Max lived in a crashed cargo hauler.
The ship had gone down five years ago, during a pirate raid. The Federation left it to rot. Max moved in the next week.
Kay found the wreck at the far edge of the slums, half-buried in trash. A flickering light glowed through a cracked viewport.
He knocked on the hull.
"Go away."
"Max. The hermit sent me."
Silence. Then a thud. The hatch groaned open.
Max was lean and scarred, with the tired eyes of a man who'd seen too much. He wore an old Federation flight jacket, the patches torn off. A bottle dangled from his fingers.
"Which hermit?"
"The one in the cargo container. Gray beard. Military coat."
Max's eyes narrowed. "Old Chen?"
"Didn't catch his name."
Max studied Kay for a long moment. Then he grunted. "Come in. Don't touch anything."
The inside of the crashed ship was a mess of wires, tools, and empty ration packs. But Kay noticed the engine in the back—not scavenged, but maintained. Clean. Modified.
Max could still fly.
"What do you want?" Max asked, dropping onto a torn seat.
"I need a ship. To the asteroid belt."
Max laughed. It was a short, ugly sound. "You need a death wish. The belt is pirate territory. Radiation pockets. Karl family patrols. No one goes there without a full military escort."
"I have a reason."
"I don't care about your reason."
Kay pulled out the crystal. It pulsed blue in the dim light.
Max went still.
"That's..." He sat up. "Where did you get that?"
"From my father. Kane. He served with Old Chen."
Max's face changed. The sarcasm faded. "Kane's boy?" He rubbed his jaw. "Old Chen mentioned you once. Said you had fire." He stared at the crystal. "That's a gate key."
"You know about the relic?"
"Everyone in the old circles knows. No one's stupid enough to go after it." Max stood up, pacing. "The Karl family's been hunting that thing for a decade. They've lost three ships. Twenty men. And you want to waltz in with a flying trash can?"
"Your ship isn't a trash can."
Max stopped. "No. It's not." He turned. "But it's all I have. If I lose it, I'm done. No more runs. No more credits. Nothing."
"We'll pay you."
"With what? Wood carvings?"
Kay met his eyes. "Half of whatever we find."
Max laughed again, but this time there was something else underneath. Interest. "You're serious."
"I'm desperate. There's a difference."
Max looked at the crystal. Then at Kay's bruised face. Then at the door, as if he could see through it to the slums beyond.
"Half," he said finally.
"Half."
"And I don't take orders. I fly. You ride. If I say run, we run."
"Deal."
Max stuck out his hand. Kay shook it.
---
Ella was already at the ship when they arrived.
It was a battered Mule-class transport—boxy, rusted, held together by spite and good engineering. But the engines hummed. The lights worked.
"Max, meet Ella," Kay said. "She keeps things running."
"I heard about you," Max said. "The mechanic who fixed a grav-drive with a spoon."
Ella grinned. "It was a fork. And it worked." She tapped the hull. "She's fueled and ready. But we have a problem."
"What?"
"Karl's family tightened patrols. There's a corvette orbiting the belt's approach vector. They're scanning every ship that comes within fifty klicks."
Max cursed. "Which corvette?"
"*Shadowblade*. Karl family private vessel. Heavy sensors. Light guns, but enough to turn us into confetti."
Kay looked at the sky. Somewhere up there, the *Shadowblade* was waiting. "Can we go around?"
"Not without adding six hours to the trip," Max said. "We don't have that kind of fuel."
"Then we go through."
Max raised an eyebrow. "You have a plan?"
Kay touched the crystal in his pocket. "I have a talent."
---
Liftoff was rough.
The Mule shuddered, coughed, then punched through the slum's dirty atmosphere. Kay's stomach dropped. Beside him, Ella strapped into a jump seat, her hands dancing over a portable scanner.
"Climbing to twenty thousand," Max reported. "Atmosphere clear. No pursuit yet."
"Yet," Ella muttered.
The ship broke through the clouds. Space opened up—black, endless, terrifying. And there, in the distance, a speck of light that grew as they watched.
The *Shadowblade*.
"Contact," Ella said. "Range, forty klicks. They're moving to intercept."
"Can we outrun them?" Kay asked.
Max snorted. "In this rust bucket? Against a corvette? No."
"Then we hide."
"Space doesn't have hiding spots."
Kay pointed at the scanner. "That debris field. Old mining station wreckage. We fly through it, break line of sight."
Max looked. "That field is tight. One wrong move and we're scrap."
"One right move and we're through."
Max grinned despite himself. "You're crazy. I like it." He shoved the throttle forward. "Hold on."
The Mule surged.
The *Shadowblade* lit up its comm array. A voice crackled over the radio. "Unidentified vessel, heave to for inspection. You are entering restricted space."
"Restricted?" Max muttered. "Since when?"
"Since Karl's family decided it was," Ella said.
Kay grabbed the radio. "This is a civilian transport. We're on a direct course to the outer belt for salvage operations. No violation."
"Salvage denied. Turn back or we open fire."
Kay looked at Max. "Can you get us into the debris field before they shoot?"
"Maybe."
"Good enough."
Max dove.
The *Shadowblade* fired a warning shot—a laser pulse that split the darkness a hundred meters off their starboard wing. The Mule shook.
"That was a warning," Ella said. "Next one won't be."
"Keep them guessing," Kay said.
He closed his eyes.
His spatial talent was weak. At 0.22 battle energy, he couldn't bend much. But he didn't need to bend. He only needed to confuse.
He reached out.
The space around the *Shadowblade* was full of sensor beams—invisible threads of energy scanning for heat signatures, engine trails, metal hulls. Kay couldn't block them. But he could twist them. Just a little. Just enough to make the sensors see something that wasn't there.
The *Shadowblade*'s guns went silent.
"Sir, we're getting ghost returns," a voice said over the radio. "Multiple contacts. Could be debris. Could be decoys."
"Focus," another voice snapped. "Don't let them—"
Kay twisted harder.
His nose started bleeding.
"Kay!" Ella grabbed his arm.
"I'm fine."
The *Shadowblade*'s sensors overloaded. For three seconds—precious, critical seconds—they saw twenty ships instead of one.
Max punched the throttle.
The Mule screamed into the debris field. Broken metal flashed past the viewport. Kay opened his eyes, gasping. Blood dripped onto his shirt.
"Status?" he asked.
Ella stared at her scanner. "They lost us. The debris field is scrambling their sensors." She let out a breath. "We're clear."
Max laughed. A real laugh this time. "Kid, that was insane."
"It worked."
"Yeah, but next time, warn me before your nose starts bleeding on my console."
Kay wiped his face. His head pounded. But the crystal in his pocket was warm. Proud, almost.
"We're not safe yet," Ella said quietly. She was looking at something on her scanner. A small blip, attached to their hull.
"What's that?"
"Tracking beacon. Military grade. It wasn't there before we launched."
Kay's stomach dropped. "Karl's family planted it."
"Must have been during the inspection. Or..." Ella frowned. "Or it's been here longer."
Max's face went pale. "They've been watching me."
The three of them sat in silence as the Mule drifted through the debris field.
The beacon blinked. Red. Accusing.
"Can you disable it?" Kay asked.
"Not without shutting down half the ship. It's wired deep." Ella looked up. "But if they planted this, they knew we were coming. Which means..."
"Which means the relic isn't a secret anymore," Max finished. "Karl's family is already there."
Kay stared at the blinking light.
Five days until the exam.
A relic that could save him.
And a family that wanted him dead.
He touched the crystal. "How long until we reach the belt?"
"Six hours," Max said. "If we're lucky."
"Then go faster."
---
**(End of Chapter 4)**