Though the Pent was the luxury district of Station 26, it didn't change the fact that Station 26 was a mining station and back alleys made up most of the damned place.

That was where we were, in the back alley that Tash had described to me shortly after she'd given me the broad strokes about what was going on. I hadn't told her whether I would be here, but I'd been leaning towards no.

Station 26 had a way of getting you tangled in its problems, I had come here with the idea of avoiding that, but the key point I'd forgotten was that I'd been trapped in the problems of Station 26 since long before I left. Relationships here were anchors that would pull you down into the lithium dust of the lower levels.

Or, in our case, the bad part of the place that pretended it was above all that.

"I thought she was going to drop us off at the casino," Victoria said once she was done looking around. There wasn't a landmark for her to orient herself off of. To her, the sickly green of the debt consolidator's sign wasn't a point of interest.

"Apparently not."

"I honestly wanted to see what one was like."

"You've never been?"

"We don't have them."

"You have a word for them."

"We know about them; we just don't have them. The concept seems weird."

"It's fun," I pointed out as I took out my PA and ensured all my equipment was online. I had brought more than I needed to for a car ride, but I was still several pieces short of a load out. I needed to stop leaving things on my ship. Apparently, my days of planning around a firefight were behind me.

"Everyone knows they're going to lose. That sounds stupid."

"Didn't say it wasn't stupid, just that it was fun."

"Weird way to have fun."

"Vic."

"Yeah?"

"Shields online."

"What?"

I half sighed, half growled, "we're here for Tash. She wants me to help with something, and considering she wants me to help, I'm going to assume she's expecting a potential firefight."

"And you knew that Jie was going t-"

"No. I didn't."

"So-"

"Jie was making a point by dropping me off at the meeting point. Tash said she didn't want her involved."

"Which means that…"

"Either the room's bugged, and Tash is dumb about her encoding, Tash was lying, Jie was lying, or they're both lying."

Victoria considered those options for a moment. "What do you think it is?"

"They're both lying but not in the same way," I explained, "honestly, I just think that because it's stupid to assume they're telling the truth."

"Lovely place you're from."

"I'm not from here."

"You have a lot of roots for a bush that isn't from this garden." That metaphor came out strange.

"I'm kind of from here," I admitted, "spent a lot of time here, at least."

"What happened?"

"Longer story than we really have time for," I sighed, "but-"

"But?"

"Look, there is a lot of complicated shit and context around it," I took out the Hammerhead just so that I would be ready if something happened, "'but a bunch of us are the reason that Jie's on top right now."

"Hired gun."

"No."

"Hm."

"Like I said, there's a lot of context."

"You don't seem to like them much anymore."

"And that's the complicated shit," I added, "let's go."

"I thought you were meeting Tash here."

"It's an option, but we don't have to, and frankly, I don't particularly want to." I looked down the streets to try and make sense of what direction would take us back to the Pent's Promenade before giving up and pulling out my PA.

"Why'd she ask you?"

"History and I don't like anyone here," I said, "aligned but unaligned."

"You know that?"'

"It's my best guess,"

"And what'd she offer you?"

I shot a glare at Victoria. I wasn't dragging her around the Galaxy so she could help me talk myself into trouble. "Something for the ship."

"The repairs."

"Firepower," I marked the direction we had to go, and the AR on my glasses highlighted it, "illegal firepower."

"Would it be useful?"

"Vic," I used the short version of her name to maintain her cover here, even though I was starting to doubt that it would get us any further with Jie, "we're talking about getting shot at for a gun."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Isn't that what happened on Mythellion?"

"I'm not enthusiastic about repeating mistakes," I started, "why do you want me to do this?"

"You made it sound like she needed help."

"Why do you care? I barely do, and I've known her for years."

It was Victoria's turn to sigh, "Because she has our ship, and everything you've told me about this place hasn't made it sound kind. At least Tash was reaching out to you."

"What did I say about aligning with people here?"

"Shouldn't we trust her enough to try?"

I wasn't sure if it was because I knew the wrong answer or if I just wasn't sure, but I didn't answer that. Instead, "I don't like you asking to help someone."

"Why?"

"Works too well," I admitted. I left out the point where helping Victoria in the first place was already drowning myself on behalf of my bleeding heart. Why the hell couldn't she have been some middle-aged bitch I could have abandoned on Myhtellion?

I sighed and sent the ping to Tash to let her know I was at the meeting point. She sent back that she would be right back out.

Once I knew she was coming, I reached to the opposite hip of my Hammerhead and pulled out the spare gun I'd brought, an Ovihsir ESK8 from Dvall's time on the ship. I spun it around and offered it to Victoria. "Just in case something goes wrong."

She didn't take it right away.

"Nothing's going to go wrong but better safe than sorry and all of that."

"How do you use it?"

"Same as the other one, pull the trigger. Just be a little more careful with it."

"Why?"

"It's got some kick," which was practically a lie. I'd wanted something small enough for Victoria to carry quietly, but an ESK8 wasn't a good starting point for someone new to firearms. There was half a chance that any shot past the first took out the lighting if she wasn't ready.

"Some?"

"A lot."

"What are you planning to do anyway?"

"I'd need more context, but, from what I can tell-"

"He's mostly just going to stand there," Tash cut me off, having opened a back door to our left to be let out in the alleyway. "Look threatening. What are you going to do?" Tash crossed her arms as she turned to Victoria; she'd rolled up her sleeves to proudly show the skin canvas of abuse and poverty.

"Mostly stand there and look threatening," Victoria answered, adopting the tone Tash expected from her. There was almost an ethereal quality to how she spoke like she was so far above us that she was blessing Tash by answering the question.

There was a reason I'd taken this job out of spite.

"Why'd you bring her?"

"Extra body," I suggested.

"Really?"

There was a snag here; I could let Tash know that Jie understood I was meeting her here, or I could let her continue to think that she was sneaking under her nose. I was making friends or enemies when everything came to light either way. "I wasn't about to leave her in the room that Jie gave us. I'm her escort."

"So you brought her to help me?" Tash scoffed, "surprised she agreed to it."

"I find Kingston's antics entertaining. Sometimes I want to watch my assets work."

"Sure, fuck it, why not? Bring the Fotuan; that'll certainly keep tensions low. That's a smart fuckin' plan, Kingston. Nobody's gonna be on edge with-"

"Yes or no, Tash?"

Tash took a sharp inhale and then cursed several times. I could tell from her lips that she'd swapped away from English to do it. "Yes. Fine."

"Then what's going on?" I asked.

"Follow." It wasn't a request; it was an order, we could follow and go along with Tash, or we could choose our own path to anywhere else.

We followed Tash into the back door of the apartment building she'd come out of.

The dim-lit stairs wound down into the basement, sparsely lit by co-opted and stolen neon signage scattered around the walls. There was a blood stain in the middle of a metal table shoved against the wall; aside from the blood, it was empty save for a lone data pad.

"Nice place," I commented.

"It's a rental for the week," Tash explained, "been planning this for a minute or two."

"When do I get to know what you're planning?"

The door closed behind us, and Tash's shoulders untensed. "Yeah, yeah, you do." She slid the datapad over to me, and I grabbed it off the table. "You know my brother?"

"Collings," I only said his name because I had nothing else nice to say about him.

"That's the one," she affirmed, "he went and got himself in a real mess, again, Talked to the wrong people. More importantly, he borrowed money from the wrong people and lost it."

"That's a classic," it wouldn't be the first time I'd been hired to try and clear someone's debt with bullets. Creditors never seemed to be the kind of thing you could shoot off your tail though.

"Well, he managed to add his one little twist to it," Tash flicked her wrist to the side, motioning for me to check out more of the information she'd stored on the data pad aside from her brother's ID. "He owes money to the Videsshai, Carr-"

"The Videsshai have an on-station outfit now?"

"No. They don't. It'd almost be impressive if it wasn't my fuckin' problem."

"It kinda still is," I offered. Victoria, who was on the other side of the room pointedly ignoring Tash's complaints, cleared her throat to stifle a chuckle.

"Long and short, Collings owes the Videsshai, Carr and Lady Jie more money than he can work off, and he doesn't have the head on his shoulders to stop gambling it away. So here comes little sis."

"Send him to Mythellion. I know a guy who needs a co-pilot there," Victoria suggested.

"I would just off-world 'em, but I gotta stay on Station 26, and uh…"

"What?"

"The complicated part of all of this is that Carr currently has him. Grabbed him from the mess sometime last month. I didn't hear from the kid for a while, but, ya know-"

"It's Collings," I answered.

"Basically."

"So Carr broke some of his fingers, but there isn't money in that."

"Exactly, so he sent me a letter to let me know that he had Collings, but I can't afford how much he owes Carr either."

"Fuck."

"Also exactly," Tash sighed and walked over to me, taking the data pad out of my hands and grabbing a pre-opened beer from a side table several steps behind me.

"Not to mention Jie or the Videsshai, "I summarized, "so what are we doing?"

"This is the part you're not going to like."

There wasn't a seat, so I leaned against the table and watched as Tash paced between pale blue and sickly green neon lights. "Are we supposed to have liked the other parts?"

"We're going there as Jie's people. To get them to let us take him back to Jie."

"You're right; I don't like it."

"Look, Carr'll be fine if he thinks he's gonna get something from Jie for doing this and-"

"Does Jie know about this plan?"

"I'm in Jie's good books right now, forgiveness over permission."

I frowned at that, Jie didn't really have good books, and if she did, someone doing well for themselves on Station 26 wouldn't be in them.

"Kingston, we're just debt collecting; I simply happen to be related to the idiot."

I looked over to Vicotria, who'd stopped moving around the room and was staring back at our conversation.

"Look I-"

"And if it doesn't work?" I cut her off before she could grovel. In most circumstances, I wouldn't have believed it, but this wasn't the first mess she'd gotten herself into over Collings.

"Then I gotta figure something else out, but it's gonna work. They know I work for Jie. Might be weird that Jie's sending me, but if we have a merc with us, one Carr knows, then we're golden."

She'd said that in a way that told me she was convincing herself more than she was convincing me.

I sighed.

Tash sighed.

Victoria waited.

"Vic," I opened, "it's my professional opinion that you wait here as opposed to joining in on Tash's stupid plan."

Victoria sneered at my comment. Was she playing a part, or did she not want to get left behind? "I agree with your conclusion, but should you get wounded on this side project of hers, I'll be removing all previous pay from your contract."

"No chance we're gonna get hurt, are we Tash?"

"No," she answered, lying as easy as she breathed.

"I'm unsure whether I should consider her judgment sound Kingston, but I have seen your abilities. Though I do have personal instructions for you if you would be so kind."

I didn't bother looking to Tash for permission before making my way to Victoria and letting her lean in. "This is dumb," she whispered.

"Most of my job is."

"You sure?"

"'Weren't you the one convincing me to do this?"

"But-"

"Too far in now Vic," I cut her off. It wasn't the whole truth, I was just too far in for me to back out. "Look, if I don't call you in a bit, call Jie, ask for a meeting or something."

"Is that better?"

"I don't know," I admitted, "but it's better than sitting around this dingy place if everything goes to shit."

"Fair."

"Stay safe," I said, "I'll come back, and we'll have the weapons systems we need to stop the Fotua- the Hunters from pulling the same tricks they did on Mythellion."

"Pretty sure I need to be the one who says 'stay safe.'

"Say it when I get back then," I added.

Victoria nodded to the door like I was dismissed, and I rolled my shoulders, pressing the blades into the Nurse's bag over my shoulders.

It was just a negotiation between ourselves and a violent loan shark. Nothing could go wrong.