Chapter 10
ROJA
It’s the little things that crack first.
An outdated file marker in a Coalition database. A log entry timestamped just wrong enough to mean something was scrubbed. And Kelsea’s name—her real one, buried under alias strings and compartmentalized access chains—surfacing in a clearance log two weeks ago.
I don’t breathe for a full ten seconds when I see it.
Jark admin flag, passed down through a security channel I thought was mothballed after the purge. Too clean. Too direct. Someone wants her gone. Quietly, efficiently, without a public ripple.
They’ve hidden the request behind three dummy IDs, but I know how to smell a bribe. This isn’t routine protocol. This isn’t justice.
It’s a hit job wrapped in bureaucratic silk.
And I don’t like it.
I start carrying again. Blade sheath under my coat. Pulse emitter tucked inside my tool satchel. The weight doesn’t comfort me. It just reminds me how long I’ve gone without needing it.
I track down the bartender, Luth, mid-shift. The Coil is slow—early enough that the first round of gamblers haven’t crawled in from their bunk halls yet. The light’s harsh on the bar. Grease on every surface. Music low.
He sees me and his mouth goes tight.
“Off duty?” he asks.
“Not exactly.”
I wait until the other server slips into the back before I lean across the counter.
“You gave me bad info.”
Luth blinks. “What?”
“Kelsea. You said she was clean.”
He snorts. “She is clean.”
I slam a chipped credstick down hard enough to crack the faux-wood.
“Wrong answer.”
He flinches. Doesn’t speak.
I stare him down. I don’t raise my voice. Don’t threaten. Just let the silence sit heavy between us like smoke.
After a minute, he breaks.
“Alright. Shit. Fine. I lied, okay?”
“Talk.”
He looks around. Lowers his voice.
“Couple weeks back, I get a message on the internal line. Not from Bresh. Some Coalition runner. Said to keep an eye on the girls. No names. Just... descriptions. One of ‘em sounded a hell of a lot like your dancer. Blonde, small, quiet. The type that doesn’t look like much till she burns the house down.”
I say nothing.
“Didn’t think much of it. Happens sometimes when someone skips out on citizenship regs. But then the tip came from outside. Not local law. Alliance-linked comm. I checked. And yeah, I didn’t tell her. Didn’t want to spook the talent.”
“You tell anyone else?”
“No. I swear. Look, I like her. She’s good people. Doesn’t stir the pot.”
“Don’t mention her again.”
He swallows hard. “Right.”
“Not to the crew. Not to your contacts. Not even to your stim dealer. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Good.”
I leave without finishing my drink.
The air outside tastes like metal and mistrust. Wind hisses through the alley vents, stirring steam and trash into sour spirals. I don’t stop walking until I’m three blocks down, tucked into the shadows behind a shuttered cargo kiosk.
Then I breathe. Just once.
Whoever flagged her… they had help. From inside. Someone in Jark’s chain of command signed off on it, probably without blinking. Which means I’m not just up against some off-world bounty detail or a pissed-off Alliance family. I’m staring down a whole damn system rigged to eat her alive.
And I don’t do halfway loyalties.
Not anymore.
I pull the comm from my coat and swipe through my secure thread list. There’s one name I haven’t tapped in years. But they owe me. And debts in my world aren’t casual things.
“Roja?” the voice crackles after a moment. Female. Sharp. Wary.
“Need a trace,” I say. “High-level relay. Coalition to Alliance. Pushed through Jark admin backdoor channels.”
“Still playing in the shadows?”
“I don’t like my past catching up to me.”
She pauses.
“Name?”
I hesitate. Then: “Not mine.”
Another pause.
“I’ll find what I can. You owe me.”
“I know.”
I hang up before she can say more. My fingers twitch toward the pulse emitter. Not to use it. Just to feel it. To remember I’m not just some dockhand with old scars and steady hands.
I’m a weapon. And someone just triggered me.
I don’t go to her place tonight.
I can’t. Not with everything crawling under my skin like I’m wearing someone else’s blood. The city feels wrong—too quiet in the places that should scream, too loud in the corners that should stay dark. I feel eyes on me that don’t blink.
I sit on a crate behind the scrapyard, fingers curled around my comm, staring at the message I’ve typed three times and deleted twice.
She’s going to think I’m pulling away. She’s going to think this silence is about distance.
But it’s not. It’s about protection. It’s about fire, and the fact that she doesn’t know how close her name is to being burned off the map.
At last, I type:
Don’t leave. I’m fixing it.
I stare at it. Let it sit. Then I send it.
No encryption. No ghosts. Just plain and real.
The streetlights stutter as I move. Broken pulses above me, flickering over puddles and old wire coils.
I know this part of Jark better than I should—where the rust eats fast, where the cameras were never repaired after the last blackout.
I don’t stop walking until the sky starts to pale at the edges and the back of my throat tastes like copper and old regrets.
She doesn’t message back.
But I didn’t ask her to.
I lean against the bulkhead of my room, the edges of the cot cold against my legs, and stare at the ceiling until it’s just lines and dark.
I want to be near her. I want to explain.
But what would I even say?
That she’s not just being hunted, she’s being sold?
That someone in this rotten sector marked her name like a price tag and passed it up the chain in exchange for favor or credits or power?
I can’t give her that.
Not yet.
Because the last time someone did this to me, I buried three friends and lost every scrap of hope I had in the system.
And I’m not about to let that happen again.
Not with her.
Not with Kelsea.