Chapter 16
ROXY
The moment the ship shudders into docking position, I feel the tension coiled in my chest tighten a notch.
The port sensors give off a steady pulse beneath my boots, rhythmic and cold—like the heartbeat of something artificial and ancient that doesn’t care if we’re welcome.
The black-market hub is carved into the side of a derelict asteroid, crusted with retrofitted salvage rigs, old satellite dishes, and makeshift towers blinking in disjointed cadence.
It smells like ozone, burnt coolant, and people who stopped pretending to follow rules a long time ago.
Vrok stands in the entryway, adjusting the strap of the rifle slung across his back. His movements are calm, methodical, but I can feel the shift in him. This place makes him alert. It’s the kind of alert that wears quiet like a second skin.
“Stay close,” he says.
I nod, not trusting my voice. My palms are damp, but I curl them into fists and slide them into the pockets of my jacket. I’ve got no weapons, no real skills, and exactly one card left to play—the bluff.
The ramp drops with a hiss, revealing a flood of movement—gang runners, hustlers, scavengers, mercs.
The dock is a layered sprawl of rusted scaffold and open-air transactions, heavy with shouting, laughter, and the click-clack of weapons being cleaned in the open.
I catch a glimpse of a bionic dog pissing against a power coupling and force myself not to flinch.
We descend.
And they notice.
Heads turn. Conversations stutter. Weapons don’t come out—not yet—but the shift in atmosphere is unmistakable.
Vrok walks like he’s done this a thousand times and hated it every one.
Like he’s dared someone to stop him and always won.
I match his pace, keeping just behind his left shoulder, chin up like I belong here.
The eyes that land on us don’t linger on me long.
They bounce off my frame like I’m a detail, background to the real threat.
But I feel them cataloging me anyway.
Two levels down and past a merchant stall selling synth-meat and unregistered implants, it happens.
“Vrok.”
The voice comes from the side—a sharp, nasal bite that sounds like it was trained in back-alley shakedowns and too many losing fights.
A group steps out from the shadows of a corrugated canopy, five deep. Armored, armed, and not trying to be subtle. Their leader wears a flak vest two sizes too small over a sleeveless tunic, his arms a roadmap of burn scars and gang tattoos. He grins without humor.
“You got a lot of nerve showing your snout here.”
Vrok doesn’t slow. “Then I guess it’s good I’m not here for your approval.”
The leader’s smile drops. “This is Ravel’s turf now. And Ravel says your kind don’t walk in without a toll.”
Weapons come out like punctuation—quick, practiced, deadly. A rail pistol, two modded blades, one scatterbeam shotgun.
I feel the space around us suck in. Bystanders vanish into doorways and behind crates.
I freeze.
Just for a second.
Then something in me clicks. Not courage. Not instinct. Something meaner. A survival mechanism dressed up in borrowed swagger.
I step forward.
Deliberate.
My voice cuts through the tension like a scalpel. “You really want to pull that trigger?”
They blink.
The leader squints at me. “Who the hell are you?”
I let the pause stretch. Let them feel it. Then:
“Ask around. See who else walks with Vrok and doesn’t flinch when guns come out.”
Confusion flickers. One of them glances at the others.
“You heard about Novaria?” I add. “The one who gutted two bounty twins in a club bathroom, then made it to the bar before the blood cooled?”
The man with the shotgun lowers it half an inch.
“Or Voletta Prime,” I say, voice low and steady. “The warehouse massacre. Seventeen bodies. No survivors. No witnesses. Just a trail of blood and a single signature—” I smile, slow and sharp, “—a butcher’s mark carved into the wall.”
The leader swallows.
“I thought she was just a story,” someone mutters.
I tilt my head like I’ve heard that before. “All stories start somewhere.”
Silence.
I can hear my heartbeat in my throat.
One of the gang members shifts their grip. The tension creaks like an overstrained cable.
Then the leader takes a single step back. Just one. But it’s enough. The others follow like dominoes.
“This ain’t worth it,” he mutters. “Come on.”
They melt back into the crowd, not turning their backs until they’re fully clear.
Only when they’re gone do I exhale.
Vrok’s eyes are on me, unreadable. I can feel the weight of his gaze like a brand.
I don’t meet it. Not yet.
We walk in silence for another two corridors until the tension finally bleeds out of my spine.
Then he says, low and quiet, “That was either the boldest move I’ve seen in weeks…”
“…Or the dumbest,” I finish for him.
He grunts, which I think might be agreement.
“I had to try something,” I murmur.
He doesn’t respond.
We keep moving.
But something’s changed.
Not in the way he walks, or how close he keeps me, but in the way his silence feels. It’s no longer measuring me. It’s watching me. Waiting.
I pretend I don’t notice.
I’m getting good at that.