Chapter 31 - In the Empire's Crosshairs

  The pub was a dump.

  More specifically, it was the kind of dump that newcomers would take one look at and turn around in favour of finding a more palatable place, but that the regulars swore by and visited often enough to simply order ‘the usual’.

  It smelled like stale beer and burnt grease, the chairs wobbled, and the tables stuck to your elbows if you lingered too long. A neon sign buzzed faintly above the bar, casting everything in a sickly green hue.

  Darius felt right at home.

  He was sat in a lopsided booth in one corner, one arm draped over the backrest, the other nursing a glass of something amber and cheap. Across from him, Lena smirked as she swirled her drink. Surprisingly enough, it hadn’t been hard at all to convince her to stop for a drink. In fairness, he was paying, but still.

  “Why am I not surprised that you’d be spending some of your newfound wealth in a place like this?” she asked, raising her glass in mock salute.

  “Calling it wealth might be exaggerating a little,” Darius said, his voice lazy as he tilted his glass toward her. “And anyway, this is hydration. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Sure. I’m certain doctors recommend three-day-old rotgut for a healthy liver,” Lena shot back, setting her drink down. She gestured at the small bag at Darius’s feet. “And what’s that about, then? More ‘practical’ investments?”

  Selling the stolen data drives had been significantly easier than he’d expected. The owner of the stall that ended up buying them hadn’t even bothered to ask for a receipt and hadn’t batted an eye when Darius had admitted the drives would need to be wiped before use. According to Lena, not everyone in the markets would be quite as blasé about things, but even the most uptight of them didn’t really care about the minor details of where the items they were buying came from.

  Of course, discretion like that didn’t come cheap - each drive had sold for a little under two hundred credits, which was… better than nothing, he supposed. A fraction of what they were actually worth, sure, but even still he’d cleared twelve-hundred credits in a single morning. That was a little over two weeks wage at the shipyard - and he didn’t even have to pay taxes on it.

  Of course, he’d turned around and spent the majority of that on a decent-quality diagnostic scanner, soldering kit, and some precision screwdrivers. The good kind, too - variable strength magnetic heads, prehensile tips, the whole nine yards. The kind of tools he’d always wanted to own but could never justify.

  Also the kind of tools that were absolutely necessary to do the type of precision work required for building a robotic frame for Echo. The cost of the tools had mostly chewed through his windfall, but happily, there was enough left over to pay for drinks.

  “Personal project,” Darius said in response to Lena’s question, taking a sip of his drink and leaning back further in his seat.

  Lena raised an eyebrow. “That vague, huh?”

  “It’s not vague,” Darius replied with a shrug. “It’s specific. To me.”

  “That’s how being vague works, genius.” She leaned forward, peering over the table. “Come on, what is it? You building something? You don’t strike me as the arts-and-crafts type.”

  “Not telling,” he said simply, a corner of his mouth twitching upward as he took another sip.

  Lena snorted, clearly amused. “Let me guess. It’s a secret project. Classified. Can’t have the Empire knowing.”

  “Now you’re getting it,” Darius said with a grin. He nudged the bag with the toe of his boot, deliberately casual. “Top secret. If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Real tragic stuff.”

  She laughed, her voice echoing just loud enough to make a couple of patrons glance their way. “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met.”

  Darius shrugged, nonchalant. “I don’t need to be good at lying. I’ve got charm. Gets me out of most situations.”

  “I’ll pretend to believe that,” Lena smirked, raising her glass. Whatever she might have said next was interrupted by the scrape of a chair against the uneven floor and a woman sitting down at their table without asking permission. She was tall, with broad shoulders and a build solid enough that Darius wouldn’t want to face her in a fight. Her jacket was stained with oil and grease, and the boots she wore looked like they’d seen their share of weld sparks.

  Darius opened his mouth to sarcastically ask if they could help her, but closed it a moment later in favour of squinting. He… recognised her - sort of, anyway.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t remember inviting you to sit down,” Lena snarked sarcastically. “But no, by all means, make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thanks, I will,” retorted the woman, unfazed. She pinned Darius with an intent look. “What the hell are you doing here, Kallan?”

  “You know this… person?” Lena asked after a beat, emphasising ‘person’ in a way that made it clear she was thinking of another, much less polite, word.

  “Uh, I… maybe?” Darius responded awkwardly, put on the spot.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The woman snorted. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t recognise me. Veya. Bay Four.”

  That… didn’t really help.

  Well, it sort of did—a little. Bay Four was, confusingly enough, directly opposite Bay thirteen, the bay Darius had worked in during his time at the Exeter Station shipyards. It wasn’t like they were close enough to yell across to each other, but there was just enough overlap—shared shifts, late-night emergency fixes, the occasional scrounged part—that the name Veya tugged faintly at his memory. She might’ve been one of the techs who dealt with power couplings or reactor diagnostics, the kind of stuff Darius didn’t envy. Either way, her face wasn’t the kind he’d pinned to memory.

  “Right, yeah… rings a bell,” Darius said slowly, setting his drink down on the sticky table. “We had some of the same shifts at the shipyard, where I worked,” he explained to Lena. “Uh… nice to see you again?”

  Lena tilted her head, studying the other woman with open suspicion. “Small world,” she said lightly. “Funny how you just happen to run into someone from the shipyard here. What do you want?”

  “Funny,” Veya echoed, leaning forward. “I was about to ask him the same thing.” Her gaze sharpened on Darius. “What the hell are you doing out in the open like this? D’ya have any idea how bad an idea that is?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Veya narrowed her eyes, searching his face. “You… don’t know,” she said incredulously. “How can you not know?”

  “Know what?” Darius was starting to get a little irritated.

  “There’s a bounty on your head,” Veya retorted flatly. “Ten thousand credits. Direct from the Empire.”

  Lena spluttered on her drink. “Sorry, what!?” She whirled on Darius accusingly. “You didn’t think it might be a little important to tell us that!?”

  “Wha—I didn’t know!” Darius stammered defensively. “Hell, I didn’t even know the Empire did stuff like that.”

  “That’s… actually a good point,” Lena said with a frown. “They usually don’t put bounties out. They can offer rewards for information and stuff, but bounties… Nah. Something’s off.”

  Veya shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell ya. It ain’t normal, and it ain’t official, but word on the street is that the Empire’ll pay good money for information that leads to your capture.” She leaned in closer. “Got a friend who works in the administrative sector, and apparently it’s all coming from one guy, too.”

  Darius shared a glance with Lena, who was suddenly looking around with a slightly hunted look. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we should probably go,” she said in a hushed tone.

  Darius blinked, looking around the bar. Suddenly, some of the looks they’d gotten when they arrived started to make more sense. This… could be very bad.

  Veya raised her hands placatingly, clearly reading the rising tension. “Look, no one here is gonna sell you out. What, you think the sorta people who’d come to a dive like this get along well with the Empire?”

  Lena’s gaze darted toward the entrance. Her fingers drummed an uneven rhythm against the tabletop, the motion quick and sharp. “That’s comforting, but I’d feel better not testing the theory,” she said, already starting to rise out of her seat.

  “Hang on,” Darius said hurriedly, placing a hand on her arm but focusing on Veya. “Where’d you hear this anyway? Do you know why they’re so interested in me?” And how he could get them off his back, he didn’t add.

  Veya gave him a long look, her lips twisting like she was weighing whether to bother. Eventually, she sighed and leaned back, one arm draped over the back of the chair in a mirror of Darius’s earlier posture. “Not much. What I do know comes from a friend of a friend. Enforcer type, not high up, but close enough to hear things when the higher-ups slip.”

  “And?” Lena prompted, her voice clipped.

  “And word is, some big-shot agent came out of nowhere a few weeks ago, pulling strings and putting a squad together. Specifically to track you down, Kallan.” Veya tilted her head, her gaze sharp and assessing. “What the hell did you do to make someone like that care?”

  “Nothing,” Darius said automatically. Then, after a beat, “At least, nothing I thought was worth this kind of attention.”

  He was acutely aware of Lena’s evaluating gaze, but whatever she was thinking, she wasn’t inclined to share. If anything, that just made him more nervous.

  “Well, someone up the ladder thinks you’re worth the effort,” Veya said, her tone dry. “If I were you, I wouldn’t stick around trying to figure out why.”

  Lena’s hand curled around her drink, though she didn’t take another sip. “We need to go,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Then, louder, “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  Veya arched an eyebrow at Lena’s clipped tone but said nothing, the ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. Her gaze flicked to Darius again, searching for something.

  “Right, yeah. Appreciate it, Veya. I won’t forget this,” Darius muttered, a little distracted as he rose to his feet. His mind was already racing through the implications of what Veya had told them, but nothing about it was adding up in a way he liked. The thought of some Imperial agent coordinating a manhunt—and making it personal—sent a cold knot twisting in his gut.

  “Don’t mention it,” Veya replied, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Really. Don’t.”

  Darius hesitated for half a beat before nodding and grabbing the bag by his feet.

  “You’re running with some interesting company these days, Kallan,” Veya said idly before they could leave. She didn’t bother masking the interest in her voice. “Didn’t figure you for the type.”

  Darius stilled, the strap of the bag tightening in his hand. “The type?” he echoed carefully.

  Veya cut him off with a snort. “Oh, come on. You think I don’t know the look? Besides,” she added, leaning in conspiratorially, “it fits. I heard the rumours that you’ve done some time, but you’re too clean-cut for a career criminal. And her?” She gestured at Lena with a quick jerk of her head. “That one’s got ‘true believer’ written all over her.”

  Darius glanced at Lena, whose mouth tightened into a thin line, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she nodded curtly. “If you hear anything else about this agent or their squad, let us know. We can use it.”

  Veya chuckled, low and rough, leaning back in her chair. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Kallan. Playing rebel? Guess you’re full of surprises.”

  Her smirk widened into something savagely pleased, and for a second, Darius wasn’t sure whether she was impressed, amused, or just relishing the idea of someone standing up to the Empire. Maybe all three. “Good luck,” she said, her tone lighter now, though the sharp edge of her earlier words still lingered. “You’re gonna need it.”

  Lena grabbed her jacket, her movements quick and deliberate. “Come on,” she said to Darius, already half out of the booth. “We’re not staying long enough to test her theory about the patrons here.”

  Darius gave Veya one last look, unsure if he should thank her or regret the conversation entirely. She didn’t seem to care, already making her way back to the bar.

  They pushed through the bar’s warped door and into the dimly lit alley beyond. Darius glanced over his shoulder, half-expecting to see someone tailing them, but the door slammed shut without any sign of pursuit. The humid air clung to his skin as he followed Lena, who was already scanning the shadows with a practised wariness.

  “You think she was telling the truth?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Does it matter?” Lena replied sharply. “If there’s even a chance she was, we’re in more trouble than I thought. Keep moving. And don’t think we won’t be talking about this later.”

  Darius spared a glance over at her, and the expression on her face reminded him that, young or not, she had chosen to fight against an Empire that spanned the stars. Intimidating didn’t begin to cover it.