Victoria had insisted on buying the Mako after testing it out. Part of me swelled with pride, knowing she had half-decent taste in weapons. The other half of me understood that Enzie had just fleeced her and didn't love the idea of Victoria finding the Mako 'cool.' It was a popular weapon in the galaxy because it was one of the most lethal. It wasn't a hobbyist's gun; it was a soldier's tool.

Then again, she was acting as one half of a merc job right now, so who was I to tell her that she needed to buy a worse gun?

That said, it wasn't like either of the guns we were carrying right now would have done anything if a shootout had broken out, considering we'd been stopped a hair from the Pent by the looming form of an Anteraxi rebel queen.

Sevita had come to say hello, though so far, she hadn't said anything. Instead, she'd just put herself between us and the exit and then waited.

Whether she was waiting for us to try something or just waiting overall, it was hard to tell.

That said, Victoria hadn't backed the hell down. She'd been the first one to take a step forward between us. That was some Fotuan bravado on display, she must have been used to being the tallest person in the room.

Right now, she certainly wasn't, though both women between me and the gate had a good head, at least on me.

After much too long, long enough to invite all sorts of trouble between us, Sevita spoke up. "Are you the one in charge?" she asked Victoria.

Victoria, to her credit, didn't turn to me for guidance. "Who's asking?"

"Moldieki," Sevita answered, "he wants to have a conversation with you."

"How'd the last conversation between you and Kingston go?"

"Both of us are alive. So, well enough for the people involved in this potential conversation."

"Where would we be meeting him?" Victoria asked.

"Down by the Crash within the Furnace."

I grimaced at that. Victoria wouldn't have context, but the Crash wasn't a good place to spend time. The Furnace was already a useless place for most of our goals, but the Crash itself had that nickname for a reason; we were just begging to become collateral damage down there.

But Victoria was in charge; at least she'd remember my rules about making connections here an-

"Lead the way; I'm sure we have time for a short conversation before our host demands us back."

Shit.

"Your host?"

"Lady Jie."

Double shit.

I didn't know enough about Anteraxi facial expressions to quite read Sevita's reaction to that comment, but she pointedly walked around Victoria instead of pushing through her. A subset of heads in the crowd followed Sevita as she walked; she was big and rare, and it would be impossible to sneak her anyway.

Thinking about it, she was good protection, but Moldieki was making a point by sending Sevita out into the station. If Jie wanted to know what the Viedesshai was doing, she just needed to find the one Rebel Queen on this side of the galaxy.

Like him arriving at the station at all, it was a power play.

With Sevita leading the way, walking through Station 26 was easier than it had ever been; even as the night dragged on and people got drunk, they understood that they needed to give the pairing of a Rebel Queen and a Fotuan a wide berth. I remembered what it had been like to be respected in the lofts.

One of the few good things about the whole Songlai business.

The gate to the Foundry sharply contrasted the glittering welcome to the Pent. The Foundry was caged off from the rest of the station, with guards waiting for passes standing at the ready to send anyone unauthorized back down into the darkness of eternal debt.

After all the Foundry was the one part of Station 26 without docks. Unless you came out of one of the six gates spread around the station, you needed to stay down there.

The only other way out was the airlock.

On the way to the Foundry, the machine scanned all of us and offered us a pass to return to the Loft. I sighed and accepted it before letting Sevita walk down the first steps so I could whisper to Victoria.

"Why are you agreeing with this?"

"You said she spared you."

"And her boss ordered Collings shot," I pointed out.

"Well, I figured we need a friend right now."

"What do you mean 'a friend'?"

"What happens if Tash can't fix our ship now?" Victoria asked. I frowned at her calling it 'our ship.' "You hate Jie; we need options."

I pointedly sighed so she could tell exactly what I thought of this idea. "Just make sure you know how to take the safety off the Mako," I hissed. She looked down at the gun at her side. "Bottom left, under the trigger."

"Got it."

"Fucking hell," I cursed before taking a step back to avoid giving Sevita too many reasons to glance back at us as we got into the lift. If I wasn't supposed to be playing the part of a hired gun to help Victoria cover, I would have told her that this wasn't happening.

Was it even going to be a cover here? Just acting like she had business on the station and I was guarding her? The longer we spent on here the more chance there was that we would get shot by someone who wasn't the Fotuan Hunters.

At least we were relatively safe from those guys on Station 26; it wasn't like anyone from here would reach out directly to the Meritocracy. If there were Fotuans on Station 26, which was unlikely, they certainly wouldn't be the rule-abiding kind.

I'd told myself that I wouldn't die down in the Foundry. Maybe this was why Dvall asked why I always needed to test fate.

It was everyone else around me doing that, dammit.

I took a deep last breath of clear air before pulling up my PA to tell it that I needed air shielding. As the doors opened and we entered into the Foundry proper, I could see the specs of ash and soot hitting my shield and sliding down it.

The Foundry didn't have a specific design or an aesthetic, but it did have a colour; molten red. The deepest part of Station 26 had been built originally as a forge of the trillions of pounds of slag that came through the station over a month, and the houses, shops and lives had been built around it. Apartments were stacked above rivers of burning rock. Shops were tucked under conveyors of stone. Walkways hovered above the massive gate-like jaws that spewed out and welcomed back to the myriad of mining ships that kept the heart beating.

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People down here, us included and especially, were in the way. This was a land of industry that mostly ignored the politics of Songlai unless you were sent down here because of them. That said, the Foundry certainly chewed people up and spat them out in a different way.

You had to appreciate all the unique and interesting ways you could die on Station 26. You could get shot, dipped in molten rock and thrown off a building, all in the same weekend.

We followed Sevita through the Foundry, lock-step and eyes forward. Even without my commentary, Victoria could sense that this wasn't the kind of place you wanted to stand around and sight-see in. You could see it in the half-glances of the people down here. Some of them were built for this kind of work. They stood tall and strong, but most of the people had been dragged down and twisted by the place. Their eyes were empty, they were hungry, and they would throw you off the walkway if they thought it could earn them some credits.

It might have seemed like a harsh judgment, but I'd worked with enough of them to know what went on down here, and it certainly hadn't gotten better under Jie. From the look of the people here, it'd gotten worse.

Sevita led us off to the side, close to one of the massive gates that locked the mining ships away when they didn't have a stationed pilot. I caught a glimpse of the other walkway, the people being shoved into the shops and strapped in.

Eyes forward.

"Why down here?" I asked as Sevita led us along another long walkway that brought us closer to the certral line of slag for this side of the ship. The translucent silver of shielding sparked and flashed above the molten rock as it bubbled and crashed against it, trying to escape its confines.

"It's comfortable for him," Sevita answered, "like home."

"Quite the home planet," I commented.

"The Ashiir world is dangerous," Sevita agreed, "but Moldieki is proud of that heritage."

I half snickered at that; by a lot of accounts, Earth was a deadly world too. Our axis was apparently strange in the galaxy and the way that our planet wobbled meant that we had more extreme temperatures across the surface than most places. Reportedly it got as cold as Ottinio and as hot as Ovigaia in some cities within the same year. That seemed impossible. Of course, the funnier part was that compared to Rebel Queens, Fotuans and many other species, the squishy humans and diminutive Ashiir came from deadly planets.

The galaxy had a sense of humour after all.

After a few more minutes on the winding paths, I started hearing the tell-tale echo of the Crash above us, the constant thunder and hammering of ships dropping off thousands of pounds of rock to powder in precious lithium. I winced at the loudest of the cracks and then the shattering but muffled sound of an explosion that followed.

Down went a ship. Collateral damage and a business writeoff for Jie for the sake of speed within the Crash.

Sevita didn't knock on the door of the broken-down apartment she'd brought us to, instead opening the door and ducking to avoid hitting the frame. I put my hand on the Hammerhead as we followed.

The inside of the building wasn't quite contrasted with the outside, but it had undoubtedly been fixed up since Moldieki had moved in. Most of the rust had been peeled off the walls and replaced with a myriad of screens. The furniture was worth more than the rent, and, most importantly, two windows had been added to ensure that there was a way to look out to the molten rock flowing by.

That last one was a strange aesthetic choice.

Sevita chittered once we were all in the room, and a door on the other side opened as Moldieki stepped into the room. This time he wasn't wearing a huge formal robe but instead a causal white sleeveless blouse that stood out stark against his pitch-black skin. He slipped into the room, almost skittering about, again contrasted to how he had been in the meeting.

Victoria had never seen him before, but I understood that this was a pointed show to put us at ease, somewhere I didn't want to be.

"I need to thank you, Kingston," he opened. Once again, the Ashiir's voice echoed in my chest, the foreign tongue threatening to overpower the translation, "for sparing my friend Sevita here. It would have been a tragedy to see her die over something as trivial as our… scuffle back in the Penthouse District."

"And everyone else?" I asked.

Moldieki considered his words momentarily, taking a seat and crossing his legs. Eventually, he spoke up again, "Expendable."

"Expendable?" Victoria asked.

"Not a specimen like Sevita. Shockingly rare, you know."

"So I've heard."

"But alas, let's not dwell too much on the past where we were on… non-aligned sides."

"Opposing?" I suggested.

"I wouldn't say we were all the way into opposing. We were simply on different sides of the equation. There were situations where all of us could have run away happy."

"Would have been nice."

"Well, everyone but Jie," Moldieki didn't really seem interested in my input, "after all I don't think your employer earlier tonight was working for her either way…" he drifted off instead of ending his sentence, almost testing the waters to see if the truth floated. His eyes flicked to Victoria for a moment, the burning coal flashed bright for a moment as he caught what we wanted. "So I take it you might not oppose a proposition."

"I think we've taken part in enough of those for the full evening that we've been in the city."

"And yet I'm going to suggest one anyway," Moldieki countered, "after all, you did walk all the way down here. Did you plan on walking in to avoid hearing me out?" Once there had been a long enough quiet, "Sevita, chairs for our guests, please. Having them loom over me makes me uneasy."

"I'd prefer not to," Victoria spoke up first. Good instincts. She was a smart girl sometimes.

"It's a show of trust to sit down in most cultures. Are you humans different?"

"No, but last time I had someone sitting down in the same room as you, they got shot."

Moldieki scoffed, and the poisonous red bots on his black skin flared, "Which one?"

"All of them," I suggested.

"Correction. Tash got away from us, which is the entire reason I'm reaching out to you," Moldieki explained, "Sevita told me you were employed, but, as long as it's not by Jie, I imagine we can have a conversation about an offer regarding the state of Station 26."

"And if it is Jie?" Victoria asked.

"It's not," Moldieki leaned in, "with how much time I've had we did some digging. I haven't been able to determine who has Kingston under their employ right now, but I know they're not on Station 26."

"Astute," I offered, even though he was wrong. I had to hand it to Victoria, she might have been wandering around in the dark when it came to living on the Rim, but so far, she'd been good about keeping her papers hard to track. Of course, that was likely why she'd had so long on Mythellion before the Hunters arrived.

"Which means that you should be open to an operation as long as it doesn't get in the way, as long as we're speaking the same language."

"And that language is?" Victoria asked.

"Credits," I cut in.

"Older and wiser, I see," Moldieki cackled, "you've probably seen how much money is washing around this Station, you might as well get a cut if you're in town."

"Planning on taking Jie's place?"

"Hardly. No. Trying to replace everything that woman has her blasted fingernails in would take too much of my precious time, but I want her to make some changes around here."

"Like?"

"Candidly, I do wish I could say I was coming from the place of a bleeding heart," Moldieki opened, "that I was approaching this from the perspective of someone who wanted to improve the lives of those on Station 26 by loosening Jie's iron grip."

"But," Victoria offered. She was resting a hand on the butt of the Mako. I couldn't tell whether she was nervous or if she just found that comfortable.

"But I couldn't give a damn how she treats some undercity folk as long as she opens the place up to investment," Moldieki admitted, "it would be hard for it to be worse so- if you're sentimental like that," he shrugged at the end as if the rest of the story would tell itself.

"What do we get out of this? I'm not here for charity."

"Here I was hoping to get you to agree for free," Moldikie sighed, "the first part of the offer is a relatively blank cheque. Washable numbers, but a predetermined amount of zeroes, you get that."

"Just money? We're not about to spin around on Jie for th-"

"And Kingston, I couldn't help but notice in my search that you'd managed to get yourself into recent trouble with the Fotuan Meritocracy. Marked for extradition from their allies even. Must have done something spectacular."

What? Fucking seriou- I looked over to Victoria, who was looking at her floor or the Mako. I couldn't tell which.

"Was that news? Sorry if I'm sharing something you didn't want to hear, but I figure it's good that you know."

"What are you suggesting you do about it?"

"Call in a few favours," he offered as a non-commitment, "I have friends in high places along some of the ally species. Not the Fotuans themselves, mind you, but unless you assassinated someone important, I doubt we'd need more than my sway." He let the offer sit for a moment before turning to Victoria, "As for you, I'm sorry to say I don't have a similar offer, so you'll need to accept your partner getting more benefit from this."

"What do you need from us?" I asked. My fingers felt cold despite it being almost boiling down here. I was utterly fucked as a merc.

"We can talk about that at length at some point," Moldieki offered, "but what we really need for the moment is just knowing that you're willing to offer us a helping hand when push comes to shoving."

I glanced over at Victoria, and she was staring at me with wide eyes. Maybe she didn't fully understand Moldieki's point, but she certainly understood that it was bad.

"Fine, we're considering it."

"Good to hear," Moldieki, "because I couldn't help but notice that Jie holds you in high regard and might agree to a personal meeting as long as you're involved."

"Doubt it."

Moldieki smiled, "We'll be in touch."