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It was cursed. I’d come to Orison for a hot bath and to find buyers for my salvaged components. The spa pool was empty, Cousin’s Crows didn’t want my goods, and now I was sitting in the Voyager Bar, staring into a fire that neither crackled nor gave off any heat. Just an artificial gas flame on some rocks.

I hadn’t made any progress on the Kylo case either. My conversations with Recco and Wallace had led nowhere.

Recco just wanted to protect the People’s Alliance family. Wallace had left Levski because he was afraid of Cabassa.

Cabassa as a murderer? No. That didn’t add up. He’d been head of security on Levski. If he’d thwarted Zwiebus’s investigation, it was probably because Zwiebus wasn’t part of security. That left the question of who had tried to delete information from the investigation file.

I liked my original theory better. A rival. Kylo had sourced his contraband from the Jumptown drug lab on the moon Yela. That one had been destroyed, but a new one had since opened on Daymar.

Then there was the Corsair that had ambushed me.

Was it the Corsair we’d tagged with a tracker at the Moraine Base? Kjeld’s tracker had shown that it had flown to Monox. That’s where the trail went cold. Monox, of all places. I’d also stopped there on my way to Stanton. Coincidence? Probably. The Moraines had no information on me. Or did they? Isaac had defected and supplied the Moraines with information. But he was dead, Recco claimed. Damn it—my thoughts kept returning to Recco.

No. Better to follow fading clues than to suspect something sinister within the People’s Alliance.

“Zero… Zero!”

I jumped. Pike was standing in front of me.

“Oh, Pike. Didn’t notice you—I was lost in thought. What do you look like?”

“I’ve blended in. Local clothes. Don’t want to stand out.”

Zwiebus came around the corner and grumbled.

“Why are we meeting at this snobby place?”

I brought the two of them up to speed and told them about my conversations with Recco and Wallace. Zwiebus tried to shift the focus to Cabassa, but I shut that down.

“So you want to start looking for clues in Jumptown,” Pike concluded.

“Exactly. However, a drug lab isn’t exactly a peaceful gathering place. Zwiebus, can we fly in your Asgard? The more firepower, the better.”

Zwiebus hemmed and hawed a bit.

“Well, I have something to tell you guys. Best to do it in my hangar.”

When we entered the hangar, a brand-new RSI Constellation Mk V Centaurus stood before us. Zwiebus had sold his Asgard and used the proceeds to buy the Conni.

“I don’t know what to name her yet,” Zwiebus explained. “But I’d like something with historical significance again. Like my Asgard, ‘Anthony Tanaka.’ If you have any ideas, let me know.”

Something came to mind right away.

“What was the name of that guy who fought the Vanduul at Vega II? Ernst Bishop?”

Zwiebus was indignant.

“I’m not naming my ship after a UEE admiral. No way!”

We boarded the ship. Curious, I walked through it. The interior was spacious, and the view from the bridge was amazing. Impressive. With a powerful roar, the Centaurus took off and rose into the clouds of the gas giant Crusader.

After picking up an Ursa Medivac on Yela, we set off for the drug lab on the moon Daymar.

Dunes swept past beneath us—black shadows in the faint starlight. For a moment, the view made me forget everything: Kylo. Recco. The Corsair. Then I thought of Jumptown again. The big battles there were over. That didn’t mean nobody was shooting anymore.

Pike stood up and walked to the door.

“I’m flying ahead in the Rat to check out the situation.”

“Which Rat?”

“Well, that thing hanging off the back.”

Ah, the Skylark—the little snub-fighter that Conni had brought along. Pike had an idea. A minute later, a clunk echoed through the ship. The docking clamps had come loose. The Skylark whizzed past the cockpit window and vanished into the darkness ahead of us.

“Everything’s quiet at the lab,” Pike reported over the radio. “There’s some shipwreck debris lying around. The lab is in a valley; right next to it is another one where you can land. At the end of the mountain, there’s a passage you can drive through with the rover.”

Shortly afterward, Zwiebus landed the Conni in the valley. Sand swirled up, and the nose dipped slightly upon touchdown. Then the engines fell silent. We drove down to the cargo bay and set off in the rover.

A wide beam of light transformed the sand ahead of us into a glittering spectacle. I steered the rover along the valley and turned left at the end. The Skylark thundered overhead, heading toward faint lights in the distance—the Jumptown drug lab. Tension hung in the air like an electric crackle.

Zwiebus sat in the passenger seat, looking through the camera of the onboard gun.

“I see machine guns on the roof, but no movement. Park the rover near the entrance, but outside the line of fire from the machine gun nests.”

I stopped the rover behind some containers. The rover’s door opened, and grains of sand blew in. I stepped out from behind the vehicle. Sand crunched under my boots. My stomach clenched.

Where to? I looked up. Secure high ground. I clumsily climbed onto the containers and jumped onto the lab’s roof. Zwiebus followed me. A labyrinth lay before me. Pallets piled high with drug packages and crates were everywhere. With our weapons at the ready, we worked our way through containers, metal sheets, and tarps. Nothing. Not a sound. Not a shadow. That didn’t make things any more reassuring.

Zwiebus found a drawing on a railing.

“What’s that? A map?”

“I have no idea. Never seen anything like it before. Come on, let’s go inside.”

Pike landed. Nervously, I followed the two of them. Past the barbed wire, up the stairs, and into the airlock. There was a hiss as the inner door slid open, revealing a dimly lit mess. Trash on the floor, graffiti on the walls and cabinets, overturned shelves and boxes.

Zwiebus wrinkled his nose.

“What a mess. What are we looking for?”

I let my gaze wander through the chaos.

“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be here.”

“So, the famous needle in a haystack?”

“More like a cockroach in the dirt,” said Pike.

With no plan, we rummaged through the rubbish.

I climbed over a barrier into an adjoining room. A bunk bed with filthy mattresses and sleeping bags. A kitchenette with leftover food in old Big Benny’s boxes. Cockroaches scurried away from my beam of light.

“I found the cockroaches… and something else. A list.”

S2b: Nuen Waste Management
S2b: Whistler’s Crypt
S4: The Necropolis
P3: Prospect Depot

Zwiebus stepped up beside me.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s examine this on board. I don’t want to stay here too long,” Pike suggested.

Zwiebus nodded.

“Let’s get out of here. We won’t find anything in that trash anyway.”

Zwiebus was right. What were we even doing here? A crumpled list from a trash-filled drug lab was all we had. Not much. But more than just a suspicion against the wrong people.

It was light out when we left the lab. A short while later, we were in the air. Pike docked the Skylark, and we flew away from the lab.

On the bridge, we looked at the list. I recognized most of the names.

“Nuen Waste Management is a drug warehouse here on Daymar. I remember it from back in the day. We can head straight there. Whistler’s Crypt is a junkyard; The Necropolis is a drug warehouse on Microtech. I don’t know Prospect Depot….”

Suddenly, there was a loud thud. The Conni’s nose dipped. The desert sea filled the entire windshield. Then it spun. I clung tightly to the backrest. Zwiebus jumped into the pilot’s seat and stabilized the ship.

“What was that?”

Pike was standing at the engineering terminal.

“All systems are okay. Just a little damage at the stern. I’m going to the back to check it out.”

Pike left the bridge. I looked at Zwiebus questioningly. Then Pike’s voice came over the intercom.

“The Rat’s gone. The docking clamps are damaged. Looks like a malfunction. No signs of external interference.”

“Do you have a pre-production model, too? Like my Ironclad,” I laughed.

Zwiebus looked grim.

“Very funny. Come on, let’s head to Nuen Waste Management.”

A few minutes later, the Conni landed in the sand next to the small outpost. It was quiet. No wind, no people, no spaceships.

Inside the building were sealed packages of drugs. A list lay on a table.

P3: The Golden Riviera
P3: Prospect Depot
P5a: Ashland
P1: Rustville

I stared at the entries, puzzled.

“The Golden Riviera is a Headhunter settlement in Pyro.”

“What do the letters and numbers mean? Routes?” Zwiebus asked.

“Hmm. The Golden Riviera is on the planet Bloom in Pyro. Nuen Waste Management is on the moon Daymar in Stanton.”

“Ha,” Pike blurted out. “P stands for Pyro, S for Stanton.”

He was right. Then the numbers must stand for the planets.

“Bloom is the third planet of Pyro. P3. That fits. Daymar is the second moon of Crusader, and Crusader is the second planet of Stanton. S2b. That fits, too.”

Zwiebus put his hands on his hips.

“And how does that help us?”

Pike shrugged.

“No idea. But Prospect Depot is the only place that’s on both lists. That has to mean something. We should keep looking there.”

I gave a thumbs-up.

“Prospect Depot is also on Bloom. It’s a faint lead, but better than nothing. Then off to Pyro.”

“I want to go to Levski first and see if I can find out anything about Cabassa,” Zwiebus said thoughtfully.

After we landed in Orison, we went our separate ways. I was left with another faint lead: Prospect Depot. Was I following the right clues? Maybe.

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