Air hisses all around as vents equalize the pressure of the airlock and the station. The doors open and we enter a cramped and brightly lit room, the airlock behind closes and leaves us trapped between steel doors.

A voice crackles from a hidden speaker.

“Hold your arms out perpendicular from your body and wait. You will be sterilized and your biometrics scanned.”

I’ve already done so, Mars hesitates, arm twitching minutely towards the hidden compartment in her back.

“Don’t worry, just protocol.”

I turn and smile brightly at her.

We are prepared. The spacesuit sits loosely on her body, finding one so large was difficult but necessary to hide the contours of the many access ports all over her body and fit shavings of her old ship. Their shavings cloaking properties obscure our modifications from any scanner we have tried the suit against.

There’s no remedy to being two meters tall but the apparent total weight is being reduced by an array of diminutive repulsors hidden under the suit and beneath the shoes. Silent and made not to emit their signature glow, controlled through direct nerve connections, very expensive.

The compartment in her back hold’s insurance.

She follows the directions and soon disinfectant mist rains from the walls and ceiling. Another minute and the station's airlock opens behind sits a dour-faced man.

“Welcome to Puerto Viejo station. I must warn you that being found smuggling illegal merchandise into the station will lead to sentences ranging from two months to fifteen years in prison. Is there anything you would like to declare?”

“No, thank you! All good here.”

The smile on my face is cramping, it hurts.

“Then please follow the yellow line on the floor into the station and have an excellent day.”

The monotone of his voice turns his well wishes sour.

We follow the line.

“Told you.”

“How was I supposed to know he´d be too lazy to search us? Is he just going to let us in?”

Is she really asking?

“Puerto Viejo is lawless, safer to not care and his bosses like it that way. He was either going to let us go or ask for a bribe, we just got lucky.”

“No discipline or decorum whatsoever.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Ha! Your background showing, princess.”

“Want to die?”

“Sorry.”

Slowly the full reality of life on the station begins to reveal itself. Enormous columns now rusted, monolithic walls cut into hives of two cubic meter makeshift homes, beautifully patterned floors marred by campfire ashes. The ambitions of a different era clash with human subsistence.

Puerto Viejo used to be known as the ReStore Lifestyle Center and Resort, greatest amongst a line of holiday destinations for the wealthy. A tourist trap marketed as unique thanks to its direct access to Europa, the only place in the universe known to be inhabited by extraterrestrial life.

Now its shopping malls, stores, and fountains have been coopted by refugees looking for a home and entrepreneurial opportunist making business from its large spaceport infrastructure and easy access to the frozen moon´s water.

Large halls filled with makeshift locales make for difficult navigation but soon we arrive. A relatively preserved entertainment center turned market, bustling with activity.

In through the front door, down an alley of vibrant shops and clashing smells. It's late hours but there’s still some activity. Shoppers roam and merchants sell. Cheap clothes over there, alien meat from down under over there.

Seven lanes down and to the left, into the downstairs through an old service door. A single room opens, a hundred meters on every side and filled with scrap and components. On top of the old stage at the back sits a rat-faced and lanky man, Gordo. His assistants buzz around him.

Walking up doesn’t go unnoticed as body mods call their eyes. Never mind the two meters tall dark figure following behind me.

Gordo looks up.

My organic eyes are optimized for clarity at any distance. They let me notice the sharpening look on his face and the anticipatory tilt of his upper lip before it all smooths out into a gracious, fake, smile.

The hand I’ve kept behind my back flashes a thumbs down at Mars and then moves over to my front. Gordo does the same. We meet and shake hands.

“¡Alba, bienvenido, bienvenido! ¿Por qué razón tengo el placer de recibirte hoy? ¡Sabes que siempre estoy a la disposición de nuevo nuestro carroñero estrella!”

“Good to be back, Gordo. English please, for the sake of my companion.”

“Oh, gringa?”

“Algo así.”

“Of course! English will be the language of the day. I hope my accent is not too bad for you, big girl?”

“Don’t call me that.”

Mars really has no patience for niceties.

“Jaja, my bad! Won’t do it again, promise. But let’s get to business, I assume that’s what you came all the way down here for?”

“Business indeed, you see my tall friend over here is a large part of my recent scavenging success so far, she led me to a practically intact navy ship we´ve been scrounging, that’s where our scrap comes from.”

“Ay, why are you telling me this man! You really don’t have to; your source is your source.”

Greed is barely hidden on the man’s face.

“Well, we´ve progressed as far as we can on our own. What’s left is not in our means to bring over or process. So, we talked about it, and we´d like to bring you in on the operation. Use your connections to get the whole ship processed, reactor included and split the profits. We’ve brought half the map leading to it, in a sign of good faith. It’s in here.”

From my pocket comes a stick drive and he reaches out for it.

Bait.

The source of so much salvage and now a likely military use reactor? He can’t let an opportunity like this go.

“Do you mind if I check this?”

No joviality in his voice anymore.

“Of course not.”

He moves over to his computer, an old model laptop sitting on his desk. The contents of the drive are false but believable enough that he should be unable to resist temptation.

“What do you want for the rest?”

“Mars?”

She walks up to the table, pulls out a phone from her pocket, and shows him a group photo. A dozen men and women stand inside a bar. They’re smiling, drinks in hand.

Fresh tattoos, still perfectly black from fresh ink, show on their shoulders. A black seven-pointed star flanked by wings. Underneath a single word in block lettering: Voidborne.

“I need to know if any of these people have entered the station in the last ten years.”