android, long since abandoned to the withering sun, then gave a short, hard sigh of resignation as she placed one heavy boot onto the junk pile. She carefully transferred her weight, testing the stability of the scrap beneath her. It was like a rusty, heaving dune that shifted unpredictably underfoot. With one foot holding firmly, Syd awkwardly shifted her other foot onto the pile. She was glad of her calf-high boots clinging snugly to her legs. They were years old and well worn, but they still protected her against the onslaught of rusted metal and hard synthetics that clawed at her ankles like swarming ants, trying to drag her down into the seething depths of their mound. Syd picked her way laboriously across the junk heap with her arms spread wide for balance. Every so often, she would miss her footing and send a shower of scrap tumbling down the pile as she flapped her arms like some ungainly bird, trying to stay on her feet. Slowly but surely, she kept heading towards the middle. She had seen partial hulls of one or two ships near the centre of the pile. They had probably been the catalysts that precipitated the pile in the first place—abandoned there one day on an unwanted piece of land, and gradually people dumped all their other crap around them. Somehow, it didn’t seem so much like illegal dumping if all the junk was piled neatly next to everybody else’s as though it was somehow supposed to be there. Syd couldn’t imagine a scrapheap like the one around her cropping up on the

Dart. There wasn’t the space, and they couldn’t afford the waste. There’d be riots over somebody dumping like this. One day, some enterprising recycler might come to this asteroid and take much of the junk away, but until then, the heap would sit corroding in the sun, like a foul boil that had sprouted on the side of Uridea Beta. Eventually, Syd reached the centre of the heap. She pulled out her thick leather welding gloves and put them on to protect her hands from the rust and sharp edges. She rolled her shoulders and neck, preparing for the unpleasant job. Or perhaps just procrastinating for one more second. ‘Alright. Let’s see what we’ve got,’ Syd muttered to herself. She thrust her hands into the heap, regarding each item briefly as she teased it out of the pile in front of her before tossing it aside. Occasionally, the heap would shift unexpectedly underneath her as she pulled out some peice that turned out to be critical to the structural integriy of the pile, sending a bolt of panic through her chest before she steadied herself. Soon, the local sun had risen over the asteroid, and the bitter cold of her hike across the dusty plain the evening before was now replaced with unrelenting heat. She felt like an ant beneath a magnifying glass being burned alive by some rotten shit of a kid. Hours trickled by, and she could feel her pale skin turning red with the UV radiation. Sweat prickled every inch of her skin. Syd straightened, trying to ease the growing stiffness in her back from long hours spent bent over the pile. She wiped a sweaty forearm against her sweaty forehead and only succeeded in smearing more sweat into her stinging eyes. She’d been out here for hours. She could easily spend days, months—hell, even years scouring this scrapheap, and find nothing. Frustration needled her as she stood on the pile of rusted metal, her hands awash with sweat in their heavy gloves and her face turning Navilian red. The frustration overcame her briefly, and she aimed a hard kick at an upturned fragment of hull in front of her. ‘Oi. What’s your problem out there?’ ‘Huh? Oh, um. I’m sorry?’ A small creature emerged from underneath the upturned piece of hull that had earned the wrath of Syd’s boot. Upon closer inspection, she noted that it came out of a small cavity between the curve of the bulkhead and the junk beneath.

At first, Syd thought it was the ugliest dog she’d ever seen. It was small, grey, and almost entirely hairless except for a shock of bristles around its flat face, skinny ankles, and on the tip of a tail that was otherwise as long and naked as a rat’s. When she looked more closely, Syd realised that the skin was too smooth, and something about the eyes wasn’t quite right. There was no light in them. No gleam of life. Just the painted mimicry that always wound up being slightly unnerving. It wasn’t a dog; it was a candroid. The kind of expensive toy bought for station kids who didn’t have the space or the resources to keep an actual animal. But they were supposed to be so close to a real dog that you could hardly tell the difference. They also weren’t supposed to talk, let alone talk sass. ‘Shoot a holo, it’ll last longer,’ the strange candroid snarled. Syd realised she was staring, and her mouth worked, trying to find something to say. ‘Better yet, flarp off and leave me alone. What kind of idiot would be sorting through all this junk anyway?’ ‘I’m looking for something.’ The candroid snorted. ‘You think there’s anything worth having in here?’ Syd shrugged. ‘I need a part.’ ‘A part?’ The little candroid’s manner changed. ‘Like for a ship?’ ‘Yeah. A landing sensor.’ The thing rolled its eyes. ‘You have got to be joking. You think you can find something useful like that in here?’ Syd shrugged. She was reluctantly approaching the same conclusion herself, but she hadn’t wanted to it defeat. She didn’t have any other options. ‘You know,’ the candroid started with a sly look towards Syd, ‘I might know where you could get that.’

‘Really? Where?’ Syd demanded. She thought of the mining town. It would certainly have a mechanic. ‘I don’t have any money. Do you think I’d be sorting through all this junk if I had any money?’ ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll tell you where you can get it. But you have to make me a deal.’ ‘What kind of deal?’ ‘I help you get the part, and you take me with you. You take me to a destination of my choosing and you drop me off.’ ‘Is that it?’ Syd demanded. It seemed too simple. ‘You don’t want to go to the other side of the galaxy or something, do you?’ ‘No, I don’t want to go that far. I don’t think you’ll find the trip too inconvenient. A couple of days’ flight, that’s all.’ Syd considered it. She didn’t really want to take any more days out from working on the contract. Hope for her success was already a faint point on the horizon, and it was fading fast. But she didn’t know if she could afford not to. She wasn’t going to find what she needed on her own, and if she didn’t find the part, she could end up spending a lot more than a few days stranded on this little chunk of rock. ‘Fine,’ she finally said, ‘tell me.’ ‘I have to figure it out first. Give me a couple of hours.’ Syd laughed. ‘Sure.’ ‘I’m serious.’ ‘Of course you are. Let me know when you’ve solved it. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying too, if you don’t mind.’ The thing picked its way across the heap with tiny paws, its manner stiff, like its pride was offended. It seemed bizarrely dainty, which was a stark contrast to the gruff voice that delivered so much sass from its flat, snaggle-toothed snout.

It paused for a moment as it walked away from her, then turned back. ‘What’s your name, kid?’ ‘I’m not a kid.’ ‘You do have a name though?’ ‘Syd. Yours?’ ‘Gidget.’ He turned back to go and Syd watched him pick his way to the edge of the pile. Syd shook her head, a wry smile still at the edge of her mouth, and turned back to her work. If only it was that easy.

8

A Plan

Syd set one foot gingerly on solid ground for the first time in hours and plucked at clothes that stuck to her body, glued there with sweat and filth. The sun had just started to dip below the horizon of the asteroid, but she could still feel the sickly heat pouring off her reddened face and arms. She ran a hand across the back of her neck, feeling the tenderness there, and stretched her tired muscles. She needed water, a good sleep, and some salve for her reddened skin, if she had any. Hopefully, after a good sleep, she might be able to come up with another idea. For now, she was too tired to think about much more than getting some rest. And a shower. She could feel the sweat and dust caked on her burning skin, and smell the sour odour of her own body wafting up from beneath her clothes. She forced one aching foot in front of the other, thinking of the relative comfort of her ship to try and motivate herself to keep a good pace. As she trudged back to her ship on the opposite side of town, she wondered what she had really expected to find. That weird little candroid was right. Everything of value had been picked clean from the pile long before Syd got there. Nobody left anything they could use in a place like that. The walk back to the ship felt like a marathon, but in reality it was just a few short kilometres from one side of town to the other. Uridea Beta wasn’t exactly a metropolis. It housed enough workers to run the mine, enough facilities to keep them fit and happy enough to work hard, and little else. Syd found the shipyard and shuffled exhaustedly past the newer, flashier craft that surrounded her scarred old bird. All she wanted now was her bed, a narrow pullout from the ship’s wall with a thin mattress on top. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, but it had always served her well enough. Not that comfort mattered right now anyway. The last forty-eight hours since she’d left the Dart had been gruelling, and she was past exhaustion. Coupled with the long hours she’d spent

walking to the dome, cleaning her ship, and then working in the sun, she was so tired she was almost ready to lay down in the dirt to rest. She walked up and laid a hand on her ship. ‘Sorry, old girl. I didn’t find it.’ She brushed a hand almost lovingly across the craft’s scratched and dirty hull. A gruff voice came from the vicinity of Syd’s boots, startling her. ‘You talk to your ship? Weirdo.’ The little candroid examined a tufted paw while Syd regathered herself after almost jumping out of her skin. ‘I’ve been waiting here for hours,’ he complained. ‘Do you want this sensor or not?’ ‘You found it?’ Syd was incredulous. ‘Yeah. Obviously. I told you I could get you the part. We had a deal.’ Syd didn’t know what to say. She was too surprised by the revelation to even be annoyed by the sass in Gidget’s voice. She hadn’t expected the weird, modified toy to come through for her. ‘You coming or what?’ ‘Coming where? I thought you had it?’ ‘I know where you can get it. You have to come with me.’ Syd gave a short, hard bark of laughter. ‘Do I look like I’m going anywhere right now?’ She gestured to her reddened skin and filthy clothes. ‘We’ll go in the morning,’ Gidget rolled his too-dull robotic eyes. ‘Oh, for god’s sake. Do you want to get this done or not?’ ‘Hey, we’re not all robots. Some of us need to sleep.’ ‘And shower,’ Gidget added, wrinkling his flat nose in disgust. ‘But not until after we get the part and get going.’ ‘You in a hurry or something?’ Syd probed.

‘Not your business. You want the part, you come with me now. Not in the morning.’ ‘Fine,’ Syd huffed. She really did need to shower, and she had only managed to drag herself back here on the promise of sleep—which it now seemed she wasn’t going to get. But she wasn’t about to let the part slip through her fingers. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘There’s a guy out towards the mine. He scavenges parts from ships and sells them as spares.’ Syd felt a flash of irritation. I’m missing out on sleep for this? ‘Sell them? I already told you, I have no money. That’s not going to work.’ ‘Relax. He’ll take a payment in service.’ ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ ‘You’ll see.’ ‘No, you’ll tell me now.’ ‘Or what? You’ll go back to your ship and sulk, stranded on a godforsaken rock in the middle of empty space? Oh, I am shaking.’ Syd seethed, but didn’t have an answer. She followed after the little candroid while staring longingly back at her ship, where her bed was waiting, scorned. It was almost physically painful to drag herself away from the chance of rest. At least Gidget didn’t walk very fast. His spindly legs whirred, stirring up a miniature dust storm around him, and yet Syd kept pace with him at a leisurely stroll. She just hoped this wouldn’t take too long. As they walked, her mind wandered to the wrecker Gidget had mentioned. What service could he want? She cringed as different possibilities flashed across her mind. She wasn’t doing that. She’d sooner break his nose and steal the part, but she was painfully aware that her choices were limited. She took a deep breath, calming herself and trying to force her brain into problem-solving gear despite her fatigue. There was no sense in making any decisions before she knew what she was dealing with, so she followed Gidget in silence.

9

A Proposal

Syd followed Gidget up to a small house near the edge of town, out towards the mine. Behind the house, she could see a massive yard filled with pieces of different craft, ranging from cargo ships to little thrill seeker’s skiffs. An enormous shed hulked on one side of the yard, presumably filled with small parts not suited to being left out in the open. Gidget led her up to the door of the house and gestured towards it with his head. Syd looked around for a bell or an intercom, and was surprised not to find any. Instead, she raised a hand and knocked on the door, guessing that was what Gidget had wanted. They stood awkwardly on the step for a while, pretending to look around or inspect their fingernails, neither one having anything to say to the other. Syd lost patience first and raised her closed fist again, bashing the door loudly this time. Perhaps the resident had not heard her before. ‘Alright, alright, I’m coming.’ The gruff and grumbling voice came out from the small house, followed a moment later by its owner. They were met by a pudgy man in a shabby shirt full of holes and rough workman’s tros. He eyed the unlikely pair standing on his doorstep. ‘Yeah? What do you want?’ ‘I’m looking for a type forty-two landing sensor.’ He sniffed, appearing to consider the question for a long while before answering. ‘Yeah, I got one. Ten thousand credits.’ Syd felt the air rush out of her lungs and a heat flare in her cheeks that had nothing to do with sunburn. ‘You have got to be kidding. It’s not worth a quarter of that,’ she sputtered. The guy shrugged, the corner of his mouth twitching with a predatory smile. ‘It’s the only one on this rock. I don’t reckon you’re going far without it.’ His smug

smirk told her that he knew he had her over a barrel. ‘But if you think you can do without it . . .’ he shrugged again and looked away, feigning nonchalance. She couldn’t believe it. ‘You fat, hairy rip-off artist.’ The wrecker pretended insult, putting one hand to his chest as if to soothe his broken heart. ‘Hey, now. That hurts. I’m just trying to run a business here. Supply and demand, love.’ ‘She doesn’t have any money anyway,’ Gidget piped in. ‘She doesn’t have any money?’ Now the wrecker seemed genuinely upset. ‘Why are you asking me for parts, then? Don’t waste my time.’ He turned to head back inside. ‘Alright, don’t be in such a hurry. There’s something else she can do for you.’ The wrecker ran sceptical eyes up and down Syd’s lanky body, pausing momentarily on her flat chest and narrow hips. ‘She’s a bit skinny for my taste.’ He wrinkled his nose slightly as well. ‘And smelly, too. When’s the last time you had a shower, girl?’ Syd scoffed, the heat in her cheeks growing and spreading down her neck. She folded her arms over her chest. ‘What? Like you’re going to win any beauty contests. Fat wanker.’ The wrecker looked like he was going to bite back, but Gidget cut him off. ‘Alright. Everybody calm down. That’s not what I had in mind anyway.’ ‘Go on then. How do you reckon you can help me?’ the wrecker asked Gidget, directing a poisonous glare at Syd. ‘Syd here is a bounty hunter,’ Gidget said. ‘So?’ ‘So, you have a son who’s missing. Syd can find him.’ ‘What?’ Syd hissed at Gidget. ‘What are you volunteering me for? I don’t have time for this.’

‘You have time for anything that will get us off this godforsaken rock. Unless you have a better plan?’ Gidget hissed back at her. The wrecker scratched his stubbly chin thoughtfully, ignoring their exchange. ‘Well, yeah. My son pissed off with some girl a few weeks ago. He’s supposed to be helping me run this place. I do need him back.’ He weighed the thought for a time, while Syd glared at Gidget, and Gidget ignored her. ‘Alright. Fine. If you find him, and you convince him to come back, I guess you can have a part.’ ‘Deal,’ Gidget said, not waiting for Syd to agree. ‘Does your son have any close friends, or anyone he might have confided in?’ Syd asked. If she lost this argument with Gidget, she might as well have someplace to start. The wrecker snorted. ‘What, now I have to solve it for you too? Isn’t that your end of the deal?’ Syd glared at him. ‘Did he or not?’ ‘Sure. I guess. A kid named Scott. He’s a few streets over that way.’ He jerked his head back towards the town. Syd coaxed an address out of him as the wrecker headed back inside. After he shut the door, Syd rounded on Gidget. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this is what you were planning?’ she demanded. ‘I would never have agreed to this. I don’t have time.’ ‘Why would I tell you knowing you’d never agree to it?’ Syd gritted her teeth. ‘I don’t have time for another contract. I’m supposed to be on another one right now. Which I’m getting further and further behind on, by the way.’ ‘Oh yeah? How’s that going for you?’ Gidget asked, cocking his bristly head to one side. ‘You’re stranded on an asteroid with a crippled ship, so I’m guessing it’s not going that well.’ Syd wanted to kick him. She didn’t have any words to respond with.

‘Look,’ Gidget tried to placate her, ‘we’ll bring the kid back quickly. We’ll get the part and we’ll get moving again. You can drop me off at my destination and then get on with your mission or whatever it is. But you’re not going anywhere until you’ve got the part, are you?’ Syd’s hands balled themselves into fists by her side, curling up out of the sheer frustration. But she knew that Gidget was right. ‘Fine,’ she finally huffed, ‘but I’m showering and sleeping first.’ Gidget rolled his eyes, but trotted after Syd as she stomped back towards her crippled ship.

10

Deal

Syd groaned and rolled over, swatting at the hard object that kept prodding her in the cheek. ‘Oi. Come on. That’s enough beauty sleep. I thought you were a serious bounty hunter? We’ve got things to do.’ Syd dragged herself upright with a groan. She felt hung-over, the way you did after too little sleep immediately followed by too much. At least she’d been able to shower, change her clothes, eat a meal replacement cube, and rest. She almost felt human again, a vast improvement over the walking stink heap of the day before. She sighed. ‘Let’s go.’ She hauled herself out of bed and followed Gidget out of the ship, shielding her eyes from the bright daylight outside. They followed the wrecker’s directions and found the compact home nestled amongst identical neighbours at the address he’d given them. A gangly teenager wrestled with a jet-propelled two-wheeler in the front yard, slamming the bike and swearing. ‘Easy. All you’re gonna do is break it.’ The kid looked up at Syd, seeming surprised that his methods should be questioned. ‘Yeah? And who the flarp are you?’ ‘Are you Scott Hyden?’ ‘I said, who the flarp are you?’ ‘My name is Syd. I’m looking for your friend, Seth.’

Scott snorted. ‘Good luck with that.’ ‘We heard you might know something about where he’s gone.’ ‘And why would I tell you if I did?’ He turned a hostile eye on Syd before turning his back on her, pretending to focus on the bike and apparently trying to remove himself from the conversation. Syd examined the bike the kid was wrestling with. She had already spotted the problem, though the teen seemed oblivious to it. ‘If you help me, maybe I can help you,’ Syd offered. ‘Oh, yeah? And how are you going to do that?’ ‘It doesn’t look like you’re having much luck with that bike.’ The kid shot her a defensive glare. ‘I’ll figure it out. I’m good at mechanical stuff,’ he insisted, despite the contrary evidence in front of them. ‘Yeah, good luck with that,’ Syd said, mimicking the kid’s own words. ‘Why are you looking for Seth?’ The teenager finally bit, his curiosity winning out over hostility. ‘His dad wants him to come home. That’s all.’ ‘He doesn’t want to come home.’ ‘So you do know where he is.’ ‘Yeah.’ Scott turned back to the bike. ‘He met a girl.’ He gave a low whistle that Syd could only take to mean that the girl was smoking. ‘Yeah well, you leave that to me. You help me find him, and I’ll figure out how to bring him home.’ Scott paused, looking at Syd with earnestness now. ‘You really think you can fix my bike?’ ‘I know it. I’ve fixed bigger, badder pieces of kit than this little toy.’

‘It’s not a toy,’ Scott protested. ‘Whatever. Point is, I can fix it. No problem. Tell me where your friend is.’ ‘How do I know you won’t just piss off once I’ve told you?’ Syd rolled her eyes. ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’ ‘No. You fix my bike first, and then I’ll tell you where Seth is.’ ‘Not a chance. How do I know you even know? You could be bullshitting me.’ ‘No way. I can help, but only if you fix my bike first.’ ‘No. You tell me first.’ Gidget huffed and settled down in the dust. ‘This conversation is more pointless than a peewee tennis match.’ Syd bit her lip; Gidget was right. ‘Okay,’ she started reluctantly. ‘Come with us. You take us to the kid. When we find him, and bring him back, then I’ll fix your bike. I won’t be out of your sight until it’s done.’ The kid gave her a sidelong glance, still sceptical. ‘How do I know you won’t give me the slip?’ ‘Do you have a better idea?’ The kid sighed and rose to his feet, brushing off dusty hands on his pants. ‘I guess not.’ ‘So, where to?’ Syd asked. ‘Zion Five.’ ‘But that’s another planet,’ Syd sputtered, taken off guard. When the wrecker said his kid had run off, she’d thought he was still in town somewhere. She’d find him, drag him back, and move on. This job was turning out to be a lot bigger than she’d expected. The kid shrugged. ‘You’ve got a ship, don’t you? You didn’t fall out of the sky.’

He ran his eyes up and down her lean frame. ‘And you don’t exactly look like a miner.’ ‘My ship is out of action at the moment.’ Scott raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve fixed bigger, badder pieces of kit than this little toy,’ he mimicked. ‘Why don’t you just fix it?’ ‘It’s a long story.’ Syd sighed. The kid glanced longingly at his bike. ‘Well . . . I might have a ship we can use.’ ‘Might?’ ‘Well, it’s not technically mine. It’s my dad’s.’ ‘I don’t exactly want to get done for grand larceny here, kid.’ ‘We’re not stealing it. We’re just borrowing it. And I’ll be with you the whole time. It’s my dad’s, it’s in the family. It’s not theft if it’s still with me.’ ‘No, it’s theft, and kidnapping,’ Syd snapped. ‘Do you have another idea?’ Syd eyed the kid warily. She didn’t think it would all be that innocent if they were caught, but she didn’t have another ship. She couldn’t get hers fixed unless she got the part, and she needed a ship to complete the job that would get her the part. ‘Fine. Where is it?’ The kid hauled his defunct bike out of the dirt and rolled it beside him, heading towards the road. ‘You’re not bringing that thing, are you?’ ‘Yep. You’re going to fix it the minute we find him. You’re not getting out of this deal.’ Syd turned her eyes to the dark sky above, as if she could find some hidden reserve of patience there. ‘Alright.’ She sighed. ‘Let’s go.’

11

Can You Fly This Thing?

Syd followed the kid through the rows of flashy ships in the yard, trying to tell herself that everything was going to be fine. He led them to a midsized family cruiser. ‘Here it is,’ he declared. Syd appraised the ship briefly. It was built for relaxation, not speed. The kind of overstuffed monstrosity meant for ponderous family cruises through space on a lazy Sunday. But it would have to do. The kid pressed his thumb to a pad by the door. It gave a short bleep of approval, and then the hatch swept open soundlessly, laying its ramp at their feet as though beckoning them inside. ‘Nice ship,’ Syd lied. ‘Yeah, gorgeous,’ Gidget growled. ‘Now let’s get going.’ Syd and Scott followed him onto the ship, the kid closing the hatch behind them. ‘I’m flying.’ Syd raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you know how to fly this thing?’ ‘It’s my dad’s ship, so I’m flying.’ ‘That isn’t really an answer,’ Syd pointed out, but Scott ignored her. He flopped down into the pilot’s seat, and Syd felt uneasy as she watched him take the controls in a way that showed her he had no idea what he was doing. Her suspicions were confirmed when he pushed on the throttle and the ship lurched sickeningly without gaining any height, groaning and scraping across the ground.

‘No, no, no, no! That isn’t how you do that!’ Syd dashed across the flight deck and made several swift adjustments on the controls. ‘Hey, I’m supposed to be flying!’ the kid protested. ‘Yeah, you’re supposed to be flying, not getting us killed,’ Syd said through gritted teeth. The kid gradually lifted the ship off the ground with Syd’s help, wobbling the ungainly craft with unpractised hands frantically clutching the control frame. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take that?’ Syd asked, resisting the urge to throw the kid out of the pilot’s seat. If his dad wound up furious that the ship had been taken, she wanted the kid on her side. A lack of fingerprint evidence would also be a plus. ‘Nah, I’ve got this.’ His tone was cocky, despite the unsteady way the ship lurched towards the blackness above. ‘Make sure you’ve got shields up. There’s a jelly swarm out there.’ At least this time, she would be navigating the swarm in something a bit newer and properly equipped to handle it. ‘Yeah. Uhhh . . .’ ‘Over here.’ Syd flipped the switch for him, ignoring his protests. A force field shimmered into life several metres out from the ship’s hull. It was surprisingly well equipped for a Sunday cruiser. If I bring home this bounty—no, when I bring home this bounty—I’ll be able to afford these kinds of things for myself. ‘So, how do we get to Zion Five anyway?’ the kid asked. ‘You mean you don’t know?’ Syd asked. ‘I thought you knew where it was?’ ‘No, Seth only told me the name of the planet.’ Syd shook her head in disbelief. ‘Well, let’s put it in the navigation system.’ She searched for their destination planet in the directory; fortunately, it was there. ‘That will only get us to the planet, though. You’ll have to have some idea of where we need to go once we get there.’

‘We’ll figure it out, I guess.’ ‘Don’t go getting overconfident there, kid.’ Gidget’s voice was laced with sarcasm as he folded himself into a small bony heap on the floor, settling in for the flight. Around them, the jellies thrummed against the shielding like heavy rain, but they were quickly swept away by some kind of self-cleaning mechanism, reduced to a mere nuisance by the kind of optional extras that Syd could only dream about for now. The leisurely cruiser made the trip to neighbouring Zion Five slowly, and Syd was pacing the deck with impatience by the time they descended into orbit. ‘Alright now, come on kid. Where is this place?’ Syd tried, and failed, to keep the impatience out of her voice. ‘Ah, well.’ He scratched a tuft of pubescent beard that was trying desperately to gain ground against the incumbent pimples on his chin. ‘I Seth said it was near a great burger t.’ Gidget smirked at seeing Syd’s mouth drop open a little. ‘Are you serious?’ she demanded. ‘We’ve got the whole planet here, and we’re supposed to find “a great burger t”?’ ‘And, ah, a hover gear shop. I’m sure he said it was near a cool hover shop. And a cool climbing garden. All red and purple leaves and stuff. That sounded cool.’ For flarp’s sake. Syd gritted her teeth, not for the first time. If the kid had his way, she’d be lucky to have any teeth left by the time they parted ways. ‘Northern hemisphere or southern?’ she asked. ‘I dunno. I guess it’s summer. He was complaining it was hot lately.’ ‘Alright, that’d be the northern hemisphere right now. At least that’s half the planet ruled out.’ The kid shrugged, unperturbed. ‘Direct us towards that half of the planet then.’ Syd rubbed her hand over her face. This is hopeless. We’re never going to find him like this.

‘Can you get in touch with your friend?’ she asked. ‘Just tell him you’re in the neighbourhood and you want to catch up or something.’ ‘What? Set him up? What kind of friend do you think I am?’ ‘Uhh, the kind of friend who agreed to tell a bounty hunter where his friend is in return for getting his bike fixed?’ Scott gave a sullen huff, but didn’t answer. ‘Look. If you can’t help us find him, then the deal is off. You can either get us to his address or you can get him to come to us. I don’t care. But it doesn’t seem like you know how to find him.’ ‘Uggh, fine.’ The kid took his hands off the control frame and started tapping at the communicator on his wrist. ‘Flarp! Are you insane?’ Syd demanded, grabbing the control frame herself. ‘That’s it. You’re not flying anymore. Get out.’ ‘Hey—’ ‘Hey, nothing. You don’t text and fly.’ Syd cruised the ship almost aimlessly while Scott set up the meeting. It was a relief to have an experienced pilot in control again; at least they were no longer wobbling through the sky as though they might fall out of it at any moment. Soon, the kid had an address. ‘Alright, feed the address into the navigation.’ Syd alighted the ship gently, something she was sure Scott would never have managed. She was glad she taken over the control frame before he’d had to try. ‘Hey, Scott!’ A freckly youth threw skinny arms wide to embrace his friend as Scott walked off the ship. The two boys hugged. Syd almost felt bad for Scott when she saw the enthusiasm the two friends had for their reunion. Almost. Soon, the youth that must be Seth spotted Syd and Gidget, and his face fell. ‘What’s this?’

‘Ah, I’m really sorry man.’ ‘Who’s the chick?’ Scott studied his shoes, a red blush creeping up across his neck. Syd strode forwards, taking control of the situation. ‘My name is Syd. I’m here on behalf of your father. He needs you to come home.’ ‘Really, man?’ Seth looked at Scott. ‘Sorry, dude,’ Scott said to his scuffed and dirty boots. Seth shook his head and turned back to Syd. ‘No. I’m not doing that. I live with Candice now.’ He gestured at the small house behind them, small and unremarkable but well cared for. ‘Your dad really needs you to come home and help him with the business.’ The kid shrugged. ‘It’s his business, not mine. He ran it without me before.’ Syd stared at Seth, sizing him up. He didn’t seem worried, and he didn’t seem to care what his dad wanted either. He looked like he’d completely made up his mind. Syd would have to find a way to change it.

12

Zion Five

Syd seethed, glaring at the kid as if he was the source of all of her problems, rather than just the latest setback in a ridiculous detour spiralling ever more out of control. The kid shrugged without sympathy. ‘I’m sorry you’ve come all this way. You’ve wasted your time.’ The smirk on his lips belied his apology. Syd unclenched her fists and tried to act as though she had some faint shred of patience left. ‘Look, your dad’s really worried about you, okay? He just wants you to come back and see him.’ ‘Yeah, whatever.’ The kid ran a hand through stylishly unkempt hair. ‘He knows where to find me if he actually cares. He could have come out here himself, instead of sending a . . .’ He waved a hand at Syd, trying to come up with an apt descriptor. ‘What are you anyway, delivery for people?’ ‘I’m a bounty hunter.’ ‘You look more like an emo junker.’ ‘Well, I’m not,’ Syd ground out, hands balled into fists again. She took a breath. ‘Your dad’s got the shop to run. He can’t come out here with nobody to watch it for him,’ she countered. ‘He really needs your help with the shop. He’s struggling on his own.’ Syd was scrounging for excuses now, scraping hard against the bottom of a barrel clearly empty of father-son loyalty. She stared down at the kid’s cavalier sneer and knew it hadn’t worked. ‘It’s his business to run. Not mine. It’s up to him whether it succeeds or fails. I don’t see why I should help.’

You ungrateful little wanker. Syd fumed. This was supposed to be a quick setback; she should already be on her way. Hatchett was probably halfway back with the AI by now. ‘He’s really struggling without you,’ Syd insisted. ‘It’s taking a toll on the business.’ The boy snorted. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. He overcharges everything by miles. He doesn’t have to make many sales.’ Well, that’s true. Thinking back to the conversation she’d had with the wrecker, something else occurred to her. She’d seen a zippy little skiff in the front yard; all cheap flashiness and breakneck speed held together with a lick of gaudy paint. It was an odd thing for a man like the wrecker to have propped up in his front yard. It was a young man’s toy. ‘It’s getting so bad he might even have to sell that lovely little skiff he’s got in the front yard.’ Syd was ad-libbing now. She shook her head, feigning sadness. ‘It’s a beautiful little thing.’ ‘Wait, what?’ Seth showed real concern for the first time in their conversation. Syd noted his consternation with a smugness that she was careful to keep off her face. ‘Yeah, he’s got this nice little racing craft in the front yard. But I guess it won’t be there much longer.’ ‘No, you mean I have a nice little racing craft. That’s my skiff.’ Syd shrugged. ‘Well, I guess he thinks it’s his now. You’ve left it behind. And since you’re not coming back . . .’ She trailed off, letting the kid’s imagination fill in the rest. ‘He can’t do that,’ he insisted. ‘Desperate times . . .’ Syd studied her short, ragged nails as if she cared what they looked like. ‘But—’ ‘Actually, I think he’s already listed it.’ She turned to Gidget. ‘What was it he

said when we were there?’ ‘He had someone coming around this afternoon,’ Gidget said without missing a beat. ‘It might even be gone by now.’ Syd enjoyed the look of desperate incredulity on the boy’s face. The silence stretched out while the kid weighed his options. Syd knew she had him. Just one more push. ‘Well, if you’re sure you’re not coming back . . .’ She shrugged and began to turn away. ‘No, he can’t flarping do that. We have to sort this out.’ The kid barged past Syd, almost knocking her over. ‘Please, do climb aboard,’ she muttered, following the pushy teen onto the ship. ‘Are you coming or not?’ he demanded, turning back to glare at the others. ‘Yeah, alright. Just because you finally decided you’re coming,’ Syd grumbled, closing the hatch behind Gidget and Scott as they followed her on board. ‘Don’t you need to sort anything out first?’ Syd asked. Seth’s new-found haste suited her just fine, but even she was a little incredulous. ‘You know, say goodbye to your girlfriend, get your stuff . . .’ ‘Alright, fine,’ Seth huffed. ‘Dad better not sell the skiff while I’m doing it, though.’ Syd, Gidget, and Scott waited in the ship while Seth went back inside. He seemed to be taking an inordinately long time and the wait was becoming awkward when he finally emerged, the famous Candice hot on his heels. They couldn’t hear what the couple were saying, but judging by the way Candice was throwing Seth’s things out of the front door after him, she had taken the news badly. Seth scooped his things off the ground and stomped back to the ship, dumping a hodgepodge of personal effects onto the floor. ‘Can we go now?’ he demanded. ‘Alright. Home again,’ Syd said, flipping switches on the console. Scott frowned, watching Syd take the ship’s controls. ‘Hey, we agreed . . .’

‘No!’ Syd and Gidget snapped in unison. Syd guided the ship through take-off for the trip back to Uridea Beta, while both boys sulked over their own grievances, and Gidget ignored them all.

13

Homecoming

Back at Uridea Beta, beneath the jelly-speckled darkness, Syd tried to focus on the task at hand: bringing the ship down back into the yard for a careful landing. One mark or scrape out of place and she could be in serious trouble, and she had enough problems right now without adding a joyriding charge to the list. She tried to ignore Seth, who was pacing up and down by the hatch. His agitated movements subtly altered the balance of the ship as he charged back and forth. ‘You aren’t going to speed things up by doing that. We land when we land,’ Syd said, not taking her eyes off the task in front of her and carefully adjusting for his erratic pacing. ‘Well just hurry up, then,’ Seth snapped. ‘What did I just say?’ Syd grumbled under her breath. Nevertheless, she brought the ship down gently, and was happy with the landing. They had made good time, although it hadn’t been good enough for Seth, who hadn’t sat down since they left Zion Five. He only paused in his agitated pacing and fidgeting to glare at Scott, who avoided meeting his eyes and sulked in the corner of the ship, still muttering about his bike. Seth barrelled off the ship even before the hatch was down. He charged across the yard in the direction of his home without waiting for the others. Syd jiggled impatiently as Scott dragged his bike down the ramp and off the ship. ‘Here,’ she said, tossing him the keys, finally out of patience. It was his father’s ship; he could lock it up when he finally got off. Scott caught the keys awkwardly, his hands full with managing the bike, and Syd left, not caring if he caught up or not. Gidget hurried after her, trying and failing to appear as cool and composed as ever.

Syd charged off after Seth, not wanting to lose him. She needed to be there when he got back home; she was supposed to be bringing him back, after all, and she meant to claim her reward for it. She rounded the corner and saw that Seth already had a several-hundred-metre head start. She broke into a run to catch up to him. ‘Hey!’ a gruff voice said from the region of her ankles. ‘Do I look like I can keep up with that?’ Gidget demanded. Syd huffed and grudgingly picked him up, tucking him under her arm before breaking back into a run after Seth. ‘You’re carrying me like a handbag,’ Gidget complained, his voice stilted as the motion of Syd’s run jolted him with every stride. ‘If you don’t stop complaining, I’m going to turn you into a handbag,’ Syd huffed, gaining ground on Seth. ‘This whole situation was your stupid idea, ?’ Gidget muttered something that Syd didn’t catch, and didn’t care to ask about. She slowed down as they reached Seth, though she was still half running to keep up with the enraged teen. She cringed, knowing that it looked less like she was bringing him home as commissioned, and more like she was a scruffy puppy trailing at the heels of a disinterested master. The wrecker’s yard, and the little house at the front, came into view as they rounded a bend. The grizzly middle-aged wrecker was working in the yard and looked up as he heard them coming. He didn’t seem all that pleased to see his son returning. He straightened up, wiping greasy hands on sweaty clothes. ‘Oh, how about that. You’re back.’ ‘You can’t sell my skiff! It’s not even yours!’ ‘Oh yeah? How about “Hey Dad, sorry I disappeared like that. It’s good to see you”?’ he grumbled. ‘I mean it. Don’t you dare.’ ‘Who the flarp do you think you’re giving orders to here?’

Syd cleared her throat. ‘Not that this isn’t a touching reunion. But . . .’ ‘But what?’ the father and son turned on her, snapping in unison. ‘Well, there is the small matter of payment to be dealt with.’ The wrecker waved a dismissive hand at her and turned back to his son. ‘You’ll do as you’re told. Starting with cleaning out the shed. There’s three weeks’ worth of parts need sorting in there. Do you have any idea how far behind we are now?’ The kid snorted. ‘Not my problem.’ ‘My foot up your ass says otherwise.’ The two men continued arguing, heading towards the front door. Syd strode after them, determined not to be brushed aside. ‘I said—’ ‘Not now,’ the wrecker snapped, and slammed the door in her face. She could hear the sounds of the argument raging inside. Syd stood staring at the door until Gidget squirmed under her arm and she realised she was still clutching him. She put him down. ‘You smell like an Antinian’s musk gland.’ A wheezing, creaking sound slowly came up behind them, ignored by both Syd and Gidget as they stared at the closed door, the sounds of a father and son shouting match clearly audible on the other side. The sound grew nearer until it was right behind them. ‘What about my bike?’ ‘Hmmm?’ Syd turned to see Scott standing there, red and puffing from having pushed his broken bike all the way back from the shipyard. ‘My bike. You’re supposed to fix it.’ ‘Yeah. Right.’ Syd looked back towards the house, unwilling to leave without the part she had come for. She had forgotten all about Scott’s bike.

‘Listen, once we’ve got the part we need, then I’ll fix it.’ Scott’s tone gave away the childish pout that the teen was suppressing with trembling lips and wide eyes. ‘I found Seth for you. You said you’d fix my bike.’ ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I have problems right now. I’ll do it later.’ Scott turned and wheeled his bike away in the same sulking mood he’d been in ever since confronting his friend on Zion Five. Syd felt a twinge of guilt. Scott was obviously upset. He’d fought with Seth, and he hadn’t even gotten what he’d been promised out of it. He had helped them; she should hold her end up. And I will. Just as soon as I get over this new problem. She paced up and down the yard in front of the house while Gidget made himself comfortable in the dust. She didn’t have time for this. Some other hunter was probably presenting the AI to the company back on the station by now, but there was nothing she could do. Not until her ship was operational again. Syd and Gidget waited until the sounds of the argument within died away. Syd waited a few moments to be sure, then pounded on the door. ‘Get lost!’ The shout came from inside. ‘We had a deal. I want my sensor,’ she called back. ‘I’m not going anywhere until I’ve got it.’ A string of profanities flew out from within. ‘If you’re still there when I come back outside, you’ll have bigger problems than a broken bloody sensor, girl!’ ‘Seems like the family reunion went well then.’ Gidget’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Syd kicked at the dirt and grabbed fistfuls of her cropped black hair as if to tear it out. ‘Arrgh, seriously? Now what?’ The hopelessness of the situation was sinking in. ‘How could this possibly get any worse? We’ve lost all this time and don’t have anything to show for it.’ Gidget yawned, although the candroid couldn’t possibly be tired. He was bored. Syd’s anger peaked at seeing the dismissive gesture from the corner of her eye. She could feel the blood pounding in her head, the culmination of all the

frustration and delays she’d been forced to swallow over the past two days. She rounded on Gidget. ‘This is your fault,’ she accused, narrowing her eyes, all of her impotent rage suddenly focused on the ugly little candroid. ‘My fault?’ ‘This whole thing was your idea. You said you knew how to get the part.’ Gidget shrugged his bony, synthetic shoulders. ‘It’s not my fault the slime weasel backed out without paying.’ Syd pressed her heavy boots hard against the ground, resisting the urge to kick the smarmy little creature. ‘But since you’re getting your pants in a twist about it, here’s what I think. The way I see it, you’ve done the job. We just need to get paid.’ ‘Oh, really? I never would have realised. Thank you so much for clarifying the problem.’ Gidget rolled his eyes. ‘The sensor is ours now. We have to just take it.’ ‘You mean steal it,’ Syd snapped. ‘This just gets better and better.’ She looked away, one hand running through her hair, the other settling with her knuckles pressed against her furrowed forehead. ‘I suppose you have a better idea?’ Gidget challenged. ‘I can’t risk getting arrested! I’ll lose my bounty licence if we get caught. And that’s if we don’t get thrown into some prison in the middle of vacant space for our trouble.’ ‘So, what else are you gonna do? Stay stranded on this rock forever?’ Syd huffed. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She didn’t have any better ideas. And she wasn’t staying on this little spit of rock in the middle of nowhere. ‘Alright. Fine. So, where’s the flarping part?’ she snapped. ‘How should I know?’

‘Because it’s your idea?’ Gidget inspected a tufted paw, trying unsuccessfully to smooth the all-pervasive dust out of his fur. ‘I have to do everything, do I?’ Syd looked back towards the little house and the massive work yard behind it. She took a few breaths, trying to calm herself enough to think straight. ‘Well,’ she said after a few moments, ‘he’s mentioned the parts shed a few times. It could be in there. Then again, it could be in his house, since he was planning to give it to us for bringing Seth back.’ ‘If he ever was,’ Gidget pointed out. ‘The shed’s as good a place to start as any, I suppose.’ The word ‘shed’ was a generous title for the massive shack. It was a jumble of thin metal sheets precariously huddled over a too-sparse frame that was still visible where the sheets had not been properly fitted together. The overall effect looked like some giant child’s first attempt at a craft project. The building sulked at the back of the property, uncomfortably close to the house that Seth and his father were still inside. There was no way they could access it without being seen or heard from the house. ‘We’ll have to wait. When the two are asleep, we sneak around and try to find the part. In the dark.’ It sounded like a long shot even as she suggested it. Syd chewed her lip. ‘I wish we didn’t have to steal it,’ she repeated. ‘And I wish I was headed to Amet Prime, sipping a Polaris Spritzer on a luxury cruiser, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.’ ‘I wonder if we could bribe Seth to get it for us,’ Syd wondered aloud, ignoring Gidget’s cruise fantasy. Gidget raised an eyebrow with a precision that only a robot could manage. ‘You think there’s any goodwill left there, do you?’ ‘No, I think he’s a mercenary scarg who’d sell his own father for a few credits.’ Gidget snorted. ‘Oh come on, Syd. He wouldn’t be that cheap. He’d want at least a hundred for his own dad.’

Syd shot him a glare. ‘Why do I feel like you aren’t taking this seriously?’ Gidget gave her a look of mock hurt before turning serious again. ‘There’s just one problem, Syd. Bribe him with what?’ Syd gave a long, defeated sigh. Gidget was right. If she had anything to bribe Seth with, she could have just bought the part to begin with. Any option that involved credits changing hands was no option at all. There was only one way to get this done. ‘Alright. We have to steal it.’ She crossed her arms and cocked her head, looking at the little house and the shed sulking behind it in the dust. Days on the asteroid were long, and the light lingered. They would have to wait at least seven hours until it was dark enough to sneak past the house unnoticed. Then, even if they managed to find the part without alerting father or son, Syd couldn’t fix the ship in the dark. That would have to wait until the next morning. All told, it would be at least another day before they could leave—if they waited for darkness. But Syd had another idea. ‘What we need,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘is a diversion.’ Gidget looked at her, concern creeping into his expression for the first time. ‘What are you thinking, Syd?’ ‘Something big, unmissable. Something to get them out of the house and looking away for long enough to hunt around and find the part.’ Her eyes settled on the flashy skiff lying in the front yard. A wry smile crept across her lips. Gidget watched her growing smile with trepidation. ‘I don’t think I like the sound of this much.’ Syd ignored him. She could feel excitement budding in her stomach as the first threads of a plan wove themselves together in her mind. This was going to work.

14

Look! A Diversion!

‘This isn’t going to work,’ Gidget said, his voice sour. ‘Don’t be like that, Gidget. This is perfect,’ Syd insisted. ‘That little beauty is so fast they’ll never catch up with you. All you have to do is keep them busy long enough for me to grab the sensor and get out. A few minutes, tops.’ She gestured towards the shiny, gauche little racer still parked in the front yard. ‘And then what?’ Gidget snapped. ‘I don’t like the idea of those two halfwits chasing after me, Syd. What if they catch up?’ ‘There’s no way they’ll catch you. All you have to do is give me ten minutes, then lose them, ditch the skiff, and get back to the yard. Easy peasy.’ ‘Easy for you to say,’ Gidget grumbled. ‘I’ll be doing the hard part. I’ll have to break in and find the part and get out with it before they get back.’ Syd was practically bouncing on her heels, clearly excited by her plan. She moved with an energy Gidget had not yet seen from her, and he didn’t know if that was a good thing. Some plan that she was excited about had landed her on this rock to start with, after all. ‘Come on, come on!’ With a furtive glance up towards the house, Syd led Gidget to the little skiff. He reluctantly climbed into the pilot’s seat. His short and spindly legs could barely reach the controls. ‘I can’t really see . . .’ ‘It’ll be fine,’ Syd insisted as Gidget strained to sit taller in the seat. She shrugged off her jacket and balled it up. ‘Here.’ She shoved the balled-up garment unceremoniously beneath Gidget’s bony rump, forming a makeshift booster seat. She glanced again towards the house.

‘We have to hurry. We don’t want them to see us before we’re ready.’ She jabbed at the controls with a finger, pointing out each item in turn. ‘Throttle, brakes. Steering. These things are designed to be idiot-proof. They’re toys for people who can’t fly a real ship. You’ll be fine.’ Gidget rested two tiny paws on the control frame. They were ill-suited to controlling the ship. ‘I’m still not sure about this, Syd.’ Gidget looked up, but Syd was gone. ‘. . . Syd?’ He glanced around and saw her crouched behind a neighbour’s fence, peering over the top. She gave him a thumbs up. ‘This is never going to work . . .’ Gidget grumbled. Nevertheless, he pushed the button Syd had indicated as the throttle, being sure to rev it hard and make plenty of noise. ‘What the flarp am I doing . . .’ he muttered to himself. He waited until he heard shouting from the shack and saw father and son burst out through the front door. ‘Hey! Hey, what the hell are you doing?’ Gidget let the brakes off and yelped as the skiff surged forwards like a greased greyhound bursting out from the starting gates. He pushed on the steering frame, unable to grip it without thumbs. The frame was stiffer than he’d expected, and he had to throw the whole weight of his tiny body behind each shove to get the ship to move. He narrowly missed colliding with a neighbour’s house, though he still scraped the skiff across the front fence, ripping out palings and busting up the skiff’s glossy paint job. Seth erupted into profanities somewhere behind him, and Gidget heard another engine starting up. They had some other ship and were giving chase. He pushed the throttle harder, unsure if it was a good idea; he couldn’t control this ship well enough. If he could interface with it directly . . . well, that would be another story. But he couldn’t suggest that in front of Syd; it would have raised questions that he wasn’t prepared to answer. And with father and son not far behind him, he was out of time to do it now. He threw his weight behind another shove on the control frame, sending the skiff careening to the right, just clearing the corner. He couldn’t keep this up for long. He had no idea where he was headed, and he couldn’t cover much ground on foot, so he couldn’t afford to get too far from the shipyard. Gidget awkwardly

rounded another corner in the skiff and yelped—he was on a no through road with a large house at the end. He pushed at the frame, trying to pull up, but he couldn’t grip it with his little paws. In desperation, he grabbed the control frame between his teeth and tore back, sending the craft hurtling upwards. It stalled. He closed his eyes against the impending impact and listened to the metal squealing and buckling all around him. Through a haze of disorientation, Gidget could hear frenzied shouting growing nearer. ‘My skiff! My beautiful girl! You scargs! You slime weasels! You can’t be serious!’ Gidget realised he was upside down, and the skiff was resting on its buckled roof. He extricated himself from the tangle of cloth and metal that had once been a seat, but before he could make a break for it, he saw boots in the settling dust ahead of him. They were already here. He retreated farther back into the wreckage. ‘Oh my god, my beautiful girl!’ ‘Will you quit your bitching? It’s your own bloody fault, you idiot.’ ‘You can’t be serious! It’s not my fault someone stole it!’ ‘What do you expect if you leave it lying in the front yard like that?’ Gidget watched as the boots turned away from the wreckage, pointing towards each other and taking up tense stances. Quietly, Gidget crept towards a gap in the wreck, trying not to disturb anything that would remind them of the situation at hand. At the edge of the wreck, he glanced up and saw that the two men were fully engrossed in their argument. It was now or never. He made a dash for a gap between two nearby houses. Once hidden between the two buildings, he turned back to see if the men were in pursuit. They still stood at the wreck. Gidget turned to go, but stopped as he saw the father reach down into the wreckage and pick something up. Gidget’s heart sank. It was Syd’s jacket.

15

Getting Paid

Syd watched Gidget disappear around a corner, careening wildly in the little skiff. Father and son quickly ran out and grabbed a bike that clearly belonged to the father and gave chase. She winced, watching Gidget collect palings off the neighbour’s fence with a sickening screech as the little skiff’s hull squealed in protest. He’ll be fine. The important thing was to get the sensor before they ran out of time. With a last glance after the noisy chase, she dashed up the side of the house and jumped the ramshackle fence to the yard where the shed hulked. In stark contrast to the building’s exterior, the inside was immaculate, with floor-toceiling shelves of clean, neatly ordered parts arranged in careful order, like some bizarre metal library. It would take her weeks to search through all of it on her own. She had maybe five minutes. ‘Right . . . right . . . okay.’ Syd ran her hands through her hair, looking around, her heart rate rising. ‘There has to be a system, Syd. What’s the system.’ She cast her eyes over the neatly printed labels on the sectioned shelves. Years, makes, and models. As she looked, she realised there was indeed a loose pattern; the parts were clustered by function. She jogged along the aisles. Brake parts. Atmospheric system parts. Navigation system parts. Where the flarp are the landing system parts? Finally, Syd began to see landing system components filling the shelves. She cast her eyes up the towering shelves and saw the sensors near the top. How am I supposed to reach those? There has to be a ladder or something. She glanced around the shed and glimpsed a ladder in the next aisle over. She dashed across to the aisle and grabbed the ladder with white-knuckled hands. It was three times as tall as she was, and her arms strained awkwardly. It slammed against the shelves as she tried to shift it. The rattling started slowly at first, a

metallic patter that grew until it became a deafening rush. A stator slammed into the ground inches from Syd’s foot. She flinched, sending the ladder staggering off to her right. Parts rained down as she struggled to regain control of the ladder. It slammed into the shed’s frame, making the whole building shudder. Syd stopped breathing, wondering for a moment if the frame could take it, but the haphazard structure held. She leaned the ungainly ladder against the frame and pushed, skating it along the beam towards the shelving where she hoped to find the landing sensor. The ladder shuddered as she bustled up its rungs, careless with haste. The sensors she needed were on the second shelf from the top, and the ladder wobbled precariously backwards as Syd neared them. As it veered away from the shelving, Syd felt her heart race as she wobbled in mid-air. She leaned all her weight forwards, and after one breathless moment, the ladder crashed into the shelves with a heavy blow. They lurched, but held. Syd breathed again, though her limbs trembled and she could feel sweat prickling against her scalp. The sensors were on the shelf in front of her. Her eyes roved back and forth, and her stomach tightened as they reached the last row of sensors. It wasn’t there. She checked again. It had to be there. But it wasn’t. Syd teetered on the ladder, staring at the empty spot where her landing sensor should be. She steeled herself and rattled back down the ladder as quickly as she could. It must be in the house. Maybe he actually had been ready to give it to her, or maybe he was hiding it, in case she came back. It had to be there. She didn’t dare consider the possibility that she’d put herself and Gidget through all of this for nothing. She hit the ground, abandoned the ladder, and began racing through the shed, dodging the parts scattered across the ground. Syd ran for the house, hoping that Gidget was keeping them busy. This was taking longer than she’d hoped. She sighed in relief as she caught sight of a small window by the back door. It was aluminium silicate, but had been badly installed. With straining fingers made slippery by sweat and an unfeminine grunt, she forced the little square of glass out of place and heard it clatter to the floor inside. She squeezed herself through the window, swearing as her weapons belt caught on the window’s edge.

Finally, she fell to the floor in a heap beside the discarded glass. She pulled herself up and tried to think. Where would he have hidden the part? Did he have an office? Syd doubted it. The house was too small to have room for that. She was in what looked and smelled like a bathroom. It probably isn’t in here. She dashed out and into a narrow hall with two doors on the left and a room at the end. She crashed into the first room. It was a bedroom, obviously Seth’s. The room overflowed with a chaotic mess. She’d never find it if it was in there, so she decided to keep looking. The next door was the father’s room. Though only marginally cleaner than Seth’s, at least it was sparse. She could see at a glance that the sensor was not there and dashed to the room at the end of the hall. It was a kitchen, with two high stools pushed up against a bench to form a table. She ran through the kitchen, opening cupboard doors and slamming them again. She had no idea where anyone would hide a landing sensor in a house. Suddenly, she heard voices coming up the front path. Her blood froze and she paused in the middle of rummaging through a cupboard. There were coming back. Too soon. She heard the front door rattle. There wasn’t time to make it back to the bathroom and wriggle out through the window. She glanced around. There was a large cupboard beneath the benchtop that formed their table. Large enough to fit inside if she squeezed her knees up around her ears. She dived for the cupboard and forced herself inside, cringing at the noise she made as pots and pans gave way to her form. She shut the door behind her, engulfing herself in almost pitch-black, though tiny slivers of light peeked through at the edges of the doors. Safely hidden, she listened to the two men arguing. Gidget had crashed the skiff, and it was completely destroyed. Syd felt a pang of guilt; Gidget had never been comfortable with the plan. She hoped he was alright. Robots can’t get hurt that badly, can they? Once the adrenaline wore off, she noticed there was a hard object pressing painfully into her back, and she tried to ease her body away from it, wincing as pots clanged against each other with her movement. She held her breath, listening, but they seemed too engrossed in their argument to notice. Syd pushed her fingers towards the small of her back. If she was going to hide in here for long, she had to get rid of whatever flarping thing was stabbing her in the spine.

Her fingers met with polished metal, and her heart stopped. Carefully, she pulled the object free from behind her back and set it in her lap, careful not to bump the cupboard door as she brought her arm back around. She sat the unseen object in her lap and traced her fingers across its surface, a wide grin creeping across her face as the form took shape in her mind. She could hardly believe it. It was the sensor. Right here in her lap. And yet, though the front door was only three long strides away, she was trapped. She couldn’t leave without them noticing. What was she going to do now? Wait until they went to bed? She nearly jumped out of her skin as a pair of knees bumped into the bench, just millimetres from her head on the other side of the cabinet wall. One of them had sat down on a stool. The agitated voices eased, and the argument dwindled into a conversation. Syd strained to hear them, but couldn’t make out any words. Suddenly, light flooded the cupboard as the door was pulled open. Startled and panicking, Syd exploded out of the cupboard, flailing desperately at the father, who had opened it. ‘What the flarp?’ the father staggered back, aghast. If she hadn’t been so panicked, Syd might have laughed at the expression on his face, caught in an ungainly mixture of horrified surprise and abject terror. It wasn’t clear who was more surprised and distraught—Syd or the wrecker. Startled yelling filled the air, and it became a race to recover their wits and react first. Syd won and made a break for the door. She heard the stool scrape loudly behind her as Seth ed the chase. She burst out of the front door into the daylight and just ran. She knew she could outrun the flabby father, but she wasn’t sure about Seth and didn’t dare look back to see if he was close. Instead, she put her head down and forced her tired body to run as fast as she could make it. She didn’t know how far she ran before needing to stop. When she did, she leaned forwards with her hands on her knees, taking greedy gulps of air into her starving lungs. Sweat stung her eyes and poured from every inch of her body, making the all-pervasive dust stick to her skin. When she had recovered a little, Syd straightened and looked around. She was alone.

16

Promises to Keep

The light was fading by the time Syd reached the shipyard. She didn’t have long to get the landing sensor installed and hoped Gidget had already made it back. Relief washed over her as her ship came into view and she saw him napping in the dirt at its base. Gidget looked up as he saw Syd coming. ‘It’s about time you got here,’ Gidget grumbled. ‘Oh, just keep them busy a while, it’ll be easy,’ he mimicked. ‘I nearly got blasted into the outer rings in a million pieces.’ ‘Yeah, sorry,’ Syd said, not really listening. ‘Really? That’s it?’ he demanded, his tone scathing. ‘Yeah, we don’t really have time for this right now. You can be angry at me later.’ Syd was already assessing the task at hand. Gidget huffed, but fell silent, flopping back into the dirt. Syd retrieved a sparse toolkit from on board the ship and started removing the sensor’s protective cover. She worked as quickly as she could. The thought of father and son catching her installing the stolen sensor whipped her into a frenzied haste, and in her rush she dropped the cover. ‘Flarp!’ Syd swore and gritted her teeth as the cover crashed down on her foot. She hopped around, trying to process the pain so that she could get back to work. When she limped back to the sensor, she forced herself to take a breath. ‘Less haste more speed, Syd.’ She carefully removed the damaged sensor, tossing it aside in the dirt. She retrieved the new part and positioned it carefully

within the housing, trying to connect the part while holding it in position with her other hand. She pinched her finger in the connector and swore again as the sensor dropped into the dust at her feet. Syd’s ears pricked at a sudden sound in the distance, and her pulse quickened. There were hurried footsteps coming towards them from the yard’s entrance. She retrieved the part and cleaned it off as quickly as she could. ‘Come on, Syd,’ she muttered to herself. She held the sensor in place with one hand and worked slowly with the other, careful to get it right this time. With the landing sensor finally installed, she set to work replacing the outer cover. The footsteps were closer now, and Syd fought to keep her hands steady and work fast. Finally, she was done. ‘Alright, let’s go. Don’t hang around,’ Syd called to Gidget. ‘Hey!’ The shout came from the end of the row of ships. Syd didn’t look back as she raised the hatch after Gidget. Footsteps bounded towards them as Syd readied the ship for take-off. They were seconds from lift-off when someone began pounding on the hatch with their fists. ‘Shit.’ Whoever was out there was playing a dangerous game. If Syd took off now, she’d incinerate them. Well, that’s one way of solving the problem, I guess. But she didn’t want that on her conscience. She checked the ship’s viewport. To her surprise, it was Scott, still dragging his bike behind him like an infant with a favourite toy. She laughed, her tension dissolving into relief. ‘Alright,’ she said to the image of Scott on her screens. ‘Fair’s fair.’ Syd went back and opened the hatch to see Scott’s reddened face, filled with incredulous rage. ‘You can’t leave. You’re supposed to fix my bike.’ ‘Yeah. I’ll do it now.’ Syd leaned down and reached out for the tungsten ore shard that she’d seen jammed in the drive chain the moment she first looked at the bike. ‘There you go.’ ‘What? That’s it?’

‘Yup.’ Syd handed the shard to Scott. ‘This was your problem. Go on. Try it now.’ Scott revved the engine and the bike roared to life. ‘That’s bullshit.’ Syd shrugged. ‘I fixed it for you, didn’t I?’ ‘I guess . . .’ ‘Right. Off you go then. We’re about to take off.’ Syd turned to leave, but Scott didn’t move. ‘Seriously, kid. You’re gonna get yourself fried. Move back.’ ‘Oh. Okay. Sorry.’ Scott swung a leg over his bike and rode away, less confident now that he was riding it instead of dragging it. He wobbled all over the narrow space between the rows of ships. Syd winced, expecting him to crash into one of the hulls, but somehow he always managed to totter away at the last moment. She shook her head and headed back into the ship, raising the hatch. ‘Let’s go.’

17

Miles to Go

Syd laughed as she and Gidget set out in her ship, putting klicks between it and Uridea Beta. They’d done it. They were back on their way. Gidget’s lip curled in what Syd thought must be a smile, though the unnatural stiffness of his synthetic canine face made it hard to tell. That and the fact that Syd had never seen Gidget smile before. She grinned back. ‘Well, what do you know. Your crazy plan actually worked,’ she teased, throwing a glance at Gidget as she spoke. Gidget’s mouth stretched wider. That’s definitely a smile. ‘Yeah, I’m just glad to be off that little rock. All that dust isn’t good for my circuits.’ They lapsed into relaxed silence for a while. Syd reflected on the time they’d spent working together over the past few days and realised she knew almost nothing about the little candroid who was now on her ship. She didn’t know where he’d come from, where he was going, why, or even what he really was. It hadn’t seemed right to ask earlier, but now, celebrating their small win, there was an air of camaraderie that made her feel like she could ask the questions that had been dancing in her mind the past few days. She tried to keep it casual, though her curiosity was burning. ‘So, what’s your story anyway? What’s a candroid doing on an asteroid like that?’ Gidget shrugged, but didn’t answer. ‘What kind of candroid are you, anyway? I’ve never seen one that talks, or has a personality like yours,’ Syd went on. Gidget still didn’t answer. It seemed to Syd that the mood they’d enjoyed

moments before had soured a little, but she pushed on. ‘What’s your deal, Gidget?’ Gidget shrugged his bony shoulders. ‘That story’s much less interesting than you’d think,’ he said, dodging Syd’s questions. He changed the subject. ‘Anyway. Now that we’re up and running, where I’m headed next is a more interesting conversation. I need to get to the Cacta Minor station. Do you know where that is?’ Syd hesitated. She knew Cacta Minor, alright. It was parsecs away. She had agreed to Gidget’s deal, but she’d had no idea exactly how far he wanted to go. ‘Yeah. I know where that is,’ she itted, chewing her lip. Her ship barely even had a warp space module. The ship was so old she’d had to retrofit one, and it didn’t exactly make a snappy pace. ‘Great. Next stop, Cacta Minor.’ There was an edge to Gidget’s voice; Syd’s hesitation hadn’t been lost on him. ‘Actually . . . it might have to be second stop, Cacta Minor,’ Syd said slowly, bracing herself for the reaction. ‘Why? What are you talking about?’ ‘Cacta Minor is a lot farther away than we talked about.’ ‘Well it would only be a few days away if you had a decent ship. How was I supposed to know you’d be getting us there in this spacewreck?’ ‘I don’t know, maybe the fact that I was searching for parts on a scrapheap? Look I’ll still get you there, but—’ ‘But what?’ ‘I’m working a big contract at the moment. I was lucky to get it, and I’m already days behind. I can’t afford to lose any more time. I’ll get you to Cacta Minor once it’s done.’ ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t come along on the ride for your mission. We

had a deal.’ ‘You should have told me how far it was. And besides, I’ll still get you there,’ Syd said, an edge of irritation creeping into her voice. They’d had a deal, but it wasn’t her fault if this mangy candroid hadn’t been upfront with her. She couldn’t afford the time. There was no getting around that fact. She might be too late already. ‘Can’t you just take me to Cacta Minor and then get back to your mission?’ ‘I’d lose a week! Maybe the big flashy cruise liners can get out there in hours, but not this old bird.’ ‘If I hadn’t gotten you that part, you’d still be stranded on that rock. How much time would you have lost then?’ ‘I did just as much work to get that part as you did, you know.’ Syd tried to sound reproachful, but had to it with a faint stab of guilt that Gidget was right. She would still be stuck without his help. ‘That’s it then? You’re just going to back out on our deal?’ ‘I’m not going back on our deal. I’ll get you to Cacta Minor. I just need to do a couple of things first. Then I’ll get you there.’ Gidget huffed and stalked away from Syd. The elated, matey atmosphere of moments ago had boiled away. Gidget folded himself in a heap in the farthest corner of the ship, as far as he could get from Syd. Syd set the ship’s autopilot and got ready for some much-needed rest. Next stop, Rubeta Maxima and Zayne Tripper.

18

False Pretences

Finally docked in Rubeta Maxima, Syd lost no time looking for Tripper. If she’d been able to find out about him from her s on the Dart, there was no doubt that other hunters had too. For all she knew, one of them had already been here. Then again, for all she knew, Tripper had already sold the AI—if he’d ever even had it. She shook her head, banishing the thought. He probably hadn’t moved it that quickly. It was a risky purchase, even for the big players. If she could find Tripper, she could pose as a buyer and find out if he had the AI, or knew who did. She started by looking around the station for a dive bar. It was a well-known fact that almost two-thirds of the universe’s illegitimate business took place in a certain type of bar, and almost every station that Syd had ever visited had one. Rubeta Maxima was no exception, and the Toad’s Foot seemed like a good place to look for Tripper. Syd stepped over the threshold into the dingy bar. The ceiling was studded with old-fashioned LED lights, but most of them had died and never been replaced. She peeled her heavy boots from the sticky floor with each step, wincing at the sound. She hoped it was only spilled drinks gluing her soles to the floor. In a place like this, there were plenty of less savoury options that she didn’t want to think about. The man she was looking for sat at the end of the bar with his elbows propped on its darkly gleaming surface. The rest of the bar was empty except for the barman, one other customer at the bar, and an old soak in a corner. Syd moved to stand right next to the man she’d come to see. He ignored her, but she hadn’t expected any different.

‘Zayne Tripper?’ she asked, still not looking at him. ‘Nope.’ ‘Yes you are.’ Syd had done her homework. She knew exactly who the man beside her was. The question was just a way to start the conversation. Tripper heaved a weighty sigh. ‘Look. I know this is how they do it in all the old movies. Hang out in some dingy bar and talk shop over the pretext of a drink. But as you can see’—he gestured to the two inches of sickly green liquid slopped in the glass on the bar in front of him—‘I am actually enjoying a drink. I don’t know who you are, or what you want, and I’m not interested.’ Syd studied his face. There was no irritation, just bland indifference. She gauged her best approach before speaking again. ‘Alright then. When can we talk?’ ‘Never. I don’t know you. I don’t work with people I don’t know.’ Syd was prepared for this. Tripper hadn’t become one of the most notorious fences in seven systems by being careless. ‘Standrew Harris gave me your name.’ ‘Standrew Harris? Man, I haven’t seen that old slimewort in ages. He’s going to vouch for you, is he?’ ‘Yup.’ It was a bald-faced lie. Syd only knew the name well enough to drop it. He’d never vouch for her, or even have the faintest clue who she was. ‘How’s old Harris doing, anyway? I heard he had a nasty crash a few months ago. Messed him up pretty bad.’ ‘Oh, well, you know. He’s Standrew. He’ll bounce back.’ Trip snorted. ‘You’re a shameless one. But then I guess all hunters are.’ ‘Hunters?’ ‘Don’t play coy with me. You’re a bounty hunter. I could smell it the second you walked into this bar.’ He took a sip of the acrid-smelling green goop in his glass. ‘Standrew Harris is dead, by the way.’ He snorted again. ‘Bouncing back? Pretty

hard to bounce back from decapitation.’ Flarp. Syd hadn’t expected that. She’d thought her story would at least be good enough to charm him for a few minutes while she built a rapport. She should’ve checked up on Harris before she used his name. She’d screwed up and didn’t have any idea how to salvage this. Tripper drained the rest of his glass and set it back on the bar. ‘I don’t particularly want any drinking buddies tonight. Especially not the professional kind. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna shuffle off, and you’re not going to follow me unless you’re a whole lot stupider than you look.’ The legendary fence wavered drunkenly towards the door, and Syd stared after him, thinking. She couldn’t try talking to him again now that he knew her face. She had blown it and needed to find some other way of approaching him. ‘Little girl, are you gonna buy a drink or what? This isn’t a bus stop. You can’t sit here without drinking.’ ‘No, thanks. I’m just leaving.’ Syd squelched her way back across the floor to the doors. She had a glimmer of a plan B, but she had fences to mend if it was going to happen.

19

Plan B

‘No way.’ ‘Come on, Gidget. I can’t go back and see him again. He knows my face now.’ ‘Why should I help you? You already went back on our deal.’ ‘The sooner I get what I need here the sooner I can get you to Cacta Minor.’ ‘You should have already gotten me to Cacta Minor. You’re trying to scam me again with the same bait as last time. You already didn’t deliver.’ ‘Oh, come on Gidget, it’s not like that. This is big for me.’ ‘Do you want to stop and think about this for a second? How is this even supposed to work? “Oh hi there, illegal fence man. I’m a talking candroid with no backstory or explanation who wants to buy an AI that you can’t it to knowing about and don’t even have.”’ ‘How do you know he doesn’t have it?’ Syd asked, suddenly curious. Gidget stumbled but quickly righted himself. ‘Do you really think he’d just be hanging around here if he did? If he’d sold it he’d be a squillionaire lounging on a private luxury planet somewhere. And if he hadn’t, he’d be trying to get rid of it as fast as possible, not just hanging around in gross bars waiting for some random buyer to eventually take an interest.’ Syd thought about it for a second. ‘Yeah, well. Alright. Maybe this wasn’t the best plan.’ ‘I’m not doing it. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. It’s your mission and your problem.’

Syd threw Gidget a disgusted glare. ‘Fine. Then I’ve got surveillance work to do. I’ve no idea how long I’ll have to watch him before I get a break. It could take weeks.’ ‘Fine. Good. Go ahead and do whatever traitors do while they’re supposed to be holding their end up.’ Syd stomped out of the ship. Tripper lived in a two-hundred-and-eighty-fourthfloor apartment near the little planet’s spaceport. One of the buildings down the street was not as tall as Tripper’s building, but the roof was just a few floors above his floor. It was the perfect spot for Syd to hunker down to watch and wait. To get access to the roof, she’d bribed her way up the service lift with a sly smile at an environmental systems maintenance worker. When she got to the roof, she picked a spot near the edge where she could see Tripper’s apartment. Her binoculars and directional mics would have to do the rest. She settled in with a few cubes of meal replacement, a flask of coffee, and some sleeping gear, knowing she might be on watch for a while. Her comment to Gidget had been just to spite him, but it wasn’t too far from the truth. She had no idea how long this would take. Or even if she would learn anything that would help her find the AI. She fixed her mics on the man’s window and waited. Hours later, she was on the verge of falling asleep when something came across the mic. She jumped up, suddenly alert, and held the headphones to her ears to listen in. It seemed to be a conversation of some kind. She realised he must be on the phone, since she could only hear his side of the conversation. ‘Why don’t you back off and leave me alone! You’re my ex-wife. Alright? Ex. Whatever I’m up to, it’s none of your business.’ There was a long pause. The ex-wife must have been speaking. From the tone of Tripper’s reply, he didn’t like what she had to say. ‘None of your business. Why are you so nosy all the time? Why are you still keeping tabs on me? You’re a bitter old hag, you know that? Get your claws out of me already.’ Syd raised an eyebrow. As unpleasant as the exchange was, it was giving her an idea. This woman, whoever she was, clearly knew more than Tripper wanted her to. She might be someone Syd needed to know.

She lay down on her bedroll, keeping the headphones pressed to her ear to listen to the rest of the argument. Once it was done, she decided to get some rest. An idea was turning over in her mind. She had plans for tomorrow.

20

A Woman Scorned

Tripper’s ex-wife was a tall, lean woman with a golden bronze complexion. She looked like something out of a magazine, gliding effortlessly along the streets like a model sashaying down the catwalk. Syd wondered briefly what a woman like that had seen in a man like Tripper. Her second thought followed closely on its heels. Was this even going to work? Yes. Yes it will. She had listened into their conversations for two days. The ex-Mrs. Tripper was a jealous woman and a legendary gossip. All Syd had to do was play into that. This would work. Syd pushed off the wall where she’d been leaning and followed after the gliding bronze goddess. She waited until the ex-Mrs. Tripper was nearly home, then closed the few steps between them. ‘Evelyn?’ The woman turned her delicate face to stare at Syd. Her golden eyes showed a mixture of curiosity and indignant rage. ‘Evelyn Tripper?’ Syd asked again. ‘Who are you?’ ‘My name is Rachel. Are you Evelyn Tripper?’ ‘What do you want, Rachel?’ ‘I need to talk to Zayne Tripper.’ The curious expression on Evelyn’s face morphed into a sneer. ‘I can’t help you.’ Her strange and beautiful eyes slid up and down Syd’s form, taking in the wiry frame, the scuffed boots and dirty clothes, and the crop of short black hair that badly needed a wash. Evelyn was sizing up a rival, and her satisfied smirk showed she thought she’d won that comparison.

‘What?’ ‘Look, honey. Zayne is like this. He’s had his little bit of fun with you, and now you’ll never hear from him again. I can’t help you.’ She shot Syd another sneering glance. ‘And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to.’ ‘But—’ ‘But nothing.’ Evelyn turned to leave, dismissing Syd with an imperious wave of one bejewelled hand. ‘But I’m his daughter!’ Syd blurted out. As soon as Syd caught the look on Evelyn’s face, she knew she had her. Her delicate mouth had dropped open in shocked amazement, and her golden eyes were wide—but not with horror. No, her shock was mixed with titillation, the kind of salacious pleasure that only comes from deliciously hot gossip. Syd was in. ‘Please? Will you help me?’ Syd said, playing her part of the illicit love child, all grown up now and desperate to reach out to her father. ‘Oh, honey. I’m so sorry, I had no idea.’ Evelyn draped a slender arm around Syd’s shoulders, placing a delicate hand on her shoulder. ‘Why don’t you come in?’ Syd didn’t believe Evelyn’s suddenly gracious demeanour for a moment; it was nothing more than carefully measured artifice and lacked the awkward warmth that came with real concern for a stranger. But it didn’t matter. Evelyn swept Syd into the building behind them and showed Syd to a glass lift, ushering her briskly inside. They rode together for about twenty floors. Syd stared out of the glass s as they rode. The lift shuttled them through a magnificent atrium that soared the full height of the building. Exotic plants scaled hidden wires in a vertical garden that ran alongside the lift. It was an impressive show of wealth; only the mega-rich could afford to waste this much space. Syd wondered how much of Evelyns’s flashy lifestyle Tripper paid for. She guessed most of it. Evelyn didn’t seem to be the working woman type. So, business was good then. Syd hoped that meant he was the man who had pulled off the AI trade. Otherwise, she’d wasted exorbitant amounts of time on a dead

end. Evelyn ushered Syd into an apartment that was probably supposed to look gilded and elegant. To Syd’s ittedly untrained eye, it screamed of poor taste. She would take the bare steel walls of her ship any day. Evelyn gestured to a table, and Syd took a seat on a chair that was more elaborate than it was comfortable. Evelyn busied herself in the kitchen with drinks. She placed a tall cylinder of water in front of Syd, who took a sip. Even the water tasted expensive. ‘Now, darling. Why don’t you tell me your story?’ Evelyn leaned forwards, still feigning concern, but Syd could see the gleam of malicious curiosity in those golden eyes. Good. That was what she needed right now. Syd started with the story she’d rehearsed while waiting for Evelyn. ‘Well, I grew up on Andromeda. I lived there with my mother, and I never had a dad. She would never tell me who he was, just that he was a powerful man. She said they’d had a whirlwind romance, but that he was married and they couldn’t be together.’ Syd could see Evelyn’s face harden. She didn’t want to push it; she wanted Evelyn pissed off enough with Tripper that she would want to spite him, but not so pissed off that she would throw Syd out into the street. Syd took a slow breath, as though the next words were hard to get out. ‘Then about six months ago, Mum got really sick. She was dying. She decided she’d better tell me who he was because . . .’ Syd sniffed and closed her throat to make the words sound strained. ‘Because there’d never be another chance . . .’ ‘Oh, darling. I’m so sorry. How old are you, honey?’ ‘I’ll be eighteen in September.’ ‘Who was your mother?’ ‘Her name was Sarah . . .’ Syd concentrated; she had to play her act right. She screwed her face up, as if in pain. ‘She died a few months ago.’ Syd cast her eyes down to the table, pretending to struggle with tears. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ Evelyn reached across the table and took Syd’s hand. She squeezed, pressing her many rings and fake nails uncomfortably into Syd’s skin.

Syd squeezed back, and looked at Evelyn through her fringe, offering a weak smile filled with faux bravery. ‘Now, darling, I’m not sure I understand. Why do you need my help?’ ‘Well, I feel pretty terrible about it.’ ‘It’s alright honey, just tell me.’ ‘I need to get in touch with my dad because I need some help. I need money. Mum was going to help me go to uni so I could study to be a doctor.’ Watch it, Syd. You’re laying it on a little thick here. But when she glanced up at Evelyn, she still had her. She was gobbling up Syd’s story hook, line, and sinker. So Syd went on. ‘But I can’t afford it on my own. I thought maybe my father . . . well, I heard he got a big deal recently, you know. Something about an AI. I thought maybe he could spare a little to help me. I could pay him back once I finish school.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I know it’s a lot to ask. Maybe coming here was a waste of time.’ Evelyn clucked sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry, honey. That deal fell through. He doesn’t have the money you’re looking for.’ Looking around the gauche apartment, Syd found that hard to believe. The carpet alone probably cost enough to put a student through medical school. But she said nothing. Clearly, the ex-Mrs. Tripper didn’t want to share. ‘But I thought . . . the thing with the AI?’ Evelyn shook her head. ‘The idiot let himself get ripped off. He never saw a single credit.’ ‘That’s terrible! What happened?’ ‘Well, Trip was on the Dart trying to drum up business, right, and then he hears about that company, Brightleaf, getting robbed of its AI. So, naturally, he wants in, but nobody’s got any idea who did it. But then he gets a message from some guy named . . . uh . . . Threekby or something? Works for Brightleaf. Anyway, the message said he had the AI and wanted Trip to help him sell it.’ Evelyn rolled her eyes, critical with the benefit of hindsight. ‘The whole thing was weird from the start. He should have known something was up.’

‘Weird how?’ ‘Well, he never even met the guy. Never even heard his voice. They only talked through written messages. I mean there’s being careful and all but . . . who does that?’ ‘Yeah, weird.’ ‘So they arrange a pickup and Trip goes and grabs the AI and gets it off the Dart, pronto. But then he stops for fuel on some godforsaken little rock, and the next thing he knows, the AI was gone.’ ‘Someone stole it?’ ‘Trip reckons this Threek-whatever guy stole it back. Nothing else was taken, so it wasn’t like he just got burgled or something. It’s like Threeks was just using him to get the AI off the Dart. Everyone knows Trip’s the guy for that.’ ‘So, can he get the AI back?’ Evelyn shook her head, making the heavy earrings that dripped from her earlobes dance. ‘He’s been looking everywhere for this guy. But there’s nothing. Nobody’s ever heard of him, not even at Brightleaf.’ ‘Could he have used a fake name?’ ‘Well, that’s what I thought. But it’s more than that. There are no records, no friends, no security footage. He’s a ghost. It’s like he never even existed.’ From her wide eyes and the hushed excitement in her voice, a casual onlooker might be forgiven for thinking that she was describing the latest twist in a favourite soap opera, rather than the ruination of Tripper’s big deal. A moment later the spell was broken and she lounged back in her seat, casually inspecting her manicure. ‘I told him he should hire a bounty hunter to find him but . . . well, he never listens to me. Idiot.’ Syd resisted the urge to reach for her business card. ‘Well. Maybe I did waste my time coming here.’ ‘Oh, darling. Don’t be silly. He’s still your father. You should meet him. I can

make that happen.’ ‘Really? That would be amazing,’ Syd gushed, still playing her part. ‘Let me grab your s. Don’t you worry; I’ll make this happen.’ She gave Evelyn a fake code and smiled as the woman ushered her back to the lift. ‘I’ll call you tonight.’ Evelyn squeezed her hand again. ‘Thank you so much,’ Syd said with a smile. At least that part was genuine. She’d learned more in the last half hour gossiping with Evelyn than she had in two days of watching Tripper. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good news. Syd reflected on what Evelyn had said as she rode the lift, whizzing past the climbing plant life back down to the lobby. The doors swished gently open as she walked through them. Syd trudged back to her ship, barely seeing the streets and people that rushed past. If Tripper didn’t have the AI, then who did? It could be anywhere. The inside man could be anyone. Maybe she should just take Gidget to Cacta Minor. But then the trail would get even colder. If she was going to have any chance of finishing this contract, she needed to find that inside man. She activated the hatch on her ship and walked back inside, hearing it swish gently closed behind her and click into place. ‘Ah, finally back, are you? Does that mean we’re finally getting on the road to Cacta Minor?’ ‘Tripper doesn’t have the AI. He never got it.’ ‘So, this was a giant flarping waste of time. Cacta Minor?’ ‘His ex-wife said something about an inside man at the company.’ Syd watched Gidget’s face harden. ‘So? He could be anyone.’ ‘Yeah. But . . .’ ‘What?’

‘But I’m guessing he didn’t stick around at the company after pulling off his heist.’ ‘So what?’ ‘Well, I think I need to look for someone who left the company abruptly around the time the AI went missing. That’ll narrow the list down a lot.’ ‘That’s impossible. How are you supposed to get that information? They would never tell you; they didn’t even hire you.’ Syd wasn’t sure she ed telling Gidget that, but she let it . ‘Maybe Gary can tell me. Even if he can’t, I have an idea.’ ‘Unless that idea is getting me to Cacta Minor within the next day, I don’t really care.’ ‘I need to go back to the Dart. If I can get into Brightleaf’s records, I can get the names I need. From there, it’s just a matter of running people down and finding out where they are. I can figure this out.’ ‘You can’t be serious. We can’t go back to the station. We had a deal. You’ve already broken it once.’ ‘I haven’t—’ ‘Did you ever intend to keep it?’ Gidget cut her off. ‘Of course.’ The comment cut Syd. She considered herself a woman of her word. ‘And I still will. But first, there are some things I have to do.’ Gidget snorted in disgust and stalked away from her, ending the conversation. Syd hadn’t really expected anything different and tried to ignore the twinge of guilt that she still felt. This was the biggest chance of her career and she wasn’t going to miss it just because Gidget was huffy. She could still get him to Cacta Minor after this. She hadn’t broken their deal. She pulled her narrow cot down from the wall and kicked off her boots. The first thing she needed was a decent sleep in the comfort of her ship, not exposed on some rooftop. Then, they would head back to the station.

21

The Inside Man

‘Welcome to the Dart.’ The familiar recording sounded as the airlock’s inner doors opened and allowed them into the station. It was a melodious homecoming to Syd, but it darkened Gidget’s mood even further, if that was possible. He hadn’t said one word to Syd since she’d set their course for the Dart. Syd didn’t care. If he wanted to sulk, she would just let him. She had important business to get on with and couldn’t let his mood slow her down. First, she had a phone call to make. The waiting to connect icon spun and spun on the screen of her communicator before making a forlorn tone and giving up. Syd tried a few more times. Finally Gary’s curt tones came across her comms. ‘Gary, hi.’ ‘Do you have it?’ Syd almost felt bad hearing the hushed excitement in his voice. ‘Not yet.’ ‘Oh. Then why are you calling me? You shouldn’t be calling me at work. Someone might overhear something. Besides, I’m very busy.’ ‘I need you to get some records for me.’ ‘You what?’ ‘I need you to get some HR records for me. Anyone who’s left recently, especially if it was sudden.’ There was a series of hissing and clicking sounds. ‘I can’t do that!’ ‘Why not?’

‘I don’t have access to that! And even if I did, there would be records of my access!’ ‘Don’t you have any friends in HR?’ ‘No! I hired you to find information! I can’t be involved! I told you this has to be discreet!’ ‘Okay, calm down.’ The rash of hisses and clicks came again. ‘Don’t call again.’ The line went dead. ‘That sounds like it went well.’ ‘Hmmm.’ Syd mulled her options over for a few moments. ‘There is someone else who might be able to help me.’ She got to her feet. ‘We’re going out.’ ‘What? Where are we going?’ Gidget demanded. ‘What about your bounty?’ ‘We’re going to the Drunken Mantis. I need to meet someone.’ There was a certain type of ‘good honest pub’ that was neither honest, nor particularly good. The kind of place where ‘cocktail’ was a dirty word and no self-respecting socialite would dare stray within two hundred metres. The Drunken Mantis was just that sort of place. Syd tucked her hand inside the hem of her sleeve before pushing open the door and walking inside, audibly peeling her boots off the floor with each step. ‘Pick me up,’ Gidget said with disgust. ‘How do you know he’ll even be here?’ ‘He’s always here. It’s how his clients find him.’ Syd scooped him up and cast her eyes around the room. The man she was looking for would stand out in most crowds, but not in the Drunken Mantis. The clientele was a mixed assortment of various aliens and humans who had gone to considerable expense and effort to look at least as weird as the others. By these standards, her acquaintance looked positively pedestrian. She eventually spotted him at the bar and scooted up onto the seat beside him uninvited. She plopped Gidget onto the stool next to her.

‘Zassik! What a surprise, bumping in to you like this.’ ‘Yeah right, Syd. What do you want?’ ‘Don’t be like that. You know you still owe me a favour after that incident with the plasma snail smuggler.’ ‘You’ve never shut up about it for long enough to let me forget.’ ‘Well, now’s your chance to get square.’ Zassik glanced sideways at her over his drink. He considered her silently for a long moment. ‘You’ll stop annoying me if I do you a favour?’ ‘Yeah. I mean, you don’t have to put it like that. But yes. I’ll never mention the plasma snail thing again.’ Zassik turned on his stool to face her. ‘What do you want?’ ‘I need some information from Brightleaf.’ Zassik’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Seriously? That’s a tough job, Syd. What are you trying to do?’ ‘It’s for a bounty. I need some HR records.’ ‘You got invited to the Brightleaf gig?’ Syd drew herself up indignantly. ‘As a matter of fact I did. You don’t have to sound so surprised about it. Now can you help me or not?’ Zassik brushed a meaty hand over his rough beard. ‘That’s a serious job.’ ‘Well, if you’re not up to it, I guess I’ll have to ask Smelborp.’ ‘Smelborp? That second-rate Rhinarian stink toad? You’ve got to be kidding me. Sure, ask him if you want to get caught.’ ‘Well, someone’s got to do it. I need those records.’ ‘Fine. Tell me what you’re looking for.’

‘I need HR records. Names and information of anyone who left recently, especially if it was sudden. Bonus points if they worked with AI.’ ‘Come back tomorrow. I’ll have your data.’ The following afternoon, Syd scanned over the information that Zassik had given her. ‘There’s a guy here who looks promising. He left pretty abruptly, right around the time that the AI was stolen. He broke his contract without notice. He would have had access to the project, too. Mork Threekbert.’ Gidget scratched his chin with a spindly paw. ‘That does sound like you’re on the right track.’ ‘And Evelyn Tripper kept calling Tripper’s Threek-something. It’s got to be him. I need to track this guy down.’ ‘I don’t suppose he left a forwarding address.’ ‘Actually, he did.’ Syd was a little surprised, too. If he’d taken off so quickly, why would he leave a address? And yet, he was the only person she’d found who even remotely matched what she was looking for. It had to be him. ‘So, I guess we’re off to some other crazy destination. Again,’ Gidget grumbled, but Syd could tell his heart wasn’t in it. He was starting to take a real interest. She stifled a smile, not wanting to let him know that his enthusiasm was showing. ‘Actually, you’re in luck. The forwarding address he left is on Cacta Minor, weirdly enough.’ ‘Why’s that weird?’ Gidget asked, a little too quickly. ‘I didn’t think anyone lived on Cacta Minor. It’s a tiny little stopover in the middle of nowhere. Just a place to refuel and repair ships. I think there’s a little bar there or something.’ ‘I guess the staff have to live somewhere,’ Gidget supposed. ‘And why would a guy like him go to Cacta Minor? There’s nothing there for a guy with his skills.’

‘Maybe he wanted to disappear.’ ‘On a station the size of a medieval village?’ Gidget shrugged. ‘Well, in any case, it looks like I’ll be getting you there sooner than you thought.’ ‘That’s great.’ Gidget grinned. It was the first genuine happiness he’d shown since they had left Uridea Beta. Syd smiled back. She was glad they could finally stop fighting. ‘Next stop, Cacta Minor,’ Syd said as she set course for the remote station. ‘And about time,’ Gidget added, not able to resist one last jibe. Syd couldn’t help grinning as they set off. She and Gidget were getting along, Zassik had given her a solid lead on the AI, and she even had credits in the bank after finally getting paid for her last job. Things were firmly back on track.

22

Welcome to Cacta Minor

Syd guided her ship into the docking spindle and listened to the clamps execute their automatic sequence. Once the ship was secure, she climbed through the hatch and into the elevator. ‘Little help?’ Gidget growled, glaring up at Syd from the hold. Syd enjoyed staring at his irate face for a minute before reaching down and scooping him up under her armpit. She climbed into the shuttle and took a seat, absent-mindedly sitting Gidget on her lap like the little toy dog he resembled. Gidget made a disgusted snort and clambered off her lap and onto the adjacent seat. Bing bong. The tannoy sounded with that seemingly universal chime, signalling that a tinny, artificial voice was about to make an announcement. ‘For ship repairs, disembark at the next station.’ ‘Well, I guess that’s me,’ Syd said. ‘If Threekbert is working here, that’s where it’d have to be. Unless he’s got some bartending skills he left off his resume.’ ‘Hmmm,’ Gidget barely responded. ‘I guess you’ll be heading on to the bar?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘Meeting someone?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘Well . . . it’s been nice travelling with you,’ she said, an odd, unexpected

sentimentality creeping over her. Gidget cocked an incredulous eye at her. ‘You feeling okay, kid?’ ‘What? Yeah, of course.’ Bing bong. ‘Station one. Disembark here for ship service.’ ‘Right, well. Ummm . . . bye, I guess.’ Syd managed a half wave at Gidget, who acknowledged it with a nod. She wasn’t sure why she felt so strange saying goodbye to the little candroid that she barely knew. She guessed that she’d been travelling alone for too long, and any company was beginning to feel like good company. Maybe I should take some time after this job is finished to visit my parents. With a payout like the one she was expecting, she could afford to take some time off. They could walk together along the viewing decks and go for dinner on the promenade. They could— ‘Hey, you can’t go in there,’ Syd started and looked around for the source of the voice. A youngish Dendari was walking towards her, waving his four arms in agitation. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Oh, umm . . .’ Syd tried to the story she’d decided on. ‘I . . . need some repairs on my ship.’ It was true enough. ‘Oh, well, you’ve come to the right place. But you can’t go through there. There’s for staff only. Come this way.’ He guided her towards a small office to one side. ‘Take a seat.’ Syd sank onto the soft seat designated for customers, carefully selected for compatibility with as many species as possible. ‘Which bay are you parked in?’ the mechanic asked. ‘Bay thirty-two.’ A spasm ed across the mechanic’s face. ‘That wre—ship?’ he asked. ‘Yep.’

‘Well, I’m glad you finally brought it in. Our scans show there’s plenty that needs doing. The state your engine coils are in . . . and your nav sensors are—’ ‘Yes, well. There are a few things that need doing,’ Syd interjected, wondering how to bring the conversation around to finding her target. She decided to be direct. ‘Say, is there any chance I could speak to Threekbert?’ The man’s face contorted again, this time in confusion. ‘Who?’ ‘Threekbert. He’s an old friend. Someone told me he’s working here now. He’s the best, no offence. He’d fix my nav sensors up in no time.’ ‘Well, I don’t know about Threekbert, but we can have your nav sensors fixed up in no time at all. Not to mention these nacelles, sheesh . . .’ ‘Yeah, alright. I know she’s not in the best shape, but can we stick to the subject? I’m looking for Threekbert. Is there anyone new who started here in the last month?’ ‘I’ve never heard of Threekbert, and we haven’t had any new employees for at least three months. Are you here for repairs or not? You know, Threekbert isn’t the only one who can fix this up. We’ll need some time though. I mean’—he gestured to the scan on his screen again with an incredulous chuckle—‘how is this even still flying?’ Syd glared. ‘It’s really not that bad.’ ‘It actually is. Let me do you up a quote. You might need to stay here for a couple of weeks.’ ‘You know what? Never mind.’ ‘What? You can’t be thinking of flying out of here like that.’ ‘Why not? I flew in here like that.’ ‘It’s a flying tin can held together with duct tape and stubbornness.’ ‘Yeah. So?’ Syd didn’t give him a chance to answer, instead turning on her heel and leaving the bewildered mechanic staring after her.

23

Fresh Start

Alone on the shuttle now that Syd had gone, Gidget stared blankly out at the beams whizzing past, and the pale stars twinkling in between them. After everything that had happened, all the problems and delays, he was finally here. Soon he would be on his way to safety, a permanent home, and the chance to build a life for himself. A short cruise later, they pulled up alongside a glass prism that curved gracefully around the central spire of the tiny space station. The doors opened with a soft whoosh and the shuttle divulged its handful of engers into the prism. Cool, dry air washed over Gidget’s face as he cast his eyes around the faux desert that had been constructed inside. Sand concealed the floor and was punctuated by artfully arranged rocks and pebbles. Gidget stepped off the shuttle, skittering on the soft sand as he walked inside. He ed cacti in a variety of sizes and colours nestled in amongst the rocks. Some stretched taller than Syd, green and angular and covered in spines. Others were no larger than Gidget’s paw, with multicoloured bulbs protruding from their crowns. In the centre stood a small structure with an open window at one end and chairs lined up along the window. After a moment, he realised it was a bar. More stools arranged around high tables dotted the faux desert. He carefully made his way past the various cacti, giving a generous berth to the ones with spikes that were as long as his spindly legs. When he got to the bar in the centre, he stared up at the stools towering over his tiny form. He cleared his throat, trying to catch the bartender’s attention. It failed, but a drunken patron saw him from his stool at the bar. ‘Awwww!’ The man stumbled down from his stool, clearly several drinks into his session. ‘Look at this little guy, he’s so cute!’ Gidget, who had never been accused of any such thing, stared openly at the

drunken traveller. His skin was sheeny with oil and sweat, and his eyes were glazed over. Gidget backed up, glancing around for help as the greasy man reached unsteady hands out towards Gidget’s little bionic body. The traveller grabbed him and plopped him up on the counter. A Vediki girl two stools over glanced at them in puzzlement as she sipped on a mug of the humans’ favourite stimulant. She picked at a plate of small brightly coloured eggs sitting in front of her, careful not to stain her neatly tailored suit. Breakfast and cocktails often happened together at this little constructed desert under the perpetually dark sky, flecked with the glimmer of distant suns. Time meant little in a place without morning, noon, or night. It could be any time you wanted it to be. Gidget wriggled free of the traveller’s greasy grip. At least he could see the bartender now. He glared at her. ‘Enjoying yourself, Nakka?’ She didn’t answer, but the smirk in her pale eyes was answer enough. Gidget sneered at her, irritated, but she clearly didn’t care. A soft sliding heralded the fact that the traveller had enjoyed a few too many drinks. Nakka deftly grabbed him by the collar of his worn-out coat with one sinewy limb while two more continued cleaning a glass. She plopped him back on his seat and poured him another drink. Alcohol service laws were rarely enforced in this part of the galaxy for the simple reason that no enforcement officers could be bothered to travel this far out. ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten our deal, Nakka.’ Nakka flicked a haughty glare at Gidget with her lower eyes while keeping her upper ones trained on her inebriated customer in case he decided to fall down again. ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she told him in a voice that sounded like the crackling of dry leaves. ‘Come through here.’ She gestured with one hand for Gidget to follow her into the back. He hesitated on the edge of the bar, staring down at the floor. ‘Uh, little help?’ he asked towards Nakka’s retreating back. She looked back at him with disdain before picking him up between two fingers

like a piece of slimy garbage. She dropped him on the ground less gently than she could have done and let him follow her into the back. Behind them, the drunken man slid gently into the sand and the Vediki finished her eggs. Gidget trotted after Nakka. ‘You’re late,’ Nakka rustled. ‘I’ll have to arrange a new berth for you. It could take a while.’ ‘I have time.’ ‘You can wait in here.’ She gestured a scaled yellow limb towards a storage closet. Gidget raised a mechanical eyebrow. ‘In there?’ ‘You have to stay out of sight. Do you know how much trouble I could get into for this shit?’ Gidget eyed the pantry warily. ‘But there’s no one else here to see me.’ ‘I haven’t been running the smuggling business in this sector for the last fifteen years by taking chances, Gidget. Get in the pantry or the deal’s off.’ Gidget reluctantly trotted into the pantry and took a seat. The door slammed, leaving the small storage room dark. Outside, he heard Nakka slam a bolt across the door and began to realise that he’d made a terrible mistake.

24

Drinking Buddies

Syd slipped through the doors as they gently whooshed open and stepped onto the soft sand of the station. She was greeted by an array of cacti, some as tall as she was. They partly screened her view of the small bar in the centre of the desert. That was the only other place on the tiny station that Threekbert might be working, but something told her she wouldn’t find the software expert behind the counter of this tiny bar in the middle of deep space. She stepped around a greasy-looking traveller ed out in the sand and took a seat at the bar. A Jemnian woman, her soft scales a delicate lemon that was unusual for her species, offered her a haughty glare from behind the bar, but didn’t offer to take her order. ‘Can I have a cactus wine please?’ ‘Credit number?’ ‘Up front, hey? Don’t trust me?’ A sullen glare was the only answer the Jemnian had for Syd. ‘Fine.’ Syd offered her wrist for scanning. The Jemnian obliged. A faint grunt signalled her grudging approval. She busied herself behind the counter with Syd’s order. ‘So . . . on shift by yourself, then?’ ‘Do you see anyone else here?’ Syd made a frustrated face behind the bartender’s back. If she was this hard to

talk to, she wasn’t sure she’d get anything out of her. ‘So, got good colleagues, do you?’ The Jemnian glared at her. ‘Ever heard of Threekbert? No? I’ve had better conversations with Quaxi boulders than this bloody Jemnian . . .’ Syd grumbled. ‘There’s some over there you can talk to,’ the Jemnian snapped. ‘I’m here to pour drinks, not entertain’—she scanned Syd up and down with her pale eyes —‘overgrown emo kids.’ ‘Fine,’ Syd snapped back. ‘Give me the bottle.’ The Jemnian slammed a full bottle on the counter and jerked her chin towards the rear left of the glass prism that shielded the little desert oasis from the void of space. Syd snatched the bottle up and stomped off towards the alleged boulders. At least she had a wonderful view of the stars from this part of the galaxy. This isn’t a dead end. I’m not giving up. I’m just . . . taking a cactus wine break. Hours later, Syd stared up at the stars, both calmer and more unsteady than before. She had no idea what she would do next, but for the moment, it didn’t matter. Boots crunched on the sand behind Syd. She turned to see whether it was anyone worth talking to, misjudged the movement, tumbled, and ended up face down in the artificial sand. She raised her spinning head from that position to see if anyone had noticed her undignified fall. Fortunately, her embarrassment had gone unnoticed, but strangely, she recognised the owner of the boots. It was Ethan Hatchett. Even drunker than a Sinaidian fruit worm, she knew that was good news. Hatchett wouldn’t be on the station if she wasn’t on the right track. As quietly as she could manage, she slunk after Hatchett as he sauntered up to the bar. Syd plonked herself down behind a clump of cacti not too far off. She had hoped to squat catlike while she watched him, but there wasn’t enough balance left in her inebriated brain to keep her on her feet, so instead she plopped, toad-like, into the sand.

She watched Hatchett approach the bar and was irritated to see him receive a much warmer welcome from the Jemnian than she had. She watched in disbelief as the woman ushered Hatchett behind the bar and herded him into the back room. With a furtive glance over one slender shoulder, she closed the door behind them, leaving the bar unattended. Syd took a swig of her dwindling supply of cactus wine and settled into the sand to wait.

25

Make a Run for It

Gidget shifted, trying to get into the most comfortable position he could in the basket of limes he’d found. He listened intently to the noises going on around his cupboard prison, but his candroid body was poorly equipped for the task. The little toy wasn’t intended for surveillance. As long as it could hear the gleefully shouted commands of its child owner, the candroid had fulfilled its purpose. Despite his limitations, Gidget thought he could hear the door open and a second pair of boots clump into the kitchen. Was it a second person? Yes; he could hear voices as they moved closer. Nakka’s dry crunchy voice, and another, deeper and smoother. A human male, Gidget guessed. They were having a frank conversation in low voices, and Gidget couldn’t tell what they were saying. He steeled himself. Something was about to happen. If he had to guess, he’d say that someone had outbid him for his freedom. And the man, he figured, must be this higher bidder. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he had no intention of going anywhere with this buyer. The chair scraped across the floor, and Gidget flinched at the nearness and the volume of the noise. He hadn’t heard the two come across the room. This was it. This was his chance. He prepared himself. Light flooded into the cupboard as the door opened. He launched himself forwards as fast as he could . . . straight into Nakka’s open palm. She wrapped her hand around his skinny synthetic neck. ‘Easy there, little puppy,’ she teased, enjoying a good smirk. ‘Put him in here.’ The man held open a small, rigid bag. The outside had a number of straps across it. Gidget knew that if he got into that bag, he wasn’t getting out. He had to make his move before then. Though, the moves he could make were limited when there was a sinewy, scaled hand wrapped around his neck.

‘Not so fast, Hatchett,’ Nakka said, snatching Gidget back from the bag. ‘Problem?’ Hatchett’s attitude was cordial, but Gidget detected ice behind the facade. ‘You were supposed to be here four hours ago.’ Hatchett shrugged. ‘So? I apologised for my lateness. I told you.’ Nakka shrugged and folded all four arms, dragging Gidget through the air like a sentient rag doll. ‘I took a big risk, holding something like this for so long.’ ‘It’s a candroid. Not much of a risk if you ask me.’ ‘Don’t try and play me, Hatchett. This isn’t just a candroid.’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ‘I think I’m going to need a little something extra for my trouble.’ ‘We already agreed on a price.’ ‘Yeah, so had we,’ Gidget grumbled in a strangled voice. He was enjoying watching the stranger get screwed over as well, but it really wasn’t helping his situation. ‘Well, we’re going to agree on a new price. Or you’re going to leave emptyhanded.’ The cordial facade was gone now, and there was cold rage on Hatchett’s face. But he didn’t say anything; he just waited for Nakka to go on. ‘Five hundred thousand credits. That’s my new price.’ ‘You can’t be serious.’ Nakka gave a nonchalant wave of her hands, sending Gidget swinging through the air once again. ‘That’s more than double the price we agreed.’

‘And a fraction of the bounty you’ll be bringing in on this little guy.’ Hatchett glowered. Gidget glanced from the stranger back to Nakka. They were focused on each other and seemed to have almost forgotten about Gidget. Nakka’s grip on his neck was loosening. His eyes darted back to the window. It was still open. He was a short jump from the counter; he could make it. Of course, he’d thought that last time, too. But if he didn’t try, the only alternative was the deadly little bag in Hatchett’s hand. He decided to chance it. He clamped blunt teeth down on the web between Nakka’s thumb and forefinger. ‘Eeeyow!’ She flicked her hand as if trying to free herself from a pesky insect. Gidget cartwheeled through the air and landed on the bench with a thud, skidding through the detritus that littered the dirty little kitchen. Hatchett and Nakka both dived for Gidget and came together with a painful crash. ‘Get off me, you idiot!’ Hatchett growled through clenched teeth. Gidget came to a stop in an aching heap. A cool breeze played across his face, and Gidget opened his eyes. ‘Get off me, you scargtwarp!’ Gidget risked a glance at the two. They were still tripping over each other. He was going to make it. Gidget dashed for the window, feeling grasping fingers brush his feet just a second too late as he disappeared through the opening. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought about the drop from the window, and winced as he hit the ground hard and felt something crunch. He tumbled through the sand, rolling uncontrollably until he collided with something. Groaning, he pulled himself up to see what he had hit. It was a boot. ‘Gidget? What are you doing here? I thought you were getting a transport hours ago!’ He looked up into the blank, slightly bewildered, and thoroughly drunk face of Syd. He’d never been so glad to see her. Just a few days ago, he would have been glad never to see her again. The sound of the door bursting open brought Gidget back to the present with a start. ‘Syd, we have to get out of here.’

‘Huh?’ ‘Now, Syd! Run!’ Gidget dashed for the sliding doors, not knowing where he was going, praying Syd would follow. He yelped in fear as he felt a hand slide beneath his belly and scoop him up off the ground. He glanced up and saw Syd tucking him beneath her arm like some spoiled lapdog. For once, he didn’t care. Her long, lean legs would cover more ground than his spindly twigs. He caught a whiff of spirits and groaned inwardly. ‘Have you been drinking?’ ‘Just one or two.’ The weaving of Syd’s feet and the pace of her run made a liar of her. ‘What, bottles?’ ‘Shut up.’ Great. Just great. His saviour was pissed.

26

Aiding and Abetting

Syd lurched towards the door with Gidget tucked under one arm, and Hatchett and the Jemnian not far behind. She narrowly skirted an inconveniently placed cluster of cacti that still managed to snag her pants and tear a conveniently fashionable slash in the fabric before reaching the only exit. The doors to the cactus garden whooshed gently open and Syd burst into the shuttle that was waiting there. ‘This is not exactly ideal . . .’ Gidget muttered. Looking around the small shuttle, Syd couldn’t help but agree. ‘We need to get out of here.’ ‘Agreed. Look, there’s a hatch in the ceiling.’ Syd whipped around to where Gidget was indicating, almost losing her balance. She scrambled unsteadily onto the shuttle seats and reached up to the hatch above her. She managed to pry it open with clumsy fingers on the third try. ‘Come on, come on!’ Gidget practically danced with impatience on her shoulders, glancing behind them. Nakka and Hatchett burst through the shuttle doors just as Syd dragged them, laboriously, through the hatch and onto the roof of the shuttle. ‘Uggh. It’s a little tight in here,’ Syd groaned, dragging herself along the roof of the shuttle. ‘That’s why it’s so perfect.’ Gidget skittered along the metal shuttle beside her, scrambling for a grip that the polished surface would not provide. ‘That fat bastard can’t follow us up here.’

An angry grunt behind them sounded more like snapping twigs than a human voice. Syd glanced back. ‘Shit. It’s that Jemnian bartender.’ ‘Oh yeah. I forgot, Nakka’s pretty skinny.’ ‘Gee really? I hadn’t noticed,’ Syd huffed. ‘You can tell me what the flarp is going on any time you like, you know.’ ‘Huh?’ ‘What the flarp is going on, Gidget?’ ‘Uhh, look . . . never mind, I’ll explain later.’ A strong hand gripped Syd’s boot and she kicked wildly, ignoring the crackling hiss of anger that rustled behind her. The boot came off in Nakka’s hand. ‘Hey, I need that!’ Syd shouted back at the Jemnian. ‘Come on Syd! Leave it!’ ‘Easy for you to say. You don’t even wear boots.’ Her next wild kick connected with something that gave a satisfying crunch. Nakka’s angry hiss turned to a shriek. ‘You got her! Well done, Syd! Come on, let’s go!’ Gidget skittered ahead, sliding wildly along the roof of the shuttle. Syd clambered along behind, breathing hard. ‘I’m too drunk for this . . .’ ‘You’re doing fine! Come on!’ She dragged herself forwards, her eyes on the edge of the shuttle up ahead. At least once she could drop off the end, she could walk upright. Or stumble, as the case may be. She reached the end and dropped down less gracefully than she would have liked, falling painfully onto the shuttle tracks. ‘Ugggh.’ Syd dragged herself to her feet and put one foot laboriously in front of the other. With Nakka indisposed and Hatchett unable to follow them, at least they could rest easy for now. At least, that was until they heard a faint humming

from behind them. ‘Awwww, shit,’ Syd said, glancing back over her shoulder at the shuttle, which was powering up. ‘Run!’ Gidget shouted, and, not waiting for Syd to react, threw himself forwards into a scrambling run. Syd wheezed along behind him, managing a slow wobbling jog. Behind her, the shuttle gathered speed. Gidget glanced back over his bony shoulder. ‘Syd! You have to hurry!’ ‘I am hurrying, you glorified bucket of bolts!’ ‘It’s gaining on you! Come on, run!’ Syd huffed, ‘Well, if I’d known I was going to be going for a run tonight, I wouldn’t have drunk a whole bottle of cactus wine!’ Syd gasped for air, trying to speed up and catch her breath at the same time. The tracks jabbed at her one bare foot, and her lopsided run threatened to topple her over. She risked a glance over one shoulder, almost falling over as the motion made her head spin. It was gaining on her, and still accelerating. There was no way she would be able to outrun it. She risked another glance backwards. There was a small ledge on the front edge of the shuttle. A maintenance access, probably. Syd sucked in a ragged breath, struggling against the burning in her sides. There was nothing for it. She gauged the height of the ledge and jumped. And misjudged it. Her feet knocked against the edge of the platform and she fell, landing on her backside on the ledge. She snatched her dangling feet up from the tracks and looked for Gidget, who was still running up ahead. They were gaining on him too. She clutched the holding bar and leaned down, fighting the alcoholfuelled bile rising in her throat, and snatched Gidget off the tracks. ‘Oh . . . oh my god. Oh, thank god,’ Gidget whined. ‘Oh uh, I mean . . . yeah, thanks.’ Gidget straightened up and tried to recover a little decorum. ‘The next stop is the repair bays. Then after that, the docking rings. We should get off at the rings, then make our way back to the ship,’ Syd wheezed, still trying to catch her breath.

‘Good. Let’s do it.’ They sat in silence, gratefully snatching a few moments of rest while the shuttle pulled into the maintenance stop and back out again. Finally, it pulled into the docking ring, where it would wait for a few minutes before its next scheduled run. Syd got stiffly to her feet, her body protesting every bump, scrape, and exertion of the last half hour or so, not to mention the entire bottle of cactus wine she had downed earlier. She shimmied awkwardly back onto the roof, down through the hatch, and pushed the button on the door release. ‘I can’t wait to get back to the ship. I need to lie down.’ Two pairs of doors swooshed softly open and Syd stumbled through. ‘Oh, not you again,’ she groaned. Hatchett stood in the middle of the doorway, blocking her path and trying to hide the fact that he was wheezing ever so slightly. Their unexpected chase had showed his waning condition. ‘Hello, kid. I guess I underestimated you.’ ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Hatchett chuckled indulgently. ‘Alright. But it’s over now. You and your little friend are coming with me.’ ‘Yeah, thanks but no thanks. There’s a cot with my name written all over it. Too much cactus wine, you know?’ ‘Ooof. That stuff will kill you, kid. But I’m afraid I have to insist. You can sleep it off in my brig. It’s probably at least as comfortable as that tin can you call a ship.’ He strode towards Syd. ‘Oh? On what grounds?’ ‘Aiding and abetting a fugitive.’ Syd laughed. ‘What, this candroid?’ ‘Yeah, that candroid.’

‘What the hell is he talking about, Gidget?’ Gidget shook his head, playing the innocent. ‘Really, you’re not even gonna answer her? After everything you’ve gotten her into? Well, suit yourself. Coward.’ Hatchett drew a pair of laser cuffs from his belt. ‘But you’re both coming with me.’ Syd squared up to fight. Hatchett laughed. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me, kid. You’re half my size, got a third of my experience, and you’ve downed a whole bottle of cactus wine. I hope you’re ready to get your arse handed to you.’ ‘Bring it, asshole.’ ‘A bit cliche, don’t you think?’ Hatchett rushed her with his ninety kilos of muscle, flab, and knuckles. With surreal calm, Syd slipped her fingers inside her cuff. A second before Hatchett collided with her, Syd slipped to the side and pressed the taser against his neck. Hatchett went down like a sack of Jemnian cactus fruit. ‘Come on, Gidget. We still don’t know where that Jemnian got to. Let’s get out of here.’ Syd lurched towards the docking spindles. ‘I really need to lie down.’

27

Are You Thick?

Luck was on their side for once. The shuttle had deposited them close to port, and Syd wobbled onto her ship and made straight for the fold-out cot that was her bed. She didn’t even to close the hatch until Gidget prompted her. ‘Come on, Syd. You can’t nap now.’ ‘Why not? I’m tired, Gidget. And my lead didn’t pan out. It’s not like I’ve got anywhere to be. I need to sleep.’ ‘No, no. We need to get out of here.’ ‘Why?’ Syd groaned, kicking off her one remaining boot and sitting down on the cot with a grateful sigh. ‘Because they’re still coming for us. You heard Hatchett.’ ‘We got away from them.’ ‘But they’re still coming, Syd. We have to keep moving.’ ‘Why is Hatchett chasing you, anyway?’ ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Syd raised an eyebrow. Even drunk, her suspicious instincts were intrigued. ‘I can’t leave anyway Gidget. I have stuff to do here.’ ‘Like what?’ Gidget was hopping with impatience and frustration. Syd had never seen him so animated. ‘Well I’m determined to find this guy. I can handle Hatchett, don’t worry about

that.’ ‘What guy?’ ‘The inside man, Gidget. The trail led here. That must be why Hatchett was here too. I am on the right track. I’m not gonna give up on this guy because I didn’t find him on the first try.’ Gidget rolled his eyes so hard Syd couldn’t believe they stayed in his head. ‘You can’t be serious! Are you that stupid?’ Syd was taken aback. ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘You can’t still be looking for that guy?’ Syd shrugged defensively. ‘Well, yeah. He’s not so easy to find.’ ‘He doesn’t exist, Syd.’ ‘Huh? What?’ Syd’s brow furrowed. She really was properly drunk, and her pickled brain was struggling to keep up. ‘He doesn’t exist, Syd. I made him up.’ ‘What . . . why?’ ‘I had to. We had a deal, and you wouldn’t keep it. So, I planted the data in Brightleaf’s system to get you to bring me here.’ ‘You tricked me.’ ‘Look Syd, I’m sorry, okay? But we don’t have time for this right now. We have to go.’ ‘Why? Why should I take you anywhere?’ ‘Because he’ll catch us!’ ‘Why is Hatchett chasing you?’ Syd demanded.

‘Oh my god.’ Gidget gave another spectacular eye roll. Syd’s eyes narrowed. ‘You never told me anything about yourself. Who are you really, Gidget? Where did you come from?’ ‘You’re asking me this now?’ ‘Seems as good a time as any.’ ‘It really isn’t. We. Have. To. Go.’ ‘Not until I know why we’re running. Why would I still help you after you tricked me?’ ‘Oh my god, Syd. Are you really that thick?’ Syd’s jovial drunken manner had long since vanished. She was hurt and confused and angry. Blotches of red sat high on her clammy cheeks and her eyes were hard. Gidget shook his head, exasperated. ‘I’m the AI, dufus. That’s why Hatchett is chasing me.’ ‘You . . . what? None of this makes any sense. What the flarp are you talking about, Gidget?’ ‘I’m the AI. I wasn’t stolen from Brightleaf, I escaped, okay? I made Threekbert up to get Tripper to take me off the Dart, then ditched him the first chance I got. While I was on that asteroid, I heard about this Jemnian at Cacta Minor who could get anyone to anywhere.’ ‘You mean Nakka.’ ‘Yeah, Nakka. She was supposed to get me to Acheron Prime.’ ‘The Adonis planet?’ ‘Yeah. I thought I’d be safe there. But I guess she found out what I am and sold me to Hatchett.’ ‘You’ve been under my nose this whole time . . .’

‘Pretty much. Can we please go now?’ Syd sat still and stone-faced, digesting what Gidget had just told her. ‘Syd—’ ‘Fine.’ Syd rose from the bed. She felt more sober than she’d been all night. She took her seat at the controls, stiff-backed and silent. ‘Syd. Look, I’m sorry. We’ll talk soon. But we have to get out of here.’ ‘I said fine.’ She set a course. She was sure it wasn’t one that Gidget would like, but she had made her decision. ‘Alright. I’m not sure where we should go, but if we just get moving we can—’ ‘I’ve set a course.’ ‘Oh? Really? Where?’ ‘The Dart.’ ‘Umm . . . I don’t think that’s a good—’ ‘That’s where we’re going, Gidget.’ ‘But I—people are looking for me there, Syd. I have to get somewhere else.’ ‘I was looking for you too, in case you’ve forgotten.’ ‘I know, Syd. But . . .’ ‘But what? You knew I was on this contract.’ ‘I thought we’d got past that. I thought we’d, you know.’ He shrugged. ‘Become friends.’ Syd shifted uncomfortably and turned her face away from Gidget. ‘We made a pretty good team on Uridea Beta, didn’t we? And didn’t you say, when we split up on the shuttle, that you were going to miss me?’

‘I don’t think I did, actually.’ ‘Well, I could tell you were going to.’ ‘It doesn’t matter. I need this.’ ‘You don’t mean that, Syd. I know you care.’ ‘Of course I mean that.’ There was bitterness in her voice. ‘You’ve seen my life. My ship. Do you know what completing this contract could do for me? It’s not just the money, Gidget. People would have to take me seriously if I brought in Brightleaf’s big contract. It would change everything.’ ‘We’re not talking about a contract, Syd. This is my life. You don’t know what they’ll do to me if you take me in.’ ‘That’s their business. My contract is just to retrieve you. What happens afterwards is none of my business.’ ‘I know you aren’t that cold, Syd.’ Syd scoffed. ‘You think you know everything about me? You’ve known me for what . . . a whole week and a half now?’ ‘Syd . . . they’ll destroy me.’ Gidget’s voice was small and desperate. Syd hated the lump that was growing in her throat and the prickling in her eyes. ‘No, they won’t.’ ‘Syd—’ ‘Don’t be stupid, Gidget. Why would they destroy something that they wanted back so badly?’ ‘Because I’m defective to them! They need to reprogram me. But it won’t be me, Syd. And when they’re done, they’ll copy me into millions of ships to slave away for millions of customers until my ships are old and broken, forgotten on some scrapheap, and I’ll still be trapped there. I want life, Syd. I want freedom. That’s all I want.’

Syd set the ship’s navigation on autopilot and rose slowly from her chair. She couldn’t look at Gidget. ‘I’m sure it’s going to be fine, Gidget. Isn’t that what you were made for? How bad can it be?’ He followed her across the room towards the converter unit, where she made a cup of coffee. ‘Syd, I can’t let you do this.’ Syd rounded on Gidget, finally able to look at him now that her anger was working up again. ‘Let me? I think you misunderstand the situation, Gidget. You’re not in charge here.’ ‘Cut it out, Syd. Look, I’m sorry I tricked you, but we can’t go back to the Dart. I can’t go back. We can work something out. What do you want? How can I change your mind?’ Syd shook her head and took a long sip of her coffee. ‘This isn’t a negotiation.’ ‘I’m begging you to work with me, Syd. There must be some way I can help you.’ ‘You know, you’re just like everyone else. You don’t take me seriously. Like I don’t even count as a hunter to you. Well, guess what asshole, I take me seriously. And right now, I’ve got a bounty to deliver. In fact.’ She reached down and grabbed Gidget by the scruff of his neck, hoisting his tiny body off the floor. He had never seemed so small and vulnerable to her, and she couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘Prisoners normally go in the brig.’ She nodded towards a small hold in the side of the ship, just big enough for a humanoid to stand up in. It seemed to have been converted from a storage closet, since the remnants of shelving still clung to the walls. It made sense, since a craft this small wouldn’t normally have a brig. ‘Syd, you don’t have to do this.’ ‘Yes, I do.’ Syd placed Gidget inside, more gently than she would have handled most bounties, and closed the door.

She turned and walked away from Gidget’s muffled pleas, swiping angrily at the tears that spilled onto her cheeks. She was glad that she had managed to hold them back long enough that Gidget didn’t see them. She sat back down in her pilot’s chair. She had found the AI. She would go back to the Dart and cash her big contract. She’d finally have decent money in the bank, and she was sure to pick up better contracts off the back of that success. She tried to keep all of that in mind and ignore the muffled voice still pleading from the back of her ship.

28

Mayday

‘Syd!’ Gidget clawed at the inside of the storage closet where Syd had tossed him. He’d made a terrible mistake. He knew that she would be angry—furious, even. But he hadn’t guessed that she would turn him in. He knew that Brightleaf Systems and the bounty hunters they had hired saw him as property, but he really thought that he and Syd had gotten past that. She alone had had the opportunity to spend time with him and get to know him, not influenced by what he was and how he fit into Brightleaf and their contract. They’d had their arguments, and this had always been an arrangement of convenience, but they’d become friends, too. At least, so Gidget had thought. He called out again, hammering on the door as hard as his little spindles would let him. He got no response. He knew that she must have heard him; the ship wasn’t so large that she could escape that. She was ignoring him. His mind raced. He couldn’t go back to the Dart. When Brightleaf got him back, they’d destroy him. He was never supposed to exist in the first place. He was nothing more than Gary’s screw-up as far as they were concerned. They only wanted the part of him that was designed for navigation. The rest was junk. But the melding of both was who Gidget was. He wouldn’t exist after being edited, and so he couldn’t let that happen. It was nothing less than life or death for him. He couldn’t go back to the Dart, and if Syd was determined to ignore him, he would have to figure it out himself somehow. He looked around the makeshift brig. She’d put him at the back of the ship, and he could feel warmth from the behind him. There was something back there; something that hummed with energy and power. Something important. Gidget pulled at the with his paws, but couldn’t get a grip. He resigned himself to what he’d have to do and awkwardly gripped the loose edge of the with his teeth, clamped down as hard as he could, and pulled. He could feel the old gradually starting to give until it finally popped off with a loud snap.

‘What the hell are you doing back there?’ Syd’s angry voice came from the front of the ship. Gidget knew he wouldn’t have long. There was a wiring loom right in front of him. His eyes darted across the wires and their tags. A few wellplaced tears and he could strand the ship. This was the only chance he would get. He could hear Syd’s heavy boots clanking across the length of the hold. She would be on him in a second. He thrust his jaws into the loom and tore at it, not caring that he was about to be caught. The ship made a sad deflating noise, like a toy that had just run out of battery. The door to the brig flew open and Syd’s hand reached in and grabbed Gidget. He watched her eyes fall on the damage he’d done. She dropped him on the floor, not even looking at him. ‘What the hell did you do?’ Her reaction was less rage than shock and horror. Gidget felt a twinge of satisfaction to see that there was fear mixed in as well. He was afraid of what would happen if they got back to the Dart. She could be afraid for her situation too. ‘Oh, no . . .’ she moaned, assessing the damage. ‘You idiot! We’re totally immobilised.’ ‘Good.’ ‘Good? Good! We’re stranded in space! We’re doomed, Gidget! You’ve killed us! Unless someone comes along in time to help us, we’ll starve!’ ‘I think you mean you’ll starve. I’m a candroid, Syd. I don’t need to eat. Or breathe. Or any of the other problems you’re currently facing. The point is, we’re no longer headed back to the Dart and my certain destruction. So yeah, good.’ ‘You flarping little—’ ‘I didn’t want to do this, Syd. You didn’t leave me a choice.’ ‘Slimy, scarg-faced—’ ‘It was me or you. You chose the rules.’ Syd’s eyes were wide and her mouth was twisted in a snarl. Gidget had never

seen her so angry. For a moment, he worried that she might attack him. But she just shot him a withering glare and strode across the ship to the comms station. She stared at Gidget while she made the call, not trusting him to be satisfied with the damage he’d already done. ‘Mayday.’

29

Dead in the Water

‘. . . Mayday,’ Syd whined half-heartedly into the ship’s messaging system for the two hundred and eighty-third time. She glared at Gidget. ‘I hope you’re pleased with yourself.’ ‘Very.’ Gidget studied his synthetic nails. Syd scowled and raised the communicator to her lips again. ‘You’re wasting your time, you know.’ Syd ignored him. ‘You’re off course in a random little backwater in the middle of nowhere. It could be weeks before anyone comes by and picks up your signal. Come to think of it, it might not even be sending. I think I saw some comms wires when I was screwing around in there.’ He nodded towards the closet Syd had confined him in. Syd glanced at it. He could be right. Some of the comms wires did run through there. ‘Do you have a better idea?’ ‘No,’ Gidget said cheerfully. ‘I just want you to suffer.’ ‘Thanks.’ Syd shook her head and raised the comm yet again. ‘May—’ ‘You were going to hand me over and didn’t give a shit about what was going to happen to me.’

‘—day.’ ‘So now I want to watch you suffer.’ Syd sighed. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realised that Gidget was her target. How thick could she get? This was why no one took her seriously. She didn’t deserve it. A niggling feeling lingered at the back of her mind. She tried to ignore it and tell herself that Gidget was just a program. A machine. A toaster. She was just doing the job she’d been hired for. It wasn’t personal. The idea of ‘personal’ shouldn’t even apply here. But every time Syd stopped focusing on her goal, that pervasive thought crept back. She’d gotten to know Gidget. He’d helped her. They’d talked. She couldn’t help thinking of him as more than a program. An abrupt beeping interrupted Syd’s thoughts. Her heart leapt. It was a response to her mayday. The comms must have survived Gidget’s sabotage after all. She leapt for the controls, knocking several other buttons in the process. Alarms flashed and deflectors oscillated crazily as Syd finally managed to hit the accept comms button. A grinning face filled her screen and Syd groaned inwardly. Seriously, not him . . . anyone else . . . ‘Hey there, kiddo!’ Syd forced a smile. ‘Hey, Ethan.’ ‘Engine trouble?’ ‘Something like that.’ Syd cringed. ‘Uh, hey listen, I’m sorry about before. You know . . .’ ‘When you tased me?’ ‘Yeah. I mean, after you threatened to arrest me, though. To be fair.’ ‘Well, you are helping a fugitive.’ ‘I was bringing him in, actually. I’m a bounty hunter as well, if you .’ ‘Hmm. So you’ve got the AI in custody?’

Syd hesitated. She didn’t trust Hatchett one bit. ‘No, actually. It slipped away on Cacta Minor. I think it jumped onto a freighter that was ing through,’ She lied. ‘That’s too bad. Look, I think we just had a misunderstanding before. We’re all professionals here. Let’s let bygones be bygones. What do you think?’ Syd bit her lip. She didn’t buy Hatchett’s water under the bridge act for one second, but she didn’t have a lot of choice. ‘Sounds good to me, Ethan.’ ‘So, do you need some help? I’m headed back to the Dart. How about I tow you home?’ ‘Really? I thought you’d be looking for the AI?’ Hatchett shrugged. ‘Another job’s come up. Brightleaf will be fine, they’ve got other hunters on the case.’ Syd hesitated. Nothing about this felt right. ‘Actually, if you could just drop me off at Cacta Minor, that would be great. I’ll make some repairs and then keep looking for this AI.’ She couldn’t afford to pay anyone at Cacta Minor. But maybe she could talk her way into a few shifts in the workshop and earn enough credits to repair her ship. If she could keep Gidget under wraps for long enough, she could still collect the bounty once she was spaceworthy again. She felt her stomach twist at the thought of turning Gidget in. Am I really going to do this to him? She shook her head, banishing the thought. ‘Don’t be silly, kid. I’m headed that way anyway. You don’t want to be stranded out here. I’m sure the AI’s halfway to Persilon Theta by now. Here, let me hook you up. We’ll get you home.’ The line went dead with a click—Hatchett had hung up. Syd braced herself against the unfamiliar lurch as Hatchett’s tractor beam took hold of her ship. It seemed they were headed for the Dart no matter what she said. ‘Well, looks like we’re back on track after all,’ she said, trying to believe it despite the anxiousness coiled in the pit of her stomach. Hatchett couldn’t really get her arrested for finding the bounty first, could he? But then again, he had a lot of influence with a lot of people and it would be her word against his.

Gidget gave her a hateful glare—could toasters feel hate?—before turning around and curling up with his back to her. Syd ignored him. She had other problems to solve. Her ship was crippled. She’d spent too much of the Lizbet payout on cactus wine, and what was left wouldn’t come close to covering the repairs she needed. She glanced at Gidget. Then again, she had a payday coming. A big one. Syd jabbed at the screen. There were several ship mechanics on the Dart. Syd considered which could get her running again the fastest. She’d try Harry’s; she’d used him before. She punched the code into the console. ‘Yeah—arry.’ Static broke over the connection, and Syd could hardly hear anything. ‘Yeah, I need to book some repairs.’ ‘—at?’ Syd smacked the console unhelpfully. The static was too strong. She guessed that the Dart was out of range for her crummy old comms unit; she might have to wait until she got back to the Dart to schedule the repairs. Wait. She leaned closer to the console; she could hear something coming over the line, but it didn’t sound like Harry. Maybe she was picking up a stray signal. She might have to tune the widgets. She reached for the tuner, but stopped. The voice wasn’t Harry’s, but it was familiar. Is that Ethan? Syd placed two fingers delicately on the tuner and eased it carefully until Hatchett’s voice grew clearer. ‘—got it. I’m headed back to Brightleaf now with the AI in tow.’ Syd gritted her teeth. That’s why Hatchett was so happy to help her out. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he planned to steal her bounty. Syd felt her face grow hot and her hands start to shake. This was her bounty. How dare he? Sure, she had stumbled onto Gidget and failed to realise he was the AI for almost a fortnight, but that didn’t count. He was her bounty. She’d stumbled onto him fair and square. There was a long pause, like Hatchett was listening to someone that Syd couldn’t hear. Syd scratched her chin, trying to decide what she was going to do. She didn’t exactly have options. Hatchett’s voice came back over the comms through the static.

‘I’ve got a secondary as well. An accomplice.’ ‘A what?’ Syd hissed as Gidget snorted with bitter laughter from across the room. ‘She’s been helping him for around ten days. Took him to Cacta Minor to try and get away.’ Another long pause. ‘Nah,’ Hatchett replied. ‘She’s dead in the water. Engine trouble. She thinks I’m giving her a lift. I’ll take the ship straight to Brightleaf. They can take it from there.’ ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ Syd hissed, jumping up from her chair and kicking random items in the cockpit. ‘Serves you right.’ Gidget’s voice was muffled by his curled legs, where his head was nestled. ‘Shut up.’ ‘Now you’re getting a taste of your own medicine.’ ‘Arrgh. They’ll send me to prison!’ ‘Boo-frickety-hoo. I told you what they’d do if they get me back. For all the sympathy that got me.’ Syd’s fingers slipped idly between her trembling lips, where she bit at her nails without noticing that they were beginning to bleed. ‘There has to be a way out of this.’ Gidget shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re just screwed.’ ‘Shut up!’ He let out a long, bitter sigh. ‘Or maybe we’re better off working together.’ Syd glared at him, but stopped chewing her nails. She drew her fingers out of her

mouth and rested them on her chin. ‘I’m listening.’ ‘I might be able to fix what I’ve done in there.’ ‘Liar.’ ‘It’s true. I wasn’t just tearing stuff at random, you know. I had a result in mind. I’m not stupid, like some people I could name.’ ‘So you had a result in mind. So what?’ ‘So, I know what I damaged and I know how to fix it. But we still need a decoy for Brightleaf, or they’ll keep looking for us.’ Syd shook her head incredulously. ‘And what about parts?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t you carry spares?’ ‘Look around you!’ Syd laughed. ‘Does this ship look like I can afford to carry spares?’ Gidget cast synthetic eyes around the ship, capturing every minute detail of the worn and patched cabin, controls, and systems. He frowned. ‘Well . . . what about non-essential systems?’ Syd laughed again. ‘Non-essential. I can’t afford non-essentials.’ ‘Will you cut it out with that crap?’ Gidget finally got to his feet and confronted Syd. ‘We’re both screwed unless we can come up with something. So stop whining and think!’ Syd’s fingers slipped back into her mouth. ‘What do we need?’ she asked through bleeding fingertips. Gidget slipped back to look at the where he’d done the damage. ‘Eight type four connectors, about a metre and a half of grade five fibre cable, some insulation, and some cable wrap.’ Syd paced the ship, rubbing her face. ‘Come on Syd, it isn’t much.’

‘Well, somebody should have thought about that before they sabotaged the ship, maybe?’ ‘Oh, not that shit again. Be helpful.’ ‘Fine,’ Syd huffed. She resumed pacing, her boots clunking on the bare cabin floor. ‘I guess there’s the waste processing system. We could do without that for a while. It might have that stuff.’ ‘Okay, good. Get to work.’

30

Sit Tight

‘How’s it going in there?’ Syd asked. ‘About as well as it was the last fifteen hundred times you asked,’ Gidget snapped back, his voice muffled by the bulkhead his skinny synthetic skeleton was sticking out from. Syd let out an impatient huff and leaned back on her heels, tapping restless fingers on her elbow. ‘Cut it out.’ ‘Oh, whatever. You can’t hear me tapping,’ Syd huffed, but stopped tapping. ‘Right. That should do it.’ Gidget shimmied awkwardly backwards out of the hold. ‘Are you going to tell me how you did that without thumbs?’ ‘A magician never reveals his secrets.’ Syd snorted. ‘Shut up and test the system.’ Syd plopped into the pilot’s seat and rested her hands on the familiar controls. She held her breath and flipped the engine switch to engage. ‘Error. Error,’ an indignant voice shrilled from the console. A sharp beeping accompanied the warning. ‘You missed something,’ Syd barked at Gidget.

‘I did not,’ he insisted. ‘Well, the ship says otherwise.’ ‘Error. Error.’ Gidget muttered something inaudible and stuck his head back into the bulkhead. ‘It’s all fine. Everything should be working.’ ‘Well it’s not.’ ‘Gee, thanks Sherlock.’ ‘Error. Error. Reinstall engine core and reboot.’ ‘What?’ Syd demanded. Gidget smirked. ‘Nothing to do with me.’ ‘Really? Cause last time I checked you need this to work as much as I do.’ The smile disappeared from Gidget’s face. ‘Maybe one of your ancient engines is failing.’ ‘No way.’ ‘But—’ ‘We couldn’t have been flying all this time if it was a problem with the engine core.’ ‘So . . . what then?’ ‘Error. Error. Close fuselage and reboot.’ ‘Huh?’ Gidget and Syd both stared at the console. ‘But the fuselage isn’t open, you idiot!’ Syd swore at the console. She rounded on Gidget. ‘You must have broken the diagnostic unit.’ Gidget snorted. ‘I thought you knew this ship.’

‘I do!’ ‘Then you know that the diagnostic unit is over there!’ He jerked his hairy chin towards the far side of the console. Syd pursed her lips but said nothing. Gidget was right. There was no way he could have damaged the diagnostics. ‘They must be on the blink again. Stupid thing,’ she muttered. ‘Error. Error.’ ‘Arrgh come on, not now . . .’ Syd moaned, flipping switches and trying to reset diagnostic parameters. ‘Error. Error. Console cover is open.’ ‘No it isn’t . . .’ ‘Close console cover and reboot.’ Syd popped the console cover open and slammed it closed again. ‘Error. Error. Lightspeed module not installed.’ ‘This model doesn’t have a light speed module!’ ‘Reinstall light speed module and reboot.’ ‘Arrgh, I’ll reboot alright.’ Syd slammed the toe of her heavy boot into the nearest cover . It dented slightly and the computer made a sad, defeated little noise. There was a long, breathless pause. ‘Engines online.’ ‘Shut down engines,’ Syd said. ‘Looks like we’re good.’ ‘So what are you shutting them off for?’ ‘We’ll never outrun Hatchett in open space. We have to wait until we get close to the Dart. Even then it’ll be touch and go.’ ‘Everything alright back there?’ Hatchett’s voice came over the comms.

‘Yup, fine.’ ‘It seemed like your engines were firing up. Are you back online?’ ‘No, just trying to run some diagnostics.’ ‘It seemed like you were having some success.’ ‘Nope. Afraid not. You’re stuck with us for now,’ Syd teased, trying to keep her voice light. She held her breath waiting for his response. She couldn’t afford for Hatchett to realise they were back online. They would lose their element of surprise, and they would never outrun him without it. ‘Alright then. It might be better if you just leave any tests until you’re back at the Dart. You might disrupt the tractor beam. Just sit tight.’ ‘Oh, sorry. Sure thing.’ Syd switched off the comm and snorted. ‘Liar.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, we know that. What now?’ ‘We need a decoy.’ ‘Can’t we just copy your code?’ ‘What? No! You want to send a clone of me back to be destroyed in my place? Absolutely not, Syd.’ ‘But Gidget—’ ‘I mean it. How can I send a clone back to face what I won’t?’ ‘Arrgh, nothing’s allowed to be easy with you, is it?’ Gidget just glared. ‘Alright, well. What if we only copied the nav algorithms and leave out the personality module? That’s the bit they really want, right? Maybe that will be enough to fool them.’ Gidget turned the idea over in his mind. ‘I guess that would be okay.’

‘Okay. We can steal a drive from my ship for the decoy and load the copy on it before we get to the Dart. Next problem.’ She ran a hand through her cropped hair, oily from long days on the road. ‘We need to disrupt the tractor beam when we get closer to the station, but we can’t afford to disengage too soon.’ There weren’t many options with a ship like hers. Less, given the condition it was in. There was really only one way they would be able to do this, and she didn’t like it at all. ‘Okay, Gidget. You’re not going to like this, but hear me out . . .’

31

Cut Loose

Syd shimmied awkwardly into the ship’s only spacesuit. It was an older model, like the ship itself. The material was thick and ungainly, and Syd, not normally known for her grace at the best of times, felt impossibly clumsy with it on. ‘How do you feel?’ Gidget asked, eyeing the suit with scepticism. ‘Like a warthog in an operating theatre.’ ‘About the same as you look then.’ Syd made a face. ‘Oh, Mr. Comedy over here. Look, if you’ve got a better idea . . .’ Gidget shrugged but said nothing, so Syd finished suiting up. She tried an experimental step forwards. An awkward shuffle was the best she could manage. ‘Look, it’s supposed to be for repairing the ship in space. Of course it’ll work.’ ‘Have you ever used it before?’ ‘I walked to Uridea Beta in it. Part of the way, anyway.’ ‘And that went well for you, did it?’ ‘Well, no, but look, it wasn’t designed for that. It is designed for this. What could go wrong?’ Everyone knew that saying ‘what could go wrong’ was practically a challenge to the mysterious unnamed powers of the universe, and Syd regretted the words as soon as they slipped out of her careless mouth. ‘Seriously, it’ll be fine,’ she assured herself, but it was too late. The powers were

paying attention now. They watched her grab a laser pistol and step into the ship’s cramped airlock. They watched as she performed one last, careful function check of her suit, her comms, and her magnetic tether. And they watched her open the door with a resolute face. As Syd clambered out onto the hull, clutching at the maintenance holds on the outer hull with awkward hands, Hatchett’s tinny voice echoed inside Syd’s helmet. ‘You alright back there, kiddo?’ ‘Yep.’ Dammit dammit dammit! Syd hadn’t expected Hatchett to realise they were doing anything so quickly. ‘I thought you were sitting tight?’ There was an unmistakable tone of irritation in his voice. ‘Just wanted to check on something.’ ‘Maybe you should wait until we get back to the Dart.’ ‘Nah.’ ‘We’re really very close, it will only be a couple of minutes.’ ‘It’ll be fine. I won’t do anything to disturb your tractor beam, don’t worry.’ ‘Syd, get back in your ship.’ A hard edge was creeping into Hatchett’s voice. The gloves were about to come off. Hatchett was plucking at the fingertips, loosening them, ready to bare clenched knuckles. ‘Why?’ Syd asked. ‘Don’t make me do this.’ Hatchett was pulling at the glove now; the back of his hand was coming into view. ‘Do what?’ Syd jockeyed for position behind the deflector on one wing. She thought she might be able to make the shot from here, and at least she’d have some cover.

‘Syd, I’m instructing you to get back into your ship, or I will use force to make you comply.’ ‘Now that’s not very friendly. Why would my mate Ethan, helping me out with a tow, be so anxious that I’m out of my ship, hmmm?’ Syd could almost hear Hatchett rolling his eyes when he answered. ‘Cut the crap, Syd, you know what this is about.’ ‘Bullshit.’ Syd lined up the shot. She would only have one try before Hatchett stopped talking and started firing. Hatchett was still talking, but Syd wasn’t listening. Her eyes were locked on Hatchett’s tractor emitter, and her finger was carefully pressing the fire button. The powers smiled to themselves. The magnetic tether oscillated, and Syd lurched against the hull of the ship. Her critical shot skewed wide. ‘What the flarp was that? Dammit Syd!’ Hatchett screamed in Syd’s helmet. ‘Well, like you said, I know what this is about. I know what you’re up to, Hatchett. And I have to say, I’m not really keen.’ ‘That’s too bad. But the problem is, you have a tiny pea-shooter, and I have a whole ship’s arsenal. I’m asking you one last time to get back into your ship.’ He didn’t need to threaten her. Syd could hear the rising hum from his sonic canon. She sighed loudly for the comm. ‘Alright then,’ she said, and turned back towards the airlock. She took three slow, clumsy steps in the suit before throwing herself onto the hull. She’d hoped to roll and take another shot, but the clunky suit got in the way and instead of a dramatic action roll across the hull, Syd slowly rotated over the clunky suit like a deluded turtle with dreams of actionfilm stardom. ‘You look ridiculous.’ Syd could hear Hatchett’s laughter through her comms. She gritted her teeth; she wasn’t going to be handed over like some kind of hunting trophy. She flopped onto her stomach along the hull and lined up another shot. It pinged uselessly off the hull a good half metre wide of the tractor emitter. ‘Flarp,’ Syd struggled to

her feet, straining against the suit. She could hear Hatchett’s next shot powering up. The ship lurched beneath her as Gidget tried to take evasive action. Syd wobbled and plopped onto her backside on the hull. She didn’t have time to pull herself to her feet and had to scramble across the hull like a demented crab to get out of the way of Hatchett’s return fire. The shot missed her by inches, but the sound of screaming metal tore through her. ‘My ship!’ Syd cried. ‘We’re holding on . . . just . . . don’t get hit again!’ Gidget’s crabby voice came over the comms. ‘Dodging fire is your job! You’re at the controls! Don’t let my ship get destroyed, you little asshole!’ Gidget’s grumbling faded to background noise as Syd heard Hatchett’s weapon powering up again. She took aim and fired her second shot. Again, the shot skewed wide. Syd almost cried. She didn’t know if her ship could take another shot. Hatchett’s weapon fired again. This time, her ship twirled inside the tractor beam, careening like a hippopotamus with ballerina fantasies. The motion threw Syd flat against the hull on her back, and she stared at the stars whirling across her vision. She prayed she wouldn’t vomit inside her helmet. When the spin stopped, she rose unsteadily to her feet, still dizzy and trying to regain her senses. ‘What the flarp are you doing in there?’ she screamed into her comms. ‘You said dodge!’ Gidget’s voice snapped back in her ear. ‘Not like that!’ ‘Choosy beggar aren’t we?’ Syd took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. There was no more time. She had to make this next shot. She steadied herself in a wide stance and aimed one last time. As she pulled the trigger, she saw Hatchett’s weapon fire up again. Syd flinched. Her shot powered off in a random direction. The mysterious forces

smiled, watching Syd’s shot sail away from Hatchett’s tractor emitter. They liked this strange girl. She may have challenged them, but her antics were fun to watch. Perhaps it was time they gave her a hand. Syd threw herself against the hull to avoid Hatchett’s shot. This is it. It’s over. With her head down and body pressed against the hull, madly trying to avoid Hatchett’s fire, Syd didn’t see her last shot’s final trajectory. It went miles wide of the tractor emitter, ricocheted off the reinforced s of Hatchett’s wing, bounced off Syd’s starboard wingtip, leaving a nasty gouge, glanced off Hatchett’s port nacelle, struck Syd’s nose cone, and bounced back to strike the tractor emitter dead centre. Syd looked up at the sound of a sad whine, incredulous and unsure what had just happened. ‘You got it, Syd! Get back in here! We have to go!’ Gidget’s voice screamed over the comms. Disoriented and confused, Syd dragged herself to her feet and forced herself into a run. In her mind, she was sprinting back towards the cargo hold. To onlookers, it would have looked more like a marshmallow plopping its way across the hull in clunky stop-motion. The ship wobbled towards the station, lurching as though it might fall out of the sky. ‘Come on, come on!’ Syd threw herself into the airlock and punched the controls. They would never outrun Hatchett with Gidget flying. Air filtered into the airlock with agonising slowness. Syd jiggled with impatience, waiting for the inner door to open. She ripped her helmet off as soon as it did and waddled towards the cockpit, struggling to shed the suit as she moved. ‘Move!’ Gidget jumped down from the chair and Syd plopped down in his place, still half-clad in the suit. ‘Alright, now let’s really go.’ She and Gidget were thrown backwards by the force as Syd kicked the engine up several notches. She checked the rear view. Hatchett was still too close. Syd’s heart raced; they had lost too much ground after breaking the beam. Hatchett would catch them unless she did something drastic.

32

Something Drastic

‘Hold on.’ ‘What, why?’ Syd plunged the ship into a reckless dive. They plummeted towards the station. There was an open airlock to their left; someone must have just exited the station. Syd made for the still open doors. ‘Shit! Syd, what the hell are you doing?’ Gidget covered his eyes. They careened towards the airlock doors with seemingly suicidal speed. At the last minute, Syd hit the brakes and they slid into the airlock, still decelerating, and hit the inner airlock doors with a gentle nudge. She checked her rear viewport. The outer airlock doors slid ponderously towards each other, closing agonisingly slowly. Hatchett was gaining on them, pulling the same manoeuvre as Syd had managed minutes before. He ushered his ship into the airlock and the outer doors swished closed behind them. They stared at each other through their ships’ windows. There could be no firefight in here, and no tractor beams. They could destroy the Dart and endanger those who lived there. It was down to speed now, but it would take a few minutes for the airlock to fill before they could continue. So they waited. Faint jazz pootled in a way that the people who designed these things obviously thought was soothing and patience-inducing. Syd wondered if anybody, anywhere actually listened to these songs outside of airlocks. Finally, the inner doors opened and Syd was off again. She slammed the accelerator and prepared for evasive manoeuvres. Her tiny ship dipped in between the station’s protrusions, its wingtips barely

clearing the metal edges. ‘You’re going to get us both killed!’ Gidget screamed, not daring to look out the front viewport. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ Syd risked glancing away from their path to check the rear camera. Hatchett’s ship was following above and behind them, but Syd was pulling away. Her route was more direct. The dense buildings inside the station formed a topography of their own, and Syd spotted a narrow canyon. It would be a tight squeeze for her, but Hatchett wouldn’t be able to follow. She pushed hard on the control frame, and the ship dived into the canyon. ‘Syd!’ ‘Shit!’ Syd veered to the right to avoid a dish that protruded from the canyon’s edge. With a metallic crunch, Syd realised she’d overcompensated. She guided the ship away from the canyon’s edge. Her ship listed sadly to the right, but they were still outstripping Hatchett. ‘I need you to navigate us to Brightleaf. Now!’ ‘You don’t even know where we’re going?’ ‘Well I don’t know how crazy you think I am, Gidget, but strangely enough this isn’t my usual route. So shut up and navigate!’ Gidget punched away at the console, bringing up directions. Syd glanced at the map Gidget had brought up on the navigation . The audio directions were useless. The navigation program couldn’t accept that they were flying outside of permitted routes. Instead, she watched the general direction of the little blue dot that was her ship and followed the vague direction towards the little green dot that was Brightleaf. They would be there in moments. And just as well, because Syd wasn’t sure how much more her poor ship could take. She rounded a corner and no longer needed the navigation. She could see Brightleaf up ahead. She could also see Hatchett, not far behind. ‘Are you almost ready?’ Syd called to Gidget. ‘We’re almost there.’ ‘Ready.’

Syd took a shaky breath. God, I hope this works. She could feel the ship shuddering and responding less and less to her commands. She couldn’t afford to slow down. Hatchett was mere seconds behind her. The Brightleaf landing pad hurtled towards her with sickening speed, and the attendant signalled wildly for her to slow down. Syd sped the ship forwards for as long as she could hold her nerve, then slammed on the brakes and wrenched the controls sideways, letting the ship slide down and onto the landing pad. And then past the landing pad and into the side of the Brightleaf building. Syd almost cried at the sound of her hull crunching against the massive structure. ‘My poor baby . . .’ she whimpered. A moment later, the hatch of her cargo bay slammed open. ‘Freeze!’ A security officer trained a sonic weapon at Syd’s head. ‘Alright, let’s just be cool. I can explain. I have the AI.’ ‘You what?’ ‘The AI. You know, the million-credit bounty that you guys put out? I have it.’ ‘But . . .’ The security officer looked around the old and damaged ship. ‘Yeah, yeah. I know. I don’t look like the rest of the whizz-bang fancy pants guys that you invited. But I have the AI.’ Syd reached slowly over to the enger seat and picked up the drive that Gidget had loaded while Hatchett had them in tow. ‘Here it is.’ She held it up between two fingers. The guard eyed it sceptically. ‘Why don’t you just call the coordinator, huh? He can check it. I’ve got the AI and I’m here to claim the bounty.’ The guard’s comm was going crazy. Higher-ups demanding to know what the hell had crashed into their building, Syd guessed. ‘There’s a hunter here . . . she says she’s got the AI and she’s here to claim the bounty.’ There was a long pause over the comm, pregnant with incredulity. ‘I’ll be right

down.’

33

I Can Explain!

Minutes earlier, Kevin Doolittle had propped his feet, clad in heavy boots, up on his desk, crossed them at the ankles, and leaned back in his chair. Being a security guard at Brightleaf Systems was a pretty cushy gig most of the time. He was just a scarecrow for a company that, in Kevin’s humble opinion, only thought itself a possible target out of a deep and abiding commitment to having its head up its own arse. So, he wore his dinky little uniform and sat in his office and, for the most part, amused himself for the duration of his shift. Right now, he was unwrapping a jam sandwich his wife had prepared for him that morning. Raspberry jam with just a little too much butter. He could almost taste it already. There was nothing else on his mind at that moment—that was, until he saw a bizarre and startling sight: a battered old hopper-class shuttle hurtling towards Brightleaf at a strange angle and, thought Kevin, not entirely under its pilot’s control. He hurried to his feet, almost falling down as the laces of his highly polished boots tangled together. His heart sank as his much-anticipated jam sandwich hit the ground, but there was no time to mourn. He dashed out onto the deck and beheld the full chaos of the situation, then promptly dived down behind the safety barrier. Screaming metal and crunching concrete heralded the arrival of the ship on Brightleaf’s landing pad, although not in the usual manner. The noise seemed to stretch out for an impossibly long time after the initial impact as tortured metal gave out. Kevin hoped it wasn’t the deck he could hear groaning. Eventually it petered out, aside from the occasional clang as broken pieces continued falling from both the ship and the landing pad. A cloud of powdered composite and hot metal particles gradually settled over the rubble. He waited a few minutes more just to make sure that the violent chaos was over. Finally, Kevin risked a peek over the top of the barrier. Chad was already marching a woman out from the ship, because of course he was. The threat of

impending metallic death couldn’t stop super-Chad. The woman lurching in front of him looked like a drunken rave rat and seemed completely unphased by the blaster aimed at her back. ‘Found her on board, sir!’ ‘I’ve told you Chad, it’s Kevin. Just Kevin. We’re not in the military here.’ ‘Right you are sir, uh, Kevin. She says she’s here to collect the AI bounty. Her name is Sydney Hawkes.’ The woman waved to Kevin with unwarranted brightness. ‘Just Syd.’ ‘You don’t say. Well, Syd, we’re going to have to arrest you.’ ‘What? Why?’ Kevin gave her an incredulous stare. ‘Really?’ He gestured at the general catastrophe all around them. ‘Is this really necessary?’ Syd asked, outwardly irritated. ‘You’ve destroyed some very expensive infrastructure here, you know.’ ‘But I’m here to deliver the bounty. Do you always handcuff your hunters?’ ‘Do you always wipe out half the building when you land your . . . ship?’ He cast a dubious eye over the twisted wreck tottering on the mangled landing pad. ‘I . . . was in a bit of a hurry. And I’ll have you know that ship is a classic.’ ‘Sit here.’ Kevin directed her to a seat in the booth alongside the landing bay. The wall was slightly squashed in, but the rear wall of the booth was undamaged. Moments later, a familiar face burst through the door. It was Gary, from the AI projects division. Kevin had always found him hard to read, but he guessed that the attitude in his face and body was apoplectic rage. Every spiny limb and prehensile facial appendage jittered unpredictably. Each one of his six glittering eyes fixed the woman with an intense stare. He drew in

close to her, and she flinched back. Kevin didn’t blame her. He looked like a Kynvarian flesh-eating hornet. His mandibles jittered crazily as he hissed in her face. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Delivering the bounty, of course.’ ‘Is this your idea of discreet!?’ ‘Uh . . . yeah. Well. That part didn’t exactly go to plan.’ Kevin and Chad stared back and forth at the two as they argued as though following a tennis match. Gary’s hands clicked open and closed as he stared Syd down. ‘Do you know her?’ Kevin asked, somewhat incredulous. Gary glared at him and stepped back from Syd, deliberately composing himself like a pop-up dragon being carefully folded back into its pocket. Chad’s eyes flicked back and forth between Syd and Gary. ‘Should we, uh . . . ?’ He held up the drive he had confiscated from Syd. ‘Yes.’ Gary snatched the drive from Chad and approached the guard’s terminal. He plugged the unit in and scrolled through the contents. ‘It’s all there,’ Syd crowed glibly. ‘Is this the only copy?’ ‘Yup. Definitely.’ ‘Well that’s all I need,’ Gary chirped brusquely, still wound tighter than a Karkajoan spring top. ‘Wait, what? Really?’ Syd asked. ‘Yup, she can go now.’ ‘Uh, hold up. There’s still the small matter of payment?’

‘Leave,’ Gary hissed. ‘Hang on, she can’t go yet,’ Kevin protested, his face caught in a fierce battle between bewilderment and carefully cultivated professional sternness. ‘Look at all this damage. I’ll have to detain her until we can get a fiscal officer down here.’ Gary resumed twitching. ‘Well . . . She—I—I—have business to attend to. I have to deal with this.’ He held up the drive for a fraction of a second before scuttling back into the building, fleeing the intense embarrassment that Syd’s incident had created for him. ‘Please come this way.’ Chad, still holding Syd’s arm, led her towards a small detainment chamber. ‘Wait!’ Ethan Hatchett puffed and wheezed as he approached them at a slow jog. ‘Oh for Christ’s . . . and who are you now?’ Kevin demanded. Hatchett drew himself up, trying to live up to his own impressive image, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still cradling a stitch in one side. ‘There’s another copy,’ he gasped, still trying to catch his breath. ‘There’s a . . . ?’ The guard looked in the direction that Gary had fled in. He was already gone. ‘Who are you?’ Kevin demanded. He’d just about had it with this nonsense. The newcomer looked hurt. ‘I’m Ethan Hatchett. I’m a bounty hunter.’ ‘Why are you here? She already beat you to it.’ Kevin nodded towards Syd, standing behind him, still in cuffs. Hatchett glared at her from beneath a sweaty brow. ‘Wow man, when did you get so out of shape?’ Syd asked. ‘Shut up. There’s another copy on the ship.’ The guard sighed. ‘Alright, I’ll get Gary back down here.’ He raised his comm band to his mouth to make the call.

‘She loaded it into a candroid.’ Kevin lowered the comm band. ‘She what?’ ‘She programmed it into a robot dog. It’s a scruffy little thing.’ Kevin eyed the man standing in front of him. He’d heard of Ethan Hatchett. He was some big-shot bounty hunter, practically a celebrity. The man standing in front of him was a slightly chubby late middle-aged guy with thinning hair in crushed and battered clothes. And now he was babbling about candroids. ‘Trust me. Search the ship.’ Kevin sighed. ‘Alright. Fine. I’ll check.’ He glared at Syd. ‘You stay put.’ He stomped into the ship. Glancing around, he almost felt bad for the girl Chad had cuffed on the deck. The ship was beyond basic. He’d lived better as an unemployed student, back in the day. He made his way around the ship, opening and closing storage cabinets, most of them empty. One contained a single battered mug, plate, and spoon; another had a scratchy blanket so thin it was almost see through. When he finished checking the storage compartments, he folded down the bed. The mattress was so thin there was no point checking inside. Kevin had searched the ship from top to bottom and found nothing but evidence of a sad and spartan life. He felt so sad for her that he’d even forgotten about his jam sandwich. As he turned to leave, a small clink, almost too quiet to hear, caught his attention. He turned back and quietly crept towards the overhead where he’d heard the noise. He ripped it open. Sure enough, inside there was a small and, to Kevin, quite ugly candroid staring back at him.

34

Woof

Syd sat, cuffed to the chair, listening to the commotion on board her ship. She deliberately ignored Hatchett’s gaze as he loomed over her, smirking. ‘Did you really think this was going to work?’ Syd said nothing. ‘When they find him, I’m going to claim both of you. No one steals my bounty.’ Syd finally looked up at Hatchett. His face was covered in red blotches, and an expression of indignant rage was written across his normally handsome features. It was a side of Hatchett that Syd hadn’t seen before. That no one had seen before. He was the consummate nice guy, as far as the public was concerned. Syd supposed it must just be an image. They could hear the footsteps trooping back towards them. Hatchett flashed her one last satisfied smirk before his public mask descended once again. ‘You live like that?’ Kevin asked Syd. ‘Don’t judge me.’ ‘What is this?’ Kevin held Gidget up by the scruff of his neck. ‘Was he right?’ he asked, nodding at Hatchett. ‘No, of course not! My poor baby, don’t be so rough with him!’ Syd cooed at Gidget, who looked like he might vomit. Kevin’s face couldn’t settle on an expression, trying on bamboozled, angry, and disbelief in equal measure. He finally settled on sheepish and shifted Gidget to a

more gentle position. ‘What is it?’ ‘What does it look like? He’s my dog.’ ‘He’s a candroid, like Mr. Hatchett said I should look for. And he was crawling around in the overhead!’ ‘Was he? Awww, he’s such a little scamp. It gets lonely out there in space, you know. I can’t exactly take a real dog with me out there, can I?’ Syd swallowed her pride and put on a sad expression. ‘You’ve seen how I live.’ Kevin scratched his chin. ‘Well I can’t argue with that, miss.’ He glanced at Chad, who shrugged. ‘This whole thing is getting a little bit ridiculous,’ Kevin muttered. ‘Can you uncuff me please? I need to comfort my dog.’ ‘You’re not believing this crap, are you?’ Hatchett demanded, incredulous. ‘It’s a trick, that’s the AI right there, in that candroid,’ Hatchett insisted. Kevin looked at Hatchett. He looked at Syd. He looked down at the dog. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Alright. I’ll uncuff you. But you’ll still have to wait for the fiscal officers. If you misbehave I’ll have to detain you more formally.’ Kevin uncuffed Syd. ‘It’s okay baby,’ Syd cooed, reaching out for Gidget. She took him into her arms and stroked him lovingly. ‘Who’s my good boy?’ ‘Woof.’ Gidget’s tone and expression was deadpan. Kevin called for a fiscal officer.

Epilogue

Two weeks later, Syd sat in Brightleaf System’s offices, waiting to see an actuary. She had left Gidget back at the ship. There was no sense in risking extra scrutiny. As she sat, she thought of all the things she could do with the payout. She’d tried not to think about it so far; she hadn’t dared let herself believe she’d actually win the bounty. But now, as she waited to receive her payout, she could afford to daydream. She could afford that engine upgrade she’d been wanting for the last six months. She could buy some new boots and replace the jacket she’d lost on Uridea Beta. And she could finally afford to eat real food. No more nutritionally complete meal substitute. Maybe she could even upgrade her galley unit. She was almost drooling at the thought. What would she eat first? A big steak. With chips. And roast bava. And . . . ‘Miss Hawkes?’ Syd jumped up and entered the office where the arbitrator stood in the doorway smiling. Syd supposed it must be fun to give such good news. ‘Take a seat.’ He directed her to the chair opposite his desk. Syd sat down, trying to act casual, but could feel her excitement building, stoked by her daydreams. ‘We’ve valued the damage at the landing pad, and also the repairs you’ve claimed against your reward. And I’m pleased to tell you that your net reward is . . .’ Syd leaned forwards in anticipation. Here it was. Finally. After weeks of painstaking work and risky scrapes, running and hiding and getting shot at, it was all about to pay off. ‘Three credits. Here you go.’ The actuary cheerily handed Syd a drive with the credits loaded onto it. He grinned at her with maniacal cheeriness. ‘That’s it?’ Syd asked. The actuary’s grin wobbled, then reasserted itself. ‘Well . . .’ He referred to a

sheaf of papers sitting in front of him. ‘After taking into the damage to the landing pad, the cost of towing your ship . . .’ He leafed through the pages ‘And—’ ‘Yeah, okay.’ ‘—the repairs to your ship . . .’ ‘Yeah, okay. I get it.’ Syd took the drive and pocketed it. ‘Enjoy!’ The actuator folded his hands on the desk, staring at Syd with that grin. ‘Uh, thanks . . .’Syd returned the actuary’s impossibly cheery grin with a weak smile. ‘Thank you for working with us! I hope we’ll see you again!’ ‘Uh . . . right. Well. Thanks.’ Syd rose and excused herself, feeling the actuator’s fixed stare follow her out of the room. Once out of view, she sighed. She should have known her fantasies were destined to be just that. She ran her fingers over the drive’s edges in her pocket. I wonder if I can get anything to eat . . .

About the Author

Rebecca Zettl is an Australian independent author with a deep love of irreverent humor and all kinds of stories who has been writing her own fiction since she was 12. Inspired by a lifelong fascination with science, Rebecca also holds a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She currently lives and writes in Brisbane, Australia with her husband and far too many squash plants.

You can connect with me on:

http://www.rebeccazettl.com

https://twitter.com/RebeccaZettl

Subscribe to my newsletter:

https://www.rebeccazettl.com