After I took a smoke break and rubbed the butt out on the sidewalk, I made my way over to a store that sold polymer and bits and bobs before returning to the store and waiting for the time I could pick it up.

The story was rather easy to get the polymer, I got a big hunk of it so I could make a metric fuck tone of the sabots my normal shots used. I could melt down the extra bits and reuse them. The bricks were hefty, far exceeding what I could casually wear in a coat pocket, so I got a bag. I also got some of the insulating glass and other stuff I would need for plasma shots. The stuff was brittle when it had nothing inside, incredibly so, especially for being a material artifact, a material that was made by the enigmatic forges scattered around the system.

They were also dirt cheap because there were three of those manufactories across Gabriel and its moons, so I loaded up on the stuff. Who knew how long I would be away from the cheap stuff? Over on Luna or even just on a dwarf and it would be orders of magnitude cheaper.

I mean, I might be rich, but I wasn’t going to look some cheap material in the mouth, you know?

I walked on out with a bit of a smile on my face because, let’s be honest, there’s nothing like a deal to put a smile on your face, and I headed on over to the armoury.

I caught one of the people I passed on the street trying to pick my pockets and slapped their hands. The rest of the group with them reacted to that negatively, but when I showed off that I had a sword, they took the better half of Valor and fucked off.

Considering their clothes and the green motif and tags on some of the buildings, they were likely in a local gang. I was not easy prey; they couldn’t look big and intimidate me, not with three random people.

I took a smoke in the alley and watched others walk by as I waited. Some with gang colours, some without, one guy in blue almost got grabbed and dragged away before he ran off. I kept my eyes open for fuckery, and upon checking, I did see a few watch outs. A shirt here, a hat there. They were here, but they weren’t out in force.

That should be fine, a kid and two lookouts aren’t going to get me.

I checked my timepiece and got back in on time to pick up the gun.

“Hey, shorty, it’s all packed up ere,” Theodore told me, pulling out a case I could swing onto my back from below the counter.

“Thanks, Theodore, I might just come back if I’m in the neighbourhood, you have a great selection.” I complimented him.

Instead of answering with words, his face made an expression of ‘just right,’ and honestly, I had to agree, it was, he had a great thing going.

“Say, Theodore… I saw some guys watching the store, green guys, you know. Are they going to cause problems when I walk out of here?” I asked him.

His face took on a sour look, “maybe. Half and half depends on if they think you have something good on you.”

“Like a lot of stuff and a gun case?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes in thought, and he puckered his lips a little before nodding his head.

“You think you are going to get jumped? Make sure you show off that sword and don’t go getting hooked up on them, there ain’t no sheriff round here, just old-fashioned law, if yeh get me.”

I understood him completely, at least, I thought I did.

“I think I can handle that,” I told him. “Now pass over the other stuff, yeh? I’m in a rush.”

“MMhm.” He told me, pulling out everything and placing it on the counter for me to squirrel away in my pockets or bag.

“Well, Theodore. I’ll get out of your hair now. You stay well yeh?” I told him while I packed away my goods.

“All right, shorty. You stay living on the cursed rock.” He told me before leaving the desk and returning to the back.

I got my stuff and left the armoury. Strapped with enough ordinance to make a Marine blush. And with my stuff done, I headed back to the station that would bring me back to the Gull. My arms were free, and I had one hand on my sword.

Anyone between me and the exit was itching for a sudden impromptu surgery. Keeping my head on a swivel, I was able to notice a few people who decided they wanted to walk in the same directions I wanted to. That was fine, they could follow me as much as they wanted, and they could help.

I kept walking uninterrupted until a particularly intelligent-looking man turned the corner. I could hear them closing in from behind. The doctorate decided to start talking, while I refused to stop walking towards him.

“Now, now, girly, stop right there. We could use a hand to keep the neighborhood safe, this is just going to be a simple trans-” He started giving his speech, but when he raised his left arm, my left arm came up.

I decided to give him a hand, so first, I had to procure one.

His left hand, just a few inches below the wrist, came off, falling to the ground.

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I walked around him, and he didn’t even realize what had happened until I was past him.

I kept my sword out so the goons and he could see it, along with anyone that might be around the corner.

There wasn’t anyone behind the corner when I took it, but I could hear the goons behind me start to freak out. I kept on walking to the station, onto the metal grate, and down into the metal floored station.

When I got in, I sheathed my sword, waited for the train, and rode back down, made my way past the two guards, who looked at the case and upon seeing it was unopened let me past without fuss and I made my way back.

I checked the time and, knowing it would take a bit made my way to the ship.

The quarter master would have charged my account by now, and knowing him, by the time I was on the station my ship had been refueled, so I made my way up the ramp, double checked the fuel tank and found it full, and closed up. I radioed in to get the platform raised back up once I got the ship sealed up, and I got raised up and out of the Gull.

I got back in the drivers’ seat once I got everything stored away so it wouldn’t put a hole in the hull somewhere. The trip would take some time, and I could fix up my ammunition on the way.

I lifted off of the platform after telling the station I was maneuvering and they told me they wouldn’t give me free void swimming lessons the hard way, and I started to maneuver around the station.

I had to be careful, curving around the station, I didn’t have modern thrusters where I could just move in every direction. I could go up, forward and backward, and with my forward thrust I could angle a little, which was what going around the circular station called for, and I had to do it while making sure I didn’t mess up my momentum somehow and send myself on a course for deep void where I would have to expend metric fuck loads of fuel to not drift off to die alone.

The void was a void, you didn’t miraculously slow down. In a way, flying near the ground was easier because the atmosphere would slow you down. Both had a problem if you accidentally messed up, just on the ground if you were going to crash you could bail and walk away from it. If I ‘crashed’ up here and needed to bail, I would float in space until the suit gave out and my blood boiled me to death.

And for all that it was the most inhospitable place to work, there was something about the dark and the stars that reassured me.

Maybe it was because I was born on a dwarf planet, and the atmosphere was thin enough outside of a dome that it was basically the same as the void. Maybe it was something I inherited from my mother’s side. Maybe it was just that my bones enjoyed the low gravity more than the full gravity of a planet.

Maybe it was something more, something I couldn’t put a finger on. Like the soul or some kind of obscure trauma. Either or.

But I enjoyed the endless black of the void, it relaxed me, and so, for half an hour, I could just relax as I moved around, slowly finding my way to the 134-berthing point.

Some areas had more boat traffic, other people floating around, making deliveries or whatever they needed to do to make money and get paid.

As it turned out, 134 was a busy berthing, boats going in and out constantly. A wave of them, going in and out of an open or low-pressure hangar along the side. There were also several enclosed bays on the top and bottom.

It was large, bigger than a frigate for sure, but still familiar with its style to that of the Gull all though it had been retrofitted with curves more along the line of the inner systems. If I had to guess it looked like it came from Raphael.

“Fuck me that’s a big ship, looks like a fuckin Cruiser. Rich mother fucker indeed.”

I found my way to hangar 14, landed and started scanning for a radio to let myself in.

“Please Identify Voidboat in hangar 14” A voice over the radio called out.

“Looking to dock, I’m here on a job for The Collector. My call sign is Bandit. I was expected.” I told the voice.

“Hold on a moment Bandit.” The voice told me.

Then I sat there and waited. I had already cut the engine, so I just turned on another channel and listened to some music. It took the person in charge of the large vessel to get me called in. I was halfway though some old record I didn’t really care for so I flipped it off when the channel got pinged.

“Hello, this is Bandit.”

“Hello Bandit, you are clear for entry, and you will be lowered shortly, you are cleared for boarding. Should you require it, a cabin may be afforded to you, and you have access to all recreational and non-restricted sections onboard. On behalf of our employer, welcome aboard the Tsarta.”

“Thanks for the welcome,” I told her, leaving her a call frequency to alert me on in case I was wanted before I fucked off to the back and tucked myself into my bunk.

Bunk was an overstatement, it was a bag in a small compartment the size of a closet, but it was comfy. I left my little handheld radio closed so I could catch a call if it came and passed out for a few hours.

When I woke up, it was because the radio that had floated away from me during my extended nap was beeping.

Blearily I unzipped and floated my way to the radio, managed to get my headset on my head and turned on the radio.

“Hello?”

I waited a bit, because apparently, the radio operator was doing something else, but they got back to me by the time I had managed to heat up some water and got some caffeine into me.

“Hello, you have been requested to attend a meeting at 16 hundred.” They told me in a voice so monotone it was background noise for a few moments.

“Uh ship time and room?” I asked.

“12 hundred twenty-one” she told me. I set my time and made my way over to the ships console to set that too.

“Thank you, ma’am, anything else?”

“Nothing right now.” She droned.

“All right, bye.” I told the soulless radio operator, changing the channel to a radio I wanted to listen to and finished up my cup, some jerky and dry food, and took a smoke with the fan on so I didn’t choke before I got some work done on the bullets, taking the balls from there round state to a tapered point, cleaned up the shavings, and measured off some of the putty.

By the time I had run out of the time I could spend on it I was about to start readying the casing.

Instead, I got properly dressed to impress and made my way out of the ship. No guns, but my sword was still on my hip, and I had my hat on. It still had the burn on it, and I thought that gave it some charm, that or it made me look like a shmuck.

I closed up the ship behind me and on magnetic shoes made my way out of the hangar, checked a map, and got lost for half an hour in the maze of halls until I finally found my way to the meeting three minutes early and let myself in.

No one was inside so I waited.

And waited.

I double checked the time and room to make sure I didn’t mess it up, but it was the right room. So, I took a smoke and waited for whoever was coming to make their way over.

It took about six minutes for one of the people to make their way in and I was at the end of my smoke when the door opened.

They looked at me and I looked at them.

They looked like a random person, some kind of generally laborer. But when they came in and sat down, the way they moved suggested otherwise though. They walked like they were a fighter, the way they balanced, their hips and their eye movements, it was like they were ready to take a fighting stance and jump into the fray at any moment.

I gave whoever they were a nod and kept my face blank.

That was just the first person. There were twenty chairs.

Oh boy, can’t wait to size up every sketchy person that comes in here to determine if they are a threat.