The second meeting with Fredrak was in the same starport, at the same diner, and even in the same backroom.

“Ah, you brought him with you,” the FedCom agent said as he stood up, in reaction to Gaylen and Kiris walking in along with Mardus.

“I couldn’t stay any longer,” Mardus told him. “Moreover… I didn’t want to.”

“So there was a Heg team?” Fredrak asked.

“Yes,” Gaylen replied. “Among other things.”

“The network is safe,” Mardus assured the agent. “But the Baider-Bas team is… is dead.”

“I see,” Fredrak said, with professional detachment. “Gaylen, could you give the two of us a moment alone while we discuss some details?”

“Sure,” Gaylen told him. “Just don’t try to scoot out the backdoor without paying us.”

“I’ll shout a warning if he does,” Mardus said with a little grin.

Gaylen nodded, and left them to it. The Mardus he had known back in the day had been quite peppy, noted for big grins at the slightest provocation. They had been making a gradual return in frequency, but the last two weeks had made it clear that recent events weighed down on him.

Gaylen stepped outside to join the crew. It would have been perfect symmetry for them to use the same table as the first time around, but it had been occupied. Instead they all sat near the corner, and had just gotten their order of snacks and drinks.

“What, no money?” Herdis said as he sat down.

“We’ll get it,” he assured her. “Another big payday, for the ship, for your family, and for whatever it is that Ayna and Bers actually spend money on.”

“I mostly leave it around in various safety boxes,” Ayna replied, and Bers just shrugged a bit as he drank from a steaming mug.

“And you, Gaylen?” Herdis asked. “I know it doesn’t all go into the ship.”

“I have a bit of a slowly growing nest,” he said. “Maybe one day I’ll actually do something sensible with it all.”

“That doesn’t sound much like you, you have to admit.”

“People can change,” he replied. “Who knows what’ll happen? But for now, let’s just toast to another big job completed.”

“Yes, let’s!” Ayna said.

They toasted, drank, nibbled on their assortment of snacks, and for a little while Gaylen just enjoyed the flavours, and watching the foot traffic go by. Then he noticed Herdis’s gaze.

“Yes?”

“I know I already sort of asked this, but… magic? Really? You fought a… sorcerer?”

The word came out of her a little awkwardly, like she was embarrassed to say it. Gaylen understood, but somehow he didn’t feel the same way anymore.

“Yeah,” he told her. “Call it something else if you want, but yeah.”

Bers smiled wryly, but didn’t add anything, even as the crew gave him looks.

“You remember the stuff Saketa could do, Herdis,” Ayna told the woman. “And I later saw the full scope of what she and folks like her are capable of. Yeah, we live in a weird little galaxy.”

“Strange, but also familiar,” Gaylen mused. “The same handful of patterns repeat, over and over. Whoever that guy was, whatever it was that he could bring forth and make happen, however damn old his traditions were…”

He chuckled a little. It wasn’t even for effect or anything. It just happened.

“His motivations were still petty and small-minded. Like they always are, with the galaxy’s collection of scum.”

Another chuckle happened.

“Still just a human being. And human beings I can deal with.”

“I… alright. Alright.”

They had ordered a fresh round of drinks, and a joint bowl of snacks, once Mardus joined them.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Well, all that is done with,” he announced, and a weight seemed to come off his shoulders.

“You’re finished with that line of work?” Jaquan asked him.

“Ah… in the same way as Ayna is,” Mardus replied. “I’m leaving on a maybe later. For now, I could do with something more regular.”

He fetched an unused chair and sat down at the quite cramped table.

“I didn’t fully decide until the debriefing. But I think, ah, need a quieter life for a while.”

The people who had died in Baider-Bas, on the attack on Axu Lanes, hadn’t been old friends of his, in Mardus’s telling. But he had worked closely with them for months, and clearly it had all left a scar.

“I’ll hire you,” Gaylen told him, in answer to his unspoken question, the one that had hung over the second week of their flight back. “If you are willing.”

He almost added that the rest of the crew was perfectly willing as well, after having gotten to know him a bit. But he didn’t want to put the guy on the spot before their eyes like that.

Mardus gave him an appreciative nod, then took on a distant, thoughtful look.

“I don’t really know how much quieter it will be,” Ayna told him impishly. “I mean, this was supposed to be my return to normalcy after… some stuff, but we know how that turned out. That ship has a taste for trouble, I’m telling you!”

“The vast majority of our runs are perfectly normal,” Gaylen objected, halfway between amusement and annoyance. “The outliers just stick out.”

“Do you have a ratio for me?” Mardus asked, and the cloud over him parted for another moment, as he smiled.

“I… would have to look over the logs, to give you an accurate one,” Gaylen replied, and suddenly felt like the one being put on the spot.

“If you can promise me only five or ten percent involve gunfights, then I’ll roll those odds,” Mardus told him. “For a while, at least. I need to think about some stuff. What I’m going to do in the long run.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Gaylen replied.

“Besides, I feel like I owe you folks,” Mardus went on. “All of you. I can pay you back by being useful.”

“Sounds good,” Herdis said. “Welcome aboard. Now dig into the snacks already, man.”

Mardus did, and fetched a drink of his own. Moments later, Fredrak emerged from the diner. He put a key on the table.

“I don’t like carrying large amounts on me in public,” he explained. “This is for a safety box I rented. The storage is under that domed roof over there.”

“Behind the blue building?” Gaylen asked.

“Yes. I can stay here while you check it out, if you want, in case of some objection. If Kiris’s word and our shared past isn’t good enough.”

“It’s enough, man,” Gaylen said. “But do have some drinks with the folks, why don’t you? I’ll go get it. Kiris? Join me?”

“I will,” she replied, and they started walking together

“Oh, and Gaylen?” Fredrak said. “Everyone? This will make a difference, on a scale. I can’t, of course, share the details with you. But this network? This influence? It will help prevent the wrong kind of influence. The wrong sort of chaos. Just remember that.”

Gaylen nodded, and went back to walking. He chose a slightly longer route towards that domed roof, with less traffic. It left him with room to think, and he appreciated Kiris’s silence. She could always tell what he needed.

Mardus, as it turned out, was pretty much fine. Recent trauma notwithstanding. They had had two weeks to catch up, reflect and just chatter. The mess with the Slashers and the Jumpers had inspired him to mostly stay away from getting involved with gangs, and so he’d spent the last fifteen years drifting from planet to planet, and job to job. It was that wide breadth of experiences that had caused Fredrak to take an interest in him.

He had worked as a bodyguard, a courier, hired security of various stripes, and the like. He hadn’t degraded into a vicious bastard like so many who lived within or at least adjacent to the world of freelancers, gangs and Fringe spacers. He wasn’t a soulless murderer, or affiliated with pirates or human trafficking rings, or something like the Devil Star Cartel. And the rest of the crew rather liked him.

Overall, Mardus had been worth saving. And that felt good. This had all been a good thing.

He stopped in a roomy alley, nestled between two rows of businesses. From the other side of one of them shone multi-coloured beams of light, aimed upwards and swirling lazily. Gaylen turned around.

“Kiris. What do you think?”

“I think that you are feeling happy. And I like it.”

She gave him one of those smiles that, as far as he could tell, were pretty much reserved exclusively for him: Small and soft and full of deeper meaning.

“Well…”

He lightly tapped his hands on his hips.

“... I like it when you like things.”

“Yes, we sort of feed into each other like that, don’t we?” she replied. “But I mean… look, I don’t just mean that you paid back an old debt, or have met an old friend again. You seem… lighter, in general.”

Lighter, he repeated silently to himself.

“Yes, I guess that’s it,” he then said out loud.

He stepped up to her and put his hands around her waist.

“And you?” he asked.

“I’m where I need to be,” she told him. “Where I want to be. You make me happy Gaylen, don’t worry.”

Those lights kept swirling, and some nearby speaker cast out calm, instrumental music. It was the sort often played in nightclubs and their various permutations across the galaxy’s diverse cultures. When it was time to dance.

He shifted his grip on her, and she of course picked up on what he was doing and played along. The alley wasn’t glamorous, but it wasn’t filthy either, and for the moment it was all theirs. He’d never considered himself a dancer, but Kiris had proven a patient teacher, although their opportunities were rare. The result was a fairly non-clumsy swirl of the two of them, and the silliness of it all brought out the odd chuckle. The lights continued to dance as well.

Yeah, he felt pretty damn good.