Chapter 14
ROJA
The summons comes just after shift change. Plain message. No name attached. Just: “Security review. Report immediately.”
I know what it is.
It ain’t a review. It’s a leash check.
I walk into the admin wing still covered in grease. Don’t bother changing. Let ’em see the grit, the burn marks. I’m not here to impress anyone.
Room’s cold. Clean. Smells like recycled air and sterilized metal. I clock the two guards posted at the door. Not standard. Not for a security “review.”
Inside, a man waits. Thin, grey-jacketed. Too polished for a yard like this.
He doesn’t ask me to sit. Doesn’t offer a name.
I stay standing.
“You’ve been working here… eighteen months?” he asks.
“Closer to nineteen.”
“You were reassigned from Kosha Yard. No reason listed.”
“Not my choice.”
He flips through a tablet like he’s reading tea leaves. “You’ve clocked every shift, no tardies. Quiet. Efficient. You blend well.”
I say nothing.
He sets the tablet down. Folds his hands.
“But something’s changed.”
I lift a brow. “You tell me.”
He doesn’t smile. “We’ve had reports of irregular movement. After hours. Near dock five. Surveillance blind spot.”
I shrug. “Hard to sleep sometimes. Walk clears the head.”
“Your record with the Coalition… it’s sealed. But not erased.”
His eyes sharpen as he says it. Like he expects me to flinch. Like he’s waiting for the old Roja to show his teeth.
But I keep my voice even. “Then you know I know how to keep my head down.”
“You’re not keeping it down enough.”
That’s the tell. This ain’t just routine. Someone’s rattled. Someone’s worried enough to poke the bear.
“We’ll be increasing oversight,” he says. “For your safety, of course.”
“Course.”
He stands then, walks around the table slow. Stops just short of arm’s reach.
“You’ve been quiet too long, Roja. Makes people nervous.”
I meet his stare. Hold it. “Maybe they should be.”
Silence hums between us.
He steps back. Nods to the guards.
I walk out before they can escort me.
But I feel it.
The net’s tightening.
Someone in Jark’s pulling strings.
And I don’t have much time left before they figure out what I’m doing.
I need help.
I hate going back to him.
But hate doesn’t matter. Not when it’s her on the line.
The broker’s office is deeper than I remember. Third sub-level past the mechanical core, under a signage strip that’s never worked right. Light flickers like a dying pulse, and the air’s thick with the stink of old coolant and synth-oil.
He’s already grinning when I step in.
“Roja,” he says like he’s greeting an old lover, voice slick with smug. “Didn’t think you had the stones to come crawling back.”
“I’m not here to crawl,” I mutter, stepping over a half-disassembled terminal on the floor. “I’m here for the trade.”
He leans back, fingers laced behind his head. “Is that what we’re calling it now? A trade?”
“Just give me the name.”
“Not so fast,” he says, lazy. “I want to hear you say it.”
I stare at him. Long enough for the silence to press against the metal walls.
“I agree to the favor,” I say, voice low. Flat. Like steel dragged across cement.
“There it is,” he chuckles. “Knew it’d wear you down.”
He slides a holopad across the desk. It lights up with a flicker, casting a ghostly glow up under his eyes.
“She’s in Sector Seven. They call her Renna. Teaches data decryption to dockhands. Real self-righteous type. One of those ‘build-a-better-world’ idiots.”
I glance at the photo. Don’t recognize the face. Doesn’t matter. “What do you want?”
He doesn’t blink. “Tag her. Nothing flashy. No mess. Just let her know someone still sees her.”
“What happens to her after?”
He shrugs. “That’s not your side of the deal.”
“You expect me to sell someone out without knowing the cost?”
“You expect me to believe you forgot how the game’s played?”
I say nothing.
He tosses another pad onto the desk. “In return, full logs. Raw data. The cleric who tagged your girl? He’s not running solo. He’s paid. Funneled dirty creds through two fronts. One of ‘em’s tied to Alliance legacy accounts. Deep money. Vengeful money.”
“Family?”
“Looks that way. Name on the original trace matches the file you brought last time. Probably a cousin. Uncle, maybe.”
My jaw tightens.
I reach for the pad. “No copies.”
He chuckles. “You wound me.”
“I’ll bring your tag back in forty-eight hours.”
“See that you do.”
—
I shadow the target for two nights.
Renna walks like she’s always checking the corners. Sharp eyes. Smarter than she lets on. Teaches encryption out of a mechanic’s bay during graveyard shifts. Most of her students don’t even realize who she is.
She keeps her comms off-grid. Wears a signal bouncer under her coat. Smart, but not smart enough. I triangulate her routine. Build a pattern. She buys synth noodles at the same stall every night, feeds stray dogs behind the vendor crates.
She’s got kindness, buried under years of running.
I hate what I’m about to do.
The tag’s small. Quarter-size tracker with a low-ping burst. I slide it into the lining of her rucksack when she leaves it unattended during a fire drill—one that I may or may not have caused with a well-placed short in the power grid.
Clean. Fast. Efficient.
Dirty work done with clean hands.
She’ll be gone in days. Quietly.
And I’ll be the ghost who marked her grave.
—
Back at the flat, I don’t bother turning on the lights. I’ve lived in this space long enough to see in the dark.
I sink into the old chair. Pull the secure pad from its compartment in the wall.
The files flicker open.
Every transaction is there. Dates. Times.
Routing paths. Credits transferred from a shell fund on Andel Prime.
Then bounced through an educational nonprofit—classic laundering.
Ends up in the account of High Cleric Vasso, Coalition mid-ranker with just enough authority to initiate a flagging process on an undocumented subject.
That subject? Kelsea.
It’s not speculation anymore.
I lean forward, elbows on knees, staring at the data. The name attached to the fund burns like acid in my vision. Vasso. The brother of the man Kelsea killed in Alliance space.
He didn’t forget.
Didn’t forgive.
Didn’t care what it cost to buy the right eyes on the right planet.
She’s being hunted. Not by the Coalition. Not really.
By a vendetta.
And now I’ve got the proof.
I secure the drive, copying every shred onto a triple-layered lock core. Air-gapped. No uplinks. Only way to keep it safe.
My hands shake for the first time in months.
This isn’t just about her anymore.
If they come for her… they’ll come through me.
And this time, I’m not walking away clean.