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It was quiet. A pleasant aroma of herbs being vaporized in clay pots permeated the room. The books were on the shelves, the chairs and armchairs were neatly in their places, the floor had been mopped. The communal house was tidy again and had recovered from the Frontier Fighters’ attack. Nevertheless, there was a certain tension in the air. Many armed guards were patrolling.

Sunk deep into the cushion of an armchair, I thought about what had happened. The conflict with the Frontier Fighters was not over yet. They were probably still looking for the data stick that Virus could use to bypass the security system. The other factions in Pyro also wanted the stick. Agents searched every corner of the system. I hadn’t heard anything about Brubacker and Husky. Where were they? Were they all right? Had they come to Pyro because of the devious, scheming pirate Aruhso? Were they being controlled by him? All these questions tormented my mind and threw me off balance.

The loud metallic scraping and the muffled sound of the front door opening and closing echoed through the communal house. Two guys came in. One wore only a space suit, the other a makeshift patched-up suit of cloth armor typical of the Pyro system. A skull was emblazoned on his arm. They were walking around seemingly aimlessly, looking for something. I pulled my hood lower over my face and said.

“You strangers, so say. What paths do you walk?”

“If only we knew.”

“Have you come here in the name of Aruhso?” I asked.

“No, well, no, so yes,” stuttered one of them.

“No!” intervened the other.

“Uh no, yes,” the one continued to stutter.

“You seem to be out of balance. Come to an agreement,” I replied.

“That voice sounds familiar,” one of them said.

“You two have really lost your center,” I said as I stood up and pulled off my hood.

“Zero, there’s no such thing,” Brubacker shouted with joy.

Husky and Brubacker were actually standing in front of me. It was hard to believe. They had followed the breadcrumbs and found the community center with the help of the drawing I had left in Sunset Mesa. We went up to the roof, gazed out into the immensity of the desert at night and brought each other up to date.

Husky and Brubacker reported that they had come to Pyro to bring Aruhso the things he wanted. However, they had found him dead. They said that they had been blackmailed, hunted and kidnapped. A wild odyssey had led them through the entire Pyro system.

“The problem was,” Husky reported, “after Aruhso was dead, we wanted to know what was on the data stick we were supposed to bring him. After I put it into Bru’s Zeus, a software program installed itself and tried to establish a connection to Stanton. And then the quantum drive went crazy. The Zeus jumped everywhere but where we wanted it to.”

“So if that’s the data stick I think it is, then you’ve got a real problem on your hands,” I said thoughtfully.

I told him about the data stick with the virus that bypassed the security systems and thus had access to secure areas and that the entire pyro system was after it. Husky told me that the stick was still on Bru’s Zeus, but they didn’t know where the ship was. When they were kidnapped by the Xenothreat and taken to Ruin Station, the ship was taken away from them.

“I know a place where we can probably locate your ship. But to completely remove the virus from your ship, I still need equipment that I can only get at Ruin Station.”

My suggestion met with little enthusiasm. Bru and Husky didn’t want to go back to where they had been held captive and interrogated. But it was the only option they had if they wanted Brubacker’s Zeus back. When I told them that we would enter the station undetected, they agreed.

An unexpected opportunity opened up for me. This data stick was also interesting for me as a hacker. But I didn’t say that. I let Bru and Husky believe that I was helping them out of pure friendship. And that wasn’t entirely wrong, but there was another motivation.

We flew to Ruin Station on the Zeus, which I had gotten from Citizens for Prosperity. On the way, Brubacker told me that he and Husky were stepbrothers. I looked at them both in disbelief. That wasn’t possible. Brubacker had always said that he was 700 years old and had spent a long time in a cryo-capsule. But maybe they really believed that. They had experienced many stressful and life-threatening situations together in Pyro. Such a psychological burden shared with someone could lead to a special bond. I decided to ignore the matter for the moment. The two of them were really off balance and probably needed help to find their center again.

When we reached Ruin Station, I headed for one of the maintenance shafts. My contacts in Pyro had told me that it was possible to get past the guards and into the station. In the EVA, we floated to the airlock and entered the bowels of the space station. We crept through old, winding and dark corridors full of cables and wires until we finally reached an elevator. This was to take us to the main area of the station. Looking at the elevator’s control display dampened my optimism about getting into the station unnoticed. The only option was to go to another maintenance shaft.

“Crap. They’ve closed off access,” I said in a muffled voice. “We need a plan B.”

After landing the Zeus on one of the outer landing pads, we took the elevator to the terminal area of the space station. From here we went to the market and finally to the weapon store where I would get the parts I needed. The problem was, there was a checkpoint on the way with heavily armed guards. We had to bypass them.

Fortunately, I knew a secret route that took us past the guards. But it was difficult and dangerous. Instead of taking the stairs up, we went past a barrier into a dark area of the station. We climbed over mountains of garbage and garbage, balancing on narrow wooden planks until we reached a spot directly below the guards.

“Be quiet, the guard post is right above us,” I whispered to the two of them. “We have to crawl through here and climb up the other side. It’s not easy. You have to jump at an angle and then pull yourself up.”

The first attempt failed, Brubacker fell and twisted his ankle. After several attempts, we finally reached the top and appeared like ghosts behind the guard post. And then we reached the marketplace. A large hall full of market stalls, provisionally assembled from rusty metal plates and with colorful lights. There was pasta, rats on skewers, maggots in sauce, distilled water and rust. The stall owners loudly advertised their wares and tried to persuade the people walking around to buy them. It was a place that reminded me of the Grand Barter Bazaar on Levski. Goosebumps ran over my body.

“We need to get to the upper level,” I said quietly to Husky and Brubacker. “However, there are occasional checks at the stairs. We’d better take an alternative route.”

I led them both behind a market stall and pointed with my foot to a hole in the rusty metal wall. After making sure no one was watching us, I crawled through the hole into a filthy chamber. It stank of waste and feces. Turning off a fan opened a passage through which we crawled into a dark room. After climbing up a ladder, we found ourselves in a narrow ventilation shaft where we could only crawl on all fours. After a few meters, we reached ventilation slits through which we looked down on the marketplace from above. Nobody had noticed us yet. But the hardest part was yet to come. I wasn’t sure if we would really make it to the top unnoticed. Because now we had to leave our cover.

“Continue to the right. Climb out through the fan onto the canopy. Be careful not to slip and fall off.”

After we had climbed over the canopy, we had cover again behind a shed. No one had noticed us. But would it stay that way? At the end of the shed, we reached a canopy again.

“Directly above us is a platform on the upper level. We have to climb up over the canopy and climb over the platform railing. Then we’ll have made it.”

I cautiously looked up from the shed and immediately flinched.

“There’s someone standing there. We have to wait until he’s gone.”

Nerve-wracking seconds passed. The guy stood up there, leaning casually on the railing and watching the marketplace. Finally he turned around and ran off.

“Let’s go now. One at a time. Hurry up.”

We quickly climbed over the railing. We had made it, for now. We inconspicuously mingled with the people and strolled past the stores on the upper level. Brubacker and Husky grumbled that they wanted to leave as soon as possible. But they had to be patient and keep calm. We would only draw attention to ourselves with quick, hectic movements. After a while, we reached the gun store. Behind the counter, the sales clerk gave me the special equipment I needed. He was happy to do business and didn’t ask any questions.

As if we belonged, we slowly walked out of the store, down the stairs and back to the elevators. But just before we reached the elevators, Brubacker stopped abruptly and whispered.

“No way.”

At first I didn’t know what he meant, but then I saw it. The faces of Husky and Brubacker were projected onto a wall. Wanted for the murder of Aruhso with a bounty of one million credits. I thought they were hard to make out on the projection, but they both panicked.

“Let’s get out of here,” Husky said in a panic and stormed off.

“Slow down, don’t be so conspicuous,” I warned.

Fortunately, no one took any notice of us, we reached the Zeus and were able to fly to Terminus without incident. The outermost planet of Pyro, in whose orbit Ruin Station was located, was an unreal, cold and repulsive world. There was Canard View, an outpost of the Citizens for Prosperity, which functioned as a base of operations. The gray buildings blended into the gray surroundings and were difficult to see in the pale light of the distant star.

Canard View was technically very well equipped and had its own data center. In the command room there were lots of computers and a projection screen for planning. It was all old and run-down, but it served its purpose. And it was possible to locate signals and spaceships. I actually managed to locate the ‘Shack One’, the Zeus from Brubacker. To my surprise, it was only 10 kilometers away from Canard View.

After a short flight, we reached the position of the signal. We cautiously approached the Zeus standing on the ground with our weapons drawn.

“Hopefully she is,” Husky said.

“And hopefully she’s not being guarded,” added Brubacker.

We entered the ship via the open stern ramp. Brubacker looked around and said with relief.

“It’s her…”.

Then he paused and added in an almost panicked voice.

“Damn, the stick is gone.”

“Let’s kill the virus first. Then the ship won’t light up like a Christmas tree.”

With Husky’s help, I removed all the fuses in the ship. Then I installed the special equipment. At the same time, we put the fuses back in the two fuse boxes. The lights flickered throughout the ship. The ‘Shack One’ shook and got rid of the virus in a feverish burst.

“That’s it,” I said. “Back to Monox before anyone else shows up.”

Without further delay, I took off with my Zeus. It wasn’t until I was in the quantum tunnel that my body relaxed. Air rushed out of my lungs as I dropped deep into the pilot’s seat. But suddenly, without warning, I fell out of the quantum tunnel. The Zeus hovered motionless deep in space, far away from any planets or space stations. Had I been intercepted by pirates? The radar showed nothing. Then I saw it. I rolled my eyes, it couldn’t be true. I meekly radioed Brubacker and Husky.

“Guys, I’m out of gas. Can you pick me up?”

“Sure, no problem,” replied Brubacker. I could hear the grin in his voice.

After the two of them had picked me up, we reached Monox and ended up at the community center. We had another Rust on the roof, then Brubacker and Husky fell into a deep sleep. I hadn’t found the data stick, but I had found my friends. That was the most important thing. I used the communication system in the communal house to inform Friedrich that his grandson and Brubacker were with me. Then I relaxed in an armchair and fell asleep.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)