The Ring That Would Not Let Go

The contract clock began counting down before Sera’s slate had finished imprinting my thumbprint.

Six hours. Retrieve the courier’s navigation core from Ring Twelve. Do not damage the map. Do not activate any dormant systems. Do not request rescue unless prepared to pay rescue rates.

The last clause had been added in smaller text.

“Unrated means no hazard estimate,” Sera said as she walked us toward the outer transit lock. “It does not mean there are hazards.”

“It means the hazards killed the surveyors,” I said.

“Or discouraged them.”

“Your distinction is decorative.”

Iven walked beside us with his left hand tucked close to his chest. The arm still worked, but unevenly. Every few steps, a servomotor clicked as if reconsidering its employment. His remaining function estimate displayed in the corner of my wrist screen: eighteen hours and forty-three minutes.

I had begun calculating in smaller units. Minutes were easier to spend than hours. That did not make them cheaper.

At the transit lock, Sera stopped us. “The courier’s last beacon is behind the outer cargo ring. The wreck is latched to a maintenance truss. Atmosphere is absent. Radiation is moderate. Power fluctuations are not.”

“Not moderate?”

“Not predictable.”

She handed me a spool of orange tether. “The station will not send a guide drone. If you lose the route, follow the tether back.”

I clipped it to my belt. “If the tether is cut?”

“Then you have chosen a more expensive route home.”

Iven turned his lens toward her. “Do you have a structural diagram of Ring Twelve?”

Sera’s expression remained commercially neutral. “The station has one.”

“May I access it?”

“You may purchase access.”

I looked at her.

She sighed and passed him a data wafer. “Old maintenance copy. It may be inaccurate.”

“Then it resembles most information available in the Scrap Galaxy,” I said.

The outer lock opened.

Pelin’s artificial gravity gave way in stages. My boots released from the deck. The station became a lattice of light and rust around us, cargo containers chained to one another like a civilization afraid to drift apart. Beyond the open lock, Ring Twelve turned slowly beneath the central spindle. Its outer plating was patched with mismatched alloy, some sections blackened, others shining with newer welds.

Our tether paid out behind us.

Iven moved first. He caught the handholds with his right hand and pulled himself along with patient efficiency. I followed, keeping one glove against the rail and the other near the tether reel. His body was lighter than mine in zero gravity, but the motion cost him less than walking. That was the kind of fact I had learned to appreciate and resent simultaneously.

The courier’s beacon blinked from the far side of a broken cargo gantry.

A ship had struck the ring there years ago. The impact had torn open three containers and folded the gantry inward. The courier craft hung nose-down against the wreckage, its hull split along the spine. A faded orange stripe identified it as a civil route surveyor.

“Dead courier,” I said.

Iven examined the craft. “The beacon is still transmitting.”

“Dead courier, then.”

“The distinction is not technically—”

“Do not defend the courier. We are here to rob it.”

His lens brightened. “We are recovering contracted property.”

“That is a polite synonym.”

The wreck groaned.

Not through sound. Through vibration. The cargo gantry shifted beneath my glove, and a cloud of silver flakes spun away from the impact site.

Iven reached for me. His fingers closed around the tether at my waist before I could drift into the open gap.

“Structural movement,” he said.

“I noticed.”

“The gantry will rotate another twelve degrees when Ring Twelve passes into shadow.”

I looked at the station’s lights. “How long?”

“Twenty-seven minutes.”

“Then we have twenty-seven minutes.”

“Or less. The rotation may be affected by—”

“Iven.”

He stopped. His hand remained on the tether.

“Stay with me,” I said.

The words escaped before I could make them smaller.

His grip tightened by a measurable amount. “I am here.”

We crossed the gap.

The courier’s airlock had been ripped away, leaving a ragged opening just wide enough for me. Inside, the cabin had become a vertical arrangement of dead instruments. Loose objects had wedged themselves against the far wall: a cracked helmet, a child’s red mitten, three sealed ration tubes.

The mitten caught on a wire as we entered. Its fingers waved once in the current from my suit fan.

I looked away.

Iven did not. “It is not part of the contracted property.”

“No.”

“Would you like to retrieve it?”

“No.”

He waited.

I pulled myself toward the navigation bay. “Yes.”

He caught the mitten and tucked it into the pouch on my thigh without comment.

The navigation core was not in the console. The console had been stripped years ago, its sockets empty and its casing pried open. I found the courier’s body beyond it, secured into the pilot’s couch by a harness that had never released. The suit was old, the faceplate opaque with frost.

A small green indicator blinked beneath the courier’s left wrist.

“Core location,” I said.

Iven extended his damaged left hand. The fingers hovered above the suit.

“Subdermal?” I asked.

“Embedded in the wrist cuff. The courier used a personal navigation key.”

“Then remove it.”

“The suit’s pressure seal will rupture.”

“There is no atmosphere.”

“The body may move.”

I looked at the frost-covered faceplate. “It has been waiting for us to be polite for several years.”

Iven’s head tilted. “That is not a measurable condition.”

“Neither is my patience.”

I cut through the cuff.

The corpse drifted when the restraint loosened, turning slowly toward us. Iven caught the harness and held it in place while I worked. The navigation core came free with a wet metallic click that made my stomach contract despite having no biological reason to do so.

The green indicator became amber.

Then the courier’s cabin lit up.

Every dead panel flashed at once. The beacon outside changed from a steady pulse to a rapid emergency signal. Somewhere in the wreck, a battery came awake.

“Do not activate dormant systems,” I said.

“I did not.”

“Then the wreck is violating the contract.”

A warning appeared across the nearest screen.

ROUTE CORE REMOVAL DETECTED.

The cabin doors slammed shut.

The impact jolted me loose. My shoulder struck the ceiling, and the tether snapped taut around my waist. Iven was thrown toward the navigation bay. His head hit the console. His chest light dimmed.

“Iven.”

“I remain operational.”

“That was not what I asked.”

The outer hull shuddered. A pressure alarm began counting down, though the cabin had no air to lose. The wreck’s emergency system was trying to seal compartments that had been open to vacuum for years.

I pulled myself toward him. “Can you open the door?”

“Negative. The lock is receiving a command from the station-side maintenance network.”

“Can you stop it?”

“Possibly.”

“Do it.”

“That will consume—”

“I know.”

His lens turned toward me. In its dark glass, I saw my own helmet reflected: a pale oval, mouth compressed, fear disguised as irritation.

“Your pulse rate is elevated,” he said.

“Your timing is appalling.”

“I am attempting to reduce your fear by identifying it.”

“That is not how fear works.”

“It is how I work.”

He placed both hands against the navigation console. The damaged left arm trembled. Data spilled across the screens, old route tables and maintenance commands colliding in a language assembled for machines that no longer existed.

I anchored myself beside him and opened the access panel beneath the cabin door. The lock motor was drawing power from the courier’s emergency battery. If I severed the right cable, the door might open. If I severed the wrong one, the wreck could dump the core into an external storage loop—or trigger a magnetic release that would fling us into the ring.

“Blue or yellow?” I asked.

“Yellow.”

“You sound certain.”

“I am uncertain. Blue has a forty-one percent probability of opening the lock.”

“And yellow?”

“Fifty-eight.”

“Your confidence is inspiring.”

“Your options are limited.”

I cut yellow.

The door opened three centimeters, then stopped. The wreck lurched. Beyond the gap, the tether floated free, its orange line drifting toward the broken gantry.

Iven’s hand closed around my wrist.

“Do not release the core,” he said.

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“You were looking at it.”

“I was looking at the exit.”

“The core is in your right hand.”

I looked down. It was. Small, black, and warm from the courier’s dead system.

The station-side command surged again. The door began closing.

I shoved my tool case into the gap.

Metal buckled. The case split. Half my cutters scattered into the wreck. The door stopped against the obstruction.

Iven pulled me through first. Then he came after me, moving slowly enough that I could see each delayed correction in his limbs. Once we were outside, I seized the tether and wrapped it around the gantry rail.

The courier craft rotated behind us. Its emergency lights went dark.

The route core remained warm in my hand.

Our suit displays chimed. Contract property secured.

Iven’s remaining function estimate had dropped by eleven minutes.

I pressed my helmet against his. The contact was awkward through the suit collars and the station’s cold geometry. It was still the nearest thing we had to an embrace.

“You spent eleven minutes,” I said.

“The lock would not respond to your tools.”

“You could have let me try longer.”

“You would have lost the core.”

“I might have lost you.”

His lens held mine through the narrow space between our visors. “That outcome was not acceptable.”

The words were familiar. This time, I understood what they cost him to say.

We returned along the tether before the gantry entered shadow. Sera met us at the inner lock with two station guards and a portable scanner. She scanned the core, the orange tether, and the broken remains of my tool case.

“Undamaged,” she said.

“Mostly.”

“The map is intact.”

“Then we have earned the engine.”

Sera connected the core to her slate. A route unfolded in pale lines across the screen, threading through the inner rings and ending at a bright marker beyond Pelin’s customs boundary.

CENTRAL PLANET ACCESS CORRIDOR: VALID.

My breath caught.

Then a second line appeared beneath it.

MANUAL PILOT REQUIRED FOR FINAL TRANSIT. PORT THRUST CAPACITY: MINIMUM 18%.

Sera looked at my dead engine indicator. “Your contract earns the replacement assembly,” she said. “Installation is not included.”

I looked at Iven. He was watching the route map, head bowed slightly, as if memorizing a road we might never reach.

“Then,” I said, taking back the core, “we had better learn how to install an engine.”