"Montez, we got trouble," called Crane from the front.

Montez was there in a flash.

"Pirates?"

"Prob'ly. Too far out to tell. They ain't seen us."

"Let's keep it that way."

Littlefoot was a short-range supplier designed to dock with a central carrier. She'd been stripped down and modified for longer spaceflights away from the carrier, but they'd used most of the ship's power after their long voyage. They had no weapons but pistols, and any half-decent ship could easily outpace them. Their only tools for survival were Littlefoot's faint energy signature and its extended-range sensors—they could see the enemy well before the enemy saw them.

The map showed a large flashing sphere around the enemy ship—its sensor range. Montez felt her stomach twist into a cold steel knot. The other ship's long-range sensors were active, crawling constantly as they moved—pirates didn't need to hide, they were always on the hunt.

"Kill the power," she whispered.

"What? If they really are sniffin' around that leaves us helpless." Crane jabbed a finger at the display. The other ship was traveling perpendicular to them. Littlefoot stuck to the center of the asteroid belt, following its curve, and the other ship was headed across it, traveling toward the outer rim. "Look, they ain't even close. Just going across. We'll be fine."

Montez darted to her locker and ripped out her helmet. Crane guffawed when he saw her putting it on. He switched on their comm channel.

"Oh, come on, Montez, we're gonna be fine," he said in her comms.

"Gotta check the cargo," she said.

"For what?"

"Don't know. Call me paranoid."

Montez snapped her helmet in place, moved to the airlock, and smacked the button. The door slid aside and she stepped through. The cryo tube was about the size of a couch. Its smoky blue-green glass was encased in a round cobalt-colored frame. It took up most of the length of the airlock, and there was only room to squeeze by on one side.

Montez deactivated the gravity plate in the airlock. She grabbed the tube by the edges, guiding it carefully with the assistance of the gravity tethers to the center of the confined space. When she had it stationary she spun it on its back and stopped it again.

The base of the tube was flat, with a manual control panel recessed into the corner nearest her. She motioned for the grav tethers to hold the tube in place while she pried open the panel. Inside was a series of switches.

Next to each was a label etched into the metal, but some had been crudely taped over, apparently re-assigned—on one she read the scrawled block letters, "PWR." She fingered the switch but didn't move it from the ON position. No telling if that was even right.

"How we doing Crane?"

"Well, we ain't exactly in the clear yet, but they're staying course. You want my bet it's just a drone on patrol. One minute and we're good. I'm telling you, Montez—"

She muted his comms and shook her head. Her heart jumped to her throat, and she swallowed painfully. She brought up the map on a corner of her HUD and watched the other ship approach. It was getting closer and closer, but Littlefoot's tiny signature prevented them from being picked up.

Under orders, she'd nixed the standard deep inspection of cargo by the ship's computer to avoid triggering any response from the tube before getting it home. What worried her was the possibility that the cryo tube was equipped with some sort of distress beacon or auto-wave. Some models would auto-wave any nearby ship—under the right circumstances, something that could save a life. In this case, it threatened rather the opposite.

As the other ship got nearer, she could see they would clearly pass by with a healthy buffer. Her pounding heart slowed. Montez felt uncomfortably warm in her nullsuit despite the temperature regulation. The other ship passed by them. They were safe. She opened her comms back up.

"Shut up," she hissed at Crane before he could say anything.

Crane chuckled, but said nothing. She deactivated the tethers and righted the cryo tube before turning the gravity field back on. It settled gently onto the floor as the grav plate whummed to life.

Montez slapped the button for the interior airlock door, burning with embarrassment at her reaction. She'd dodged dozens of patrols before without breaking a sweat, even enjoying the thrill of it—and yet here she was, trembling, she realized as she removed her helmet. Weak. She dropped it in her locker and it thudded to the floor.

"Your turn on watch anyway," Crane said, sliding past her with a grin. "Enjoy."

Montez said nothing. She took her seat at the helm and busied herself with rechecking their route. Six hours out. They'd continue heading against the flow of Styx until they found their ticket home—one of the many hidden gates in the belt that made up their smugglers' network.

#

"Alright, we're synced," Montez said.

Littlefoot was tailing an asteroid barely twice the craft's size. It was entirely indistinguishable from the rest of Styx's innumerable behemoths—but according to Littlefoot it was the location of one of the many gates seeded throughout the system that led to the blacked out asteroid base Montez and her fellow smugglers fondly called Home.

The map had set a marker for the home gate on the asteroid's dark side. Montez maneuvered to the flagged area, but aside from the marker there was nothing visible.

"You sure we got the right one?" Crane asked. "Pretty small."

"Must be."

"Just looks like more space rock to me."

"Kinda the point?" Montez said.

"So what, it's invisible?"

Montez chewed her lip. "I don't know. It's something new. Kasim said it would be hard to see. Wrinkly little bastard's always playing games with us."

She brought them closer, with the nose of the ship pointed toward the crater. The ship's HUD traced a friendly green outline in a gate-shaped circle where it indicated Littlefoot should move through. Montez disabled it. All she saw was dark still rock under the ship's floodlights. She exchanged glances with Crane.

"Maybe somebody tagged the wrong one," Crane suggested.

"This has to be it," she said, re-enabling the HUD.

It mimed a ghostly green Littlefoot accelerating forward, just passing right through the center of the glowing circle, through the asteroid's surface, which seemed to slide past the ship. The ghost slowed, stopped, and then vanished after it demonstrated the gate's doors shutting.

The HUD mimed it again. For a moment she watched it repeat with dopey confusion. But then it clicked—Montez saw how they did it, and with an astonished laugh she guided Littlefoot forward.

"What are you doing?" Crane said with an edge of panic.

Montez cackled at his bewilderment. "Only one way to find out!"

"This is not okay! This is not okay!"

Crane scrambled over his chair to his locker and tore his suit free as they approached impact with the crater. He smacked himself in the face with his helmet as he struggled to get it on. Montez howled with laughter, and they puffed through the thick layer of rock dust that hid the gate's opening.

A gravity field held the rock dust in place, parting it like a curtain for them as they crossed into the hidden gate and molding the stuff back to its original state after they'd gone through. The gate doors slid shut, the field deactivated, and the thick black dust settled like a grave.

#

"Oh, yeah, it's very funny, Montez," said Crane with a bloody wad of gauze clamped over his nose, tilting his head back as he struggled past the cryo tube in Littlefoot's airlock. "You can stop giggling like a child now."

"Just the look on your face, man," Montez said from inside the ship. "I'll send you the video later."

Crane shoved open the outer door and stomped down the stairs to the hangar floor. Montez cackled to herself as she watched him go from behind the bulky cryo tube. Time to bring it to Kasim. Big sucker—she'd need a couple of floaters to move it for sure.

She wiggled past the tube into the hangar bay, a wide room with a low roof and airlocks of varying size on the opposite wall from her. She'd brought Littlefoot in through the smallest one. The largest was five times that size, but its range suffered in compensation. A gate that big could never take her as far as she'd just gone. Montez shut and secured Littlefoot's door.

The floaters were in an equipment chest near her spot in the hangar. Littlefoot's grav tethers could help her move it out onto the hangar floor, but she'd need some portable assistance to get any farther.

As she descended the ramp she noticed three HomeSec troops in armored black nullsuits marching her way, each with a rifle slung over his shoulder. When she reached the ground she retracted the ramp, Littlefoot secured.

The armors got close enough that she recognized the badge on the one in the lead—Lieutenant Finch. What was the head of security doing here?

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"We're here to take your cargo," he said through his speakers. "You'll be compensated."

"I'm being compensated to take my cargo to Kasim," she said.

Montez planted her feet, stood up straight—and Finch took a step forward in his glossy black armor, towering over her. He forced her to look straight up at him or take a step back. She stood her ground and glared.

"This is over your head," Finch said with a smile as he reached past her for the ramp controls. The ramp slid down and he motioned for his subordinates to enter the ship. "Cover it up first."

#

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