I hooked into the Bucket, transferring the sensor data to the head-up readout of my suit. There were two ships hanging in space mere kilometers away from the breaking yard, close enough that I could get a good reading on them even with my poor sensors. One was the scratch-built cruiser: two hundred meters long, four main engine pods, multiple gun pods. The other was the ripstone ship: three engines, two gun pods, and a big, ugly thing at the front that twisted the void around it. I would bet the Bucket that it was the ripstone housing.

  A shuttle was anchored by the breaking yard’s airlock. The syndics hadn’t even entered the Bucket, just used their sensor readings to find us. Meaning that their mage was good, very good. But so was I. All I needed was to get him in my sights once.

  The Bucket’s sensor net registered a heat pulse. That would be the fulmination grenade. No signatures from the grunts. Skill could only take you so far, if you didn’t have the wards.

  I motioned for Hao to move backwards, deeper into the yard, and fast. We needed to get out of these corridors and empty halls. If we didn’t, we’d get hunted down without cover.

  “I have instructed my units to secure a breach,” Dordolio said on the open channel. “The twenty percent still stands. Do not think that we will hesitate to use force.”

  Units. Not troops, not grunts, but units. That was navy talk, meaning Dordolio had had some training, perhaps as an officer, before going independent. Either that, or he was as fond of military vids as Hao was of her adventure tracks. The thought left a stale taste in my mouth. Gripping at loose threads, pinning my hopes to dreams. I needed to do better if we were to survive.

  Dark, empty, huge hallways. My helmet lights illuminated a patch of dented metal, a half-circle of slag on the wall, surrounded by small indentations.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Plasma blast, and small arms fire. Once upon a time, someone had made a stand here. It didn’t look like they’d been very successful.

  My first ward shattered. I felt it as a hot prickling at the nape of my neck. Somewhere behind us, a ray of super-heated void danced in and out of reality, destroying everything in its path.

  This time, I heard the screams over Dordolio’s open channel. He swore a vicious harangue that almost distracted me.

  My second ward shattered, this one a razor ward. It felt like a cold stab through my gut. Dordolio’s grunts kept coming, without even slowing down. Someone yelled for a medic, the yell muted by passing through Dordolio’s com setup. Someone else yelled for reinforcements.

  “Crudmucker,” Dordolio said, the word dripping with hate. “I’ll void you for this. Zuul, throw B-company at the voidmuncher. I wa—”

  The channel light blinked off. A company. A hundred men, coming after us. We needed to hide, find the mage, remove him from the equation so we could run. The corridors were still empty. Nowhere to hide.

  We ran, my magnetic soles hooking against the metal of the yard, propelling me forward. Hao grabbed at handholds, pushing herself along like a pro. The line pulling the hatchling along connected us, made us keep pace. Somewhere behind us, a troop of grunts was hunting us, and their captain was crudmucking mad. Maybe he was the type who didn’t accept setbacks. Or maybe he’d promised his troops easy money, and now had to get it. I wished I had time to inscribe more wards.

  My third ward shattered. That was another flame ward. I wondered if it had been effective, and expected the fourth ward to shatter at any moment.

  We reached another crossing. The corridors were narrower here, mere meters wide rather than dozens.

  “Deeper,” I told Hao.

  She touched my arm, pointed. The next side door revealed a hall, maybe twice the size of the Bucket’s cargo bay. Bare steel walls. A set of cut-off chains dangled from the ceiling, their links the size of my fist. The far wall was missing, creating an enormous open space, with three doors leading out from the next hall. But in the corner of the nearer one lay a pair of cracked industrial melting crucibles as large as both of us together, thrown into a heap and welded to the floor by droplets of metal.

  Not great, but some cover anyhow. I looked at Hao, shining my helmet lights right into her face. She nodded, I nodded back. We pulled the sleeping hatchling into the hall.

  We were going to make a stand.