Chapter 5 #2
“I don’t know Coalition crime families,” I say, voice rising despite myself. “But I know what a syndicate name sounds like when it lands.”
Lonari’s gaze sharpens. “You’re fishing.”
“I’m trying to figure out if I’m trapped in a shuttle with a murderer who saved me out of convenience or a murderer who saved me because he wants leverage,” I snap. “So yeah. I’m fishing.”
The silence in the cockpit stretches, filled only by the soft whine of the engines and the occasional pop of stressed circuitry. The shuttle smells faintly like burnt insulation now, warmed by long flight.
Finally Lonari says, “My background isn’t relevant.”
“It’s relevant to me staying alive,” I retort. “Try again.”
He turns his head slightly, enough that the light catches along the ridge lines of his face and turns his scales glossy.
“You want the short version?” he asks.
“Give me the version that doesn’t get me killed.”
His mouth twitches again, that almost-smile.
“I’m a convict,” he says. “Convicted of murder.”
My stomach drops anyway, even though I knew it, even though I watched him kill two men without hesitation.
“Murder,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
“And you want me to just…,” I gesture helplessly, “trust you?”
“No,” he says. “I want you to stay useful.”
The bluntness hits like a slap, and part of me is furious, but part of me—annoyingly—respects it because it’s honest.
“Okay,” I say, swallowing hard. “Who did you kill?”
“I didn’t,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“I didn’t do it,” he repeats, voice low. “I was framed.”
I stare at him, waiting for the punchline, waiting for the manipulation. He doesn’t flinch. His eyes stay steady, clear, un-drugged, un-hysterical.
“By who?” I ask.
He shrugs, almost imperceptibly. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It matters if it’s true,” I argue.
He looks at me, and for the first time I see something beneath the control—a tightness around his eyes that feels like old rage banked behind bone.
“I don’t have proof,” he says. “Not here. Not now.”
“Convenient,” I mutter.
He leans slightly closer without moving his seat, the way a predator leans when it wants you to understand there’s no distance between you, only permission.
“You want convenient?” he says quietly. “Convenient would be me letting you die in the wash and taking your archive when your body cooled.”
My throat tightens.
“You didn’t,” I say.
“No,” he replies. “I didn’t.”
For a second, the silence feels charged, like the air between us is holding its breath. I can hear my own pulse loud in my ears, can feel the faint vibration of the engines through the seat, the subtle warmth of the console lights on my skin.
I break eye contact first, because holding it too long feels like stepping off a ledge.
“Fine,” I say, voice rough. “Framed. No proof. We’ll put that in the ‘mysterious murder mountain man’ column and circle back later.”
He makes a low sound of amusement. “Mountain man.”
“You live in the wilderness and stab people,” I say. “What else am I supposed to call you?”
“A survivor,” he says.
“A criminal,” I counter.
He shrugs. “Same thing, depending who’s writing the report.”
That lands harder than it should, because I can practically hear the IHC orphanage administrators in my head—their clipped voices, their paperwork, their rules that always mattered more than the kids living under them. Power structures writing reports and calling it truth.
I hate that he’s right.
The nav console chimes.
Lonari adjusts our approach vector.
On the forward viewport, Gur begins to swell into view.
At first it’s just a dark curve against the stars, ringed with scattered debris that glitters like broken glass. Then the planet rotates, and the light catches it.
Gur is not pretty.
It’s the color of old bruises and industrial waste—brown-gray landmasses streaked with black scars where the mines have gutted the crust. The atmosphere is thin and dirty, a hazy veil that looks like it’s been smoked through for centuries.
City lights glitter unevenly across the surface, clustered in harsh grids and sprawling veins, surrounded by huge swaths of darkness like the planet itself is missing chunks of civilization.
Orbit is crowded.
Freighters drift in loose patterns. Small fighters dart between larger ships like gnats around a carcass. I see the hulking silhouettes of stations—industrial platforms bolted together from mismatched parts, some pristine, some patched like someone kept them alive through sheer stubbornness.
The traffic lanes look messy, informal, like nobody cares enough to pretend this is orderly.
My stomach knots anyway.
“That’s Gur,” Lonari says, like he’s pointing out a childhood home.
“It looks like someone took a planet and used it as an ashtray,” I mutter.
He snorts. “Yeah. That’s about right.”
We descend.
The shuttle shudders as it hits the outer atmosphere, turbulence rattling the frame. The view warps slightly with heat friction, the edges of the planet’s surface shimmering. I can smell the change even through sealed vents—an acrid, oily tang seeping in, like smog and metal and old fuel.
“Where are we landing?” I ask, bracing a hand on the console as the shuttle bucks.
Lonari’s eyes stay forward. “A place that belongs to me.”
My throat tightens. “That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s not supposed to be,” he says.
The city below sharpens as we drop lower—tower clusters, neon streaks, skeletal cranes, massive domed structures that look like they were built for entertainment and intimidation in equal measure.
One complex stands out even from the air: a sprawling, glittering mass of lights and curved architecture surrounded by darker industrial blocks, like a jewel shoved into a bruised fist.
Lonari’s gaze fixes on it.
“There,” he says.
“What is that?” I ask, though I already feel the answer in the way his voice settles.
His mouth curves faintly, and the expression is all dark humor and ownership.
“The Defrocked Nun,” he says.
I stare down at the glowing complex as it swells beneath us, my pulse pounding, my archive drive heavy against my chest, my mind screaming that this is insane and my body reacting anyway—because I’m alive, because I’m not back on Yatori, because the universe has shoved me into the orbit of a man who kills like breathing and talks like danger wrapped in dry jokes.
I swallow.
“Of course it’s called that,” I whisper.
Lonari glances at me, amusement flickering. “You’ll fit right in.”
“I really won’t,” I say.
“Yeah,” he replies, and the shuttle begins its final descent toward the glittering crime-palace below. “That’s what makes it fun.”