Within the scarred metal walls of the Fire Witch's rear airlock, Jinx checked the settings on the weapon she held: an Ogon Titan-bore shotgun loaded with explosive shells. A Fulmin Hand Hammer pistol sat holstered on her thigh, also carrying serious 'frag you' ammo. Another was hidden in a utility pouch at her lower back, against the spine of her armour, a midnight-blue shell of Zex and composite.

Every nanometre of her was covered in Tras' specialty goods. Grenades hung at her hip and across her chest. Spare ammo crowded the pockets of her battle suit. Plaz blades were concealed in specialised sheaths at the back of one boot and under her arm. Cutting-edge prototype tech, hot off the worktable of some dodgy wep-tech developer, graced her left wrist: yet to be proven, possibly unstable personal shield tech.

The device blended seamlessly with her suit's wrist com, looking harmless enough. But punch it and she'd launch an e-mag shield, along with a few nasty bells and whistles. Charge life: five minutes. Reliability: highly questionable.

Tras had also provided military-class meds and stimulants for her suit's biosystems, including anti-venom for the roaches' paralytic.

It was clear he'd been planning to go to war well before he'd got any message about Soh.

Jinx drew in a breath, gripped her shotgun, and said a prayer for her friend. For everyone. The odds of anyone surviving the coming exchange were next to nil. But backing out was now an impossibility.

Five minutes ago, the Fire Witch had externally docked with a class five Xykeree Hydra.

The massive squid-like ship had been waiting like a spectre behind the ice ball that was Gosos. As a carrier designed to transport short-range attack ships, drone fighters, and an army of ground troops for planetary attacks, the Hydra was overkill for a civilian hostage exchange.

So far, no hostile moves had been made. The ship had been dark on approach, its systems all but shut down. The only sign of activity had been a string of instructions from the ship's docking computer.

The huge, nightmare ship might as well have been deserted.

Jinx's intestines knotted, the sly greeting she, Rolli, and Olsen had got on the Bullhead rising to mind. Dark corridors. Suffocating heat and decomp. A faint electric hum that sharpened as shadows crept in.

She felt the same eerie vibration now, buried in the unnatural quiet of the ship.

The Hydra wasn't dead or sleeping; she was waiting.

A predator crouched in the dark.

Pulse a hard punch, Jinx looked past her mask's HUD to Tras and Dorf. They stood monitoring the hatch camera feed as the two ships finalised docking. As wep-tech traders, it was their business to look antisocial, but loaded up with lethal hardware, Tras in his deep purple battle suit, Dorf in a well-scarred red one, the pair looked like Hell's own motherfuckers.

Eyeing them, Jinx felt only more dread. There could only be one outcome to this.

"Dorf, bring down the lights," Tras ordered.

Suffocating nerves hit. Fighting them, Jinx focused on her tech. The plan was to adjust their human equipment and senses to the Xykeree's dark world. As the airlock dimmed, she lowered her HUD's brightness, then deployed the night-vision mist Tras had supplied. The retina stimulant hit with a faint sting inside her mask, but everything brightened within seconds. She'd been blind on the Bullhead. This time, she wouldn't be helpless in the dark, even if she lost her low-light tech.

She'd be able to see exactly what came at her.

Her heart skipped a beat. Another.

Tras glanced over his shoulder, his mask black, in night mode. "How you doing, Koel?"

"Ready to mulch bugs." A lie. She wanted to vomit. Her recall kept flashing up Soh's face and images of decomposing bodies.

She touched a grenade at her hip: reassurance. If she had to die, it wouldn't be in a larder, drowning in alien digestive juices.

"Heads up," Dorf warned. "Roach hatch is sliding clear."

Jinx's breath stalled. Her heart boomed. This was happening. Was she really doing this?

For a moment, fear blanked her mind. But it was too late for retreat.

"Infrared's showing—" Dorf jolted back from the screen. "Fuck me."

A familiar silver humanoid face screamed silently on the external vid feed.

"It's an andropod." Jinx steeled herself and moved to the hatch. "The roaches' idea of an interspecies liaison." Ignoring the denials shrieking in her head, she lowered her shotgun and propped it against a bulkhead. "We give them a chance to make a clean exchange. Keep your weapons pointed at the deck. Comply with all reasonable instructions. Your only goal is to get Soh and get the hell out of here. No revenge or hero bullshit."

Tras flexed his fingers on his battle rifle, his expression lost behind his darkened face shield. "If there was another way to play this, Koel..."

"Save the sentimental BS, Tras. You'd have put a bullet in my brain years ago if you could've gotten away with it."

"Could have, pu'ta. And would have eventually."

A crackle of coms static. The andropod's drainpipe voice reverberated through the airlock. "Human vessel, verify communication link."

Tras eyed the screen then turned his darkened mask back to Jinx as if seeking confirmation one last time that she—that they all—were doing this.

On the scale of awkward, the silence that fell reached excruciating.

Tras muttered a guttural curse then stabbed the hatch's com icon. "Human vessel acknowledges. The item you ordered is ready for delivery, pending receipt of payment."

"Release vessel hatch," the andropod ordered. "Deliver human female Jinsin Koel. Non-compliance will be considered hostile action."

"You ain't seen hostile yet, roach." Tras flicked off the safety on his rifle. "Let me clarify the situation. I'm a business man. This is a business deal. I don't give a fuck about anything but getting paid. Now, show me you can afford the merchandise and I'll hand it over. If you don't, I eject your merchandise into the void."

"Termination of human female will be considered hostile action," came the predictable response. "Comply or your vessel will be boarded."

"Not before I shoot the 'human female'," Tras countered. "Save the void shit, insect. You want the fucking package or not?"

Silence greeted his words. The Hydra's electric hum increased, raising gooseflesh on Jinx's arms. The hive stirring—communicating. Just like when she'd negotiated with the andropod on the Bullhead.

Recalling how that had gone, she slid a hand to her holstered pistol.

"Maintain position," the andropod finally responded. "Hold one Earth-standard minute." It vanished from the vid feed.

Tras looked back to Jinx. "Think they'll honour the deal?"

"Possibly." Breathing deep, she didn't allow herself to think about what happened next either way. "They're logical life forms. They've nothing to lose by making the swap. They can shoot you out of the void afterwards."

"They can try." Hissing out an oath, Tras turned to face her fully. "You'll need to cooperate. Hand over your obvious weapons. Don't give them an excuse to use their paralytic. The second you go down, they'll strip you of your tech. You need to stay functional as long as possible."

"Why? You going to send in the cavalry?" Her heart lost a beat at the thought of trying to survive long enough for rescue. Setting a stack of grenades to zero fuse time seemed like a better option. In fact, if Tras was going to have any hope of getting clear, she'd probably have to threaten to take herself out. "Tras, the Hydra will skip system the moment the bastards have what they want."

The weapons trader shook his head. "Its main drives are powered down to help hide its presence. It'll take some time to prime engines for a high-warp jump. You've got about twenty minutes from the time they ramp up systems. And the cavalry is most likely on its way. That void hound who detained you isn't slow, and any security breach on a base ship will spin the Space Corps into high gear."

Jinx closed her eyes, resisting false hope. Shau had ordered her to the brig. Kaplan was in the middle of a personal crisis. Her presence on the Silver Dawn might not even have been missed yet. And when it was, people might think she'd voluntarily jumped ship.

She'd planned to.

"We got movement." Dorf's warning snapped everyone's attention back to the hatch vid feed.

A face emerged from the gloom—not the andropod's.

"Soh!" Jinx lunged for the screen. Blood still caked her friend's hair and streaked her orange overalls. Her face was bruised. Her eyes stared blank, hollowed by shock. But she was alive.

That was all that mattered.

Jinx ignored the blood-chilling creep of the Hydra's drone as it rose again. With trembling fingers, she ran a final system check on her battle suit. The swap was happening. Had to happen.

"No roach is close to her." Tras scanned the external sensor readings. "We just need to check for—" He cut off as Dorf triggered the hatch. "What the fuck, Dorf? We haven't confirmed she's—"

Soh all but fell into the airlock.

Jinx helped Tras catch her. "Shit, Soh. Are you—?"

Something clunked against the deck.

Jinx ripped her gaze from her friend's dull stare, her stomach dropping. The memory of another dead gaze—that of the med-tech who'd gassed her the day before—bloomed just as Tras shouted, "Grenade!"