2. Leah
LEAH
Spuel smells like someone barfed up a scrapyard and tried to Febreze it.
The air’s thick with old coolant and melted plast, and something sharper underneath—ozone and hot metal—like the whole place might spontaneously combust out of spite. Not that I’d blame it. I’ve fantasized about lighting it on fire myself, more than once, and I’m a decent person.
Mostly.
“Terminal 12-B to Leah,” the voice crackles in my earpiece like it’s coming from inside a tin can full of angry bees. “You gonna log in today or are you protesting silently?”
I roll my eyes and slap my badge against the reader. The terminal flickers like it’s hungover. Probably is—half the machines here run on hope and spit.
“I’m logging in, Tavi,” I mutter, knowing full well she can hear the disdain. “I just needed a second to mourn my dignity.”
“You lost that when you took a contract on Spuel,” she shoots back.
“Touché.”
The screen pings, glowing the sickly green of League-standard interface systems. I start reviewing the crate queue, trying not to gag at the backlog.
“Who coded this algorithm?” I mutter. “A drunk jellyfish?”
“That’s offensive,” Ando grunts from his corner station. “To jellyfish.”
Tavi’s voice breaks in again. “Don’t be dramatic, Monroe. You know Logistics doesn’t have the budget for functioning AI.”
“Great,” I deadpan. “So we’re running interstellar cargo flow with glorified Speak & Spells. Awesome.”
My fingers fly over the controls, rerouting freight from Dock 3 through North access instead of South. South’s overloaded again. Surprise.
The drone crane overhead lets out a mechanical moan and slouches right, swinging a crate of hydration filters in a perfect arc… straight into the side of a recycling compactor.
The resulting crash sounds like a droid dying dramatically in a soap opera.
“Beautiful,” I murmur. “A masterpiece in three acts.”
Tavi pops up behind me in person this time, eyes smeared with last night’s mascara and a cup of stimbrew big enough to drown a toddler.
“You see that security audit memo?” she asks, sipping without breaking eye contact.
“The one with the six typos and no signatures? Very official. I framed it.”
She snorts. “There’s a Grolgath patrol on base today. Guess who gets to baby-sit the north corridor.”
“Oof. Want me to write your eulogy?”
Ando looks up from his console. “Don’t bother. I already called dibs on her boots.”
Tavi flips him off with her stimbrew still in hand. “I’m immortal. I drink the blood of interns.”
“Explains your coffee breath,” I mutter, but it’s with affection. Mostly.
We banter because it’s easier than screaming. We laugh because if we stop, we’ll start to remember we’re one small screw-up away from disappearing into a League prison transport labeled misplaced cargo.
Mid-shift, I crack open the maintenance panel under my terminal like I’m popping the lid on a secret treasure chest. Which, okay, technically it is.
Nestled in the dust and wire guts is a stubby gray data wedge. I slide it into the port under the table and feed it the smallest of crumbs.
Power usage logs. Crate ID overlaps. Just enough noise to be worth something, not enough to point back to me.
Gifts to the ghosts.
In return, I don’t get shaken down by security squads who like to “confiscate” property for “investigation.” Translation: they break your ribs and steal your ration credits.
This deal? It keeps the peace. Mostly.
“Hey, Monroe,” Ando calls without looking up. “That manifest on Crate 7-G—why is it marked for triple scan?”
“Because the League thinks redundant data is holy and wants us to tithe properly,” I reply. “Also, someone mislabeled it ‘biologicals’ and the system thinks it’s a biohazard now.”
He groans. “You think it’s gonna blow up if I look at it wrong?”
“I think if it doesn’t blow up, that’s a good day.”
And then I feel it.
A vibration in the floor. Too deep for machinery. Too clean.
Boots.
Not the lazy clomp of warehouse workers or the shuffle of overworked drones. These are heavy. Precise. Synchronized.
Grolgaths.
They come through like a bad dream on parade—six armored figures, jaws gleaming, shoulders broad enough to block out light. They move like tanks taught ballet.
The air goes dead.
My pulse skitters. I stare hard at the screen. Act casual, I think. You’re just a girl at a terminal. Not a threat. Not a witness.
But I smell the blood. Hear the thud of boots on a childhood floor. Feel the dark closet walls pressing in. See Dad’s hand on the ground—open, empty, still.
“Hey.” Tavi’s voice snaps me out of it.
I blink.
“Leah. You okay?”
“Peachy,” I lie. My voice is steady, even if my guts are curling into knots.
“Want me to?—”
“No.” I swallow. “They’re just walking through.”
Which they do. Slowly. Surveying the station like they already own it and we’re just bacteria waiting for the sanitation cycle.
One turns slightly. I feel its gaze slide over me like ice.
Then they pass.
The moment breaks.
But I’m still cold.
I dive back into work like it owes me something.
Cargo throughput is lagging—again. The system shows a backup at Dock 4, but the numbers don’t match the activity.
Weird.
I dig deeper.
Ping.
Then again.
Too regular. Not spiky like system lag. Not sloppy like glitching drones. This is neat. Intentional.
Someone’s scanning traffic.
I launch a shadow diagnostic, one of the old ones from my rebel-aunt-who-doesn’t-exist. It snakes through the routing paths and lights up three nodes.
Someone’s watching the watchers.
Or more accurately—someone’s watching me.
And not the usual security scum either. This pattern’s too careful. Too polite.
Paranoia wraps itself around my spine like a scarf made of razor wire. I shut down the terminal with a flick and slide off my stool.
Ando looks up.
“Off early?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Terminal's got gremlins. I’m gonna run a full cold wipe from the dorm.”
“You need backup?”
I smile. “Please. If I needed backup, I’d call your mom.”
He flips me off without looking offended. Ritual.
I trudge on home, hands thrust in my pockets while I hum some electronic pop song I can’t get out of my head. When I arrive, my dorm room is as depressing as it was yesterday: metal walls, narrow cot, light flicker that no one will fix until the roof collapses.
I triple-lock the door. Check the hidden latch under the heater. Pull out the go-bag I swore I’d never use.
Everything’s still there.
Burner creds. Route jumpers. My backup pad with the codes etched into the casing like they’re prayers.
And at the very bottom, wrapped in cloth?
A photo I haven’t looked at in months.
I touch it with my fingertips. Don’t open it. Just… remember that it’s there. That he’s there. That this isn’t just survival.
It’s strategy.
I sit back on the bed and let my head fall against the wall. Cold steel meets tired skull.
Someone’s watching.
And I’m going to find out who before they decide to stop watching and start knocking.
Because if this goes bad, I won’t have time to pack again.