Maintenance sub-A was colder than the rest of the Hold, dim emergency strips leaving most of the tight corridor in shadow. Pipes clung to the walls in thick bundles, dripping condensation that made Akiko's claws click on the grate when she flexed her fingers.

Raya walked close beside her, shoulder nearly brushing, both of them quiet. They didn't talk much when they were moving toward something unknown, they didn't need to.

When they emerged into the loading bay, the air changed.

It was vast by the standards of the residential areas of the Hold, with high arches crisscrossed by old cargo winches and a few patched floodlights that painted everything in uneven pools of stark white and deep gloom.

The main loading doors stood sealed for now, frost feathering along the seams. Just in front of them, a battered six-wheeled transport squatted on heavy suspension, its hull a patchwork of repair plates.

A woman was perched halfway up the side ladder, half her body jammed into an open conduit with a welding torch. Sparks spat across her shoulder as she swore under her breath.

"Maevi," Raya supplied in a low voice. "Tech specialist. If it runs on borrowed time and she can't fix it, nobody can."

Maevi kicked the panel, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a threat. Then thumped back down the ladder and spotted them, eyes lighting with frank curiosity at Akiko's suit.

Off to the side, a thinner figure ran a portable scanner over stacked med crates, lips moving as she ticked through an inventory list. Her eyes were dark, shadowed.

"That's Jyn," Raya added. "Crew medic. Careful, she'll mother you one second and cut your throat the next if you flinch wrong."

Akiko's gaze flicked to the biggest of the bunch, a man leaning against a crate with one hand always near the heavy impact tool on his hip. His stare tracked Akiko and Raya from the moment they stepped in, not hostile, just measuring.

"Roran," Raya murmured. "Muscle. Not half as dumb as he likes people to think."

Another woman sat nearby on an old crate, a tablet balanced on one knee as she swiped through route maps and hazard logs.

"Sera," Raya said simply. "She keeps them from getting lost, or from taking contracts that get them all killed."

And finally, by the rear ramp of the transport stood a man older than the rest, gray threading through close-cropped hair, lines carved deep around his eyes and mouth. His posture had an old naval stiffness that didn't quite fit the scuffed civilian jacket.

"Vashri," Raya finished. Her voice was careful there. "He's the one running this crew."

Akiko let her gaze linger a beat on Vashri. On the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth when his eyes caught her twin tails. On the way his shoulders locked tight under her scrutiny. Then she tilted her head, ears twitching slightly.

"Vashri, right?" Her grin was just a little too sharp. "I hear you're our ride out into the cold."

Vashri's eyes lingered on Akiko's tails a moment too long, then drifted up to her ears. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough-edged, carrying a fatigue that sounded older than his years.

"You're the vent girl, aren't you? The one who burned half the Hold and saved it all in the same breath."

Akiko's voice came light, but dry. "Depends who you ask."

"That's the trouble, isn't it?" Vashri said, tone gone dry. "People like you, and people like the last fox who talked me into a job, they always leave a story behind. Not all of us are lucky enough to still have ships to sail on after."

Something old coiled in Akiko's chest, and she gave a dry little laugh internally. He didn't mean it literally. There were no other kitsune haunting these void-frozen colonies. Just foxes in the old sense. Tricksters. Bad omens. Some things never changed, no matter what world you landed in.

"Don't worry, Captain," she said, grin twisting sharp.

A memory came to her like brine in the air: rigging snapping overhead, Kaede's voice cutting through the din —"Hold on!"—the wheel bucking in Akiko's grip as she spun it hard, and the hull tearing open beneath the weight of the massive serpent that had assaulted the ship.

A different life, a different time. Back then, she'd thought the risk was worth it. But that moment, her choice, still pulsed like foxfire under her ribs, too hot to forget.

"I've already lost one ship to the charms of a world that didn't forgive curiosity," she finished, voice gone dry. "Not looking to make it two."

Vashri studied her a beat longer, then gave a short nod, more resignation than approval. "Load up, then. We've got daylight to burn, and the less of it we waste, the better our odds of seeing another."

Akiko inclined her head just enough to count as agreement, then stepped past him toward the waiting transport. The ramp was old, scoring on the metal that suggested too many rough landings, edges crusted with frost where the Hold's damp air met colder steel.

Raya's hand brushed briefly at the small of her back as they went up, a quiet steadying touch. Together they ducked inside.

The interior was cramped, more cargo hauler than passenger rig, with narrow benches bolted along the walls and battered lockers tucked beneath. The air smelled faintly of coolant and stale recirculation.

Akiko ducked her head under a low crossbeam, twin tails brushing cold metal, and prowled toward the rear. Raya followed close behind, trailing fingertips along the bench edge to steady herself when the floor vibrated under some test of the engine.

Maevi was already inside, perched on one of the benches, boots braced wide, eyes locked on Akiko with a kind of hungry fascination. The moment Akiko settled into a corner, Maevi half-pounced, elbows on her knees.

"So that suit, how the hell are you running a mana sink into the spinal conduit? You've gotta be cheating the flow regulators somehow, or your intake would melt—"

Akiko's ears twitched. Her grin stayed lazy, but something sharper uncoiled under her skin. Not many in this system knew the words, let alone well enough to string them together like that. Haven's best barely had crude resonance arrays and shield lattices that sputtered under pressure. None of it clean, none of it clever.

So how did this slip of a tech rat…

Her gaze drifted, found the locker behind Maevi's seat. Half open, stuffed with disassembled Haven equipment. Delicate emitter plates stacked on coils of old insulated tubing. A scavenger's playground, picked from dozens of carcasses. She probably knew more about Haven's magitech than Haven did.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Maevi," Sera cut in dryly from across the aisle. She didn't even look up from her tablet. "Let the new passenger breathe before you start dismantling her with questions."

Maevi's mouth popped open, then snapped shut with a tiny offended squeak. She leaned back, though her eyes stayed glued to Akiko's shoulders, practically vibrating with unasked questions.

Akiko let out a short laugh, shoulders relaxing into the bench. The energy was so close to Anna's. All sharp edges, bright eyes, half-tamed by whoever kept the ship actually flying. It had been what… two months… maybe three, since she'd last seen the kid on the Sovereign. Felt longer.

Her gaze drifted forward where Raya had settled, low voice carrying as she talked to Jyn. Something about wound closure under bad pressure seals, sharing quiet horror stories that made them both smile a little too tightly.

Akiko's grin softened at the edges. It was good, seeing Raya find someone who understood her brand of scars. Even if it also left a small, stupid pang under her ribs, the same one that always flared when she was reminded there were rooms in Raya's world Akiko didn't quite have keys to.

Then the transport lurched. Old shocks squealed under them, the floor plates giving a shudder that rolled up through Akiko's boots. The outer loading doors groaned closed, and just like that, they were rolling out into the frost.

She let her balance shift with the motion, one hand brushing the overhead pipe as she moved down the narrow aisle. The rear benches were already filling with low conversation: Raya's soft voice mixing with Jyn's sharper accent, Maevi's boot tapping an impatient rhythm on the deck.

Akiko drifted forward, drawn by a restless need to see the path ahead. Maybe just to breathe somewhere Raya's quiet laughter didn't tangle around her heart quite so tightly.

The forward compartment was even tighter.

Akiko ducked through the low hatch and found herself practically nose to shoulder with Vashri, who was hunched over the manual controls, hands gloved and steady despite the old transport's occasional shivers.

It struck her all at once, how each step in her strange new life had brought her into smaller and smaller spaces.

The Sovereign's bridge had been vast by comparison, wide banks of consoles and crisp uniforms that rarely brushed against each other unless duty demanded it. The Driftknight's cockpit, that had been more like a shared closet, tight enough that Kara or Tanya had always been an elbow's distance away, breath fogging the same thin strip of recycled air.

But this... this was little more than a cab, just two chairs, pilot and copilot, and barely enough room to stand behind them without bumping the headrest.

She braced a hand on the low bulkhead, steadying herself as the transport hit another patch of uneven ice. Behind her, she felt more than heard someone approaching. Sera, datapad already cradled against her chest, the practiced flick of her eyes saying move or get stepped on.

Akiko eased aside, leaning one hip into the wall. Sera slipped past with a small, distracted nod, dropped into the copilot's seat, and started punching in bearing adjustments.

Akiko exhaled slow. The compartment felt warmer already, the faint scuff of Sera's boots against the paneling, Vashri's quiet muttering to the engine readouts.

A smaller crew. A tighter room. Somehow it always ended up like this, pressed close with strangers until either trust or ruin did the final sorting.

"Adjust starboard four degrees," she murmured. Her eyes flicked over to Vashri. "That should put us on the track in another thirty klicks."

Vashri grunted, hands flexing on the controls. "Long way to go for a maybe."

Akiko tilted her head, tails flicking behind her. "Not just any debris field, then."

Sera's mouth ticked up at one corner. "Small piece of Haven orbital. Station maintenance cradle that got clipped during the fireworks couple weeks back. Most of it burned up, but some big chunks made it down."

"Means there's a lot of eyes on it," Vashri muttered. "Including the kind that'd rather gut us and take the haul."

Sera didn't look away from her readings. "Except we've got something special. One of those chunks lit up a distress beacon when it hit atmosphere. Still active. Means there's power. Maybe intact supplies. Maybe a blackbox. Maybe—"

"Maybe someone still breathing," Vashri finished. His voice was flat. Not hopeful. Just a tired man who'd seen enough salvages turn sideways.

Akiko's ears twitched. "And that complicates your salvage how?"

Vashri shot her a look that landed somewhere between annoyance and faint respect. "Only way salvage is clean is if it's dead. Someone alive out there? That's someone with a claim. Or a plea for help we're obligated to answer, which means less time picking over the good bits before every other scav in the system catches the signal."

"And if they're the sort who'd rather we weren't there?" Sera added quietly. "Could be ex-Haven. Could be pirates hoping for a lift. Could be desperate. Desperate's worse."

Akiko leaned back against the side console, feeling the subtle vibration of the old engines through her spine. Her grin didn't fade. "Sounds fun."

Akiko let the banter between Sera and Vashri roll over her, content for the moment to listen.

For a second, it was easy to imagine this was just another job, another day. Easy to breathe.

That illusion snapped a heartbeat later.

A low shudder ran through the floor plates. Not the usual grumble of the engines under strain. This was deeper, rattling up through her boots like something trying to tear itself loose. The lights flickered, dimmed, then steadied again with a sickly pulse.

Vashri swore under his breath. "Maevi, what in the depths was that?"

A faint squawk of indignation crackled over the compartment comm. "I know, I know. I'm already on it! Secondary injector coupling's acting like it wants to mate with the coolant manifold. Gimme five."

Akiko's mouth twisted, amused despite herself. "Sounds like she's got it under control."

Vashri just grunted, not looking convinced. Sera didn't look up from her nav display, but her knuckles had gone white on the edge of the console.

Akiko exhaled, rolled her shoulders, and pushed off the bulkhead. "I'll go see if she could use an extra pair of hands. Or claws."

On her way back down the cramped corridor, Akiko passed Raya and Jyn, who were leaning close over a portable med-scanner, talking in low voices. Raya's eyes flicked up, caught hers, and softened in a way that melted something under Akiko's ribs.

The smile Raya gave her was small. Tired but warm, like it was just for her.

Akiko's tails twitched. She let her hand brush over Raya's shoulder in passing, a quick promise of later, then slipped through the next bulkhead hatch.

The engine compartment hit her like a wall.

Hot, close air thrummed with contained violence, the faint tang of ozone and something sharper. Burnt mana, of all things, the same scent that always curled around her own spellforms after they pushed too close to the edge.

Akiko's eyes adjusted, took in the shape of it.

A fusion reactor. Ridiculous for a transport this size. The housing was clunky, seams welded like it had been ripped straight from a mid-tier corvette's heart. Half the lines were jury-rigged with old coolant arrays that didn't quite fit.

And there, running across the primary manifold, was the kicker. Lines of script. Not just any runic infusion, but an integration weave designed for mana resonance.

Her heart did something weird in her chest. Those runes were hers. Or close enough. The same schematics she'd worked through with Tanya back on the Driftknight, adapted from messy sketches and desperate hours elbow-deep in a drive cone that should've exploded five different ways.

Maevi was half buried under a console, muttering curses. A portable reader perched on her knee spat streams of data into the stale air.

"You kidding me with this rig?" Akiko said, voice cracking into something half-laugh, half-disbelief.

Maevi jolted, whacked her shoulder, and popped up with wild eyes. "You know it? Wait… wait, that makes sense, you're... you're the fox. Shit. We found every snippet we could of the Driftknight. Scoured the outer nets for high-res stills. Couldn't replicate the power draw, so we… improvised."

Akiko moved closer, claws grazing the edge of a panel. Her ears twitched, picking up the subtle wrongness in the rune's cadence. The resonance was just a hair off.

"Not bad," she murmured. "But this stroke here's shy a curve. It's choking the cascade."

Maevi blinked. "The… what?"

Akiko didn't bother explaining. She extended a claw, wrapped it in a curl of foxfire, and with delicate precision etched the missing curve into place. The runes shivered, mana cracking through them in a quick pulse.

The engine gave a shudder, then settled. A deep, steady hum that rolled under their boots.

Maevi just gaped. "...okay. That was the hottest thing I've ever seen."

Akiko's lip caught beneath her teeth. A slow exhale curled warm past her too-sharp canines. Sly, dangerous, and unmistakably daring. Once, she might've leaned in, just to see how far Maevi would chase the heat.

Instead she just snorted, shook her head, and flicked her tails with lazy arrogance. "Flattered, tech-rat. But I'm already someone's problem."

Maevi sputtered, a bright red flush racing up her neck. "I… that's not… I mean, obviously. Just. Gods, that was really cool."

Akiko's grin softened. "I'll give you that."

Then she clapped Maevi's shoulder, claws tapping lightly on the metal of her suit straps. "Keep this beast humming, yeah? I'd rather not have to fix your mistakes mid-frozen wasteland."

Maevi bobbed her head. "Yes ma'am. You got it."

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