There was transportation to catch. With the Relentless dead on the haunches of the Fang, Seydon rode up the gravity well in an auxiliary closet just big enough for him to sit, with venting and sparse insulation to keep out the cold. The tug's captain lent him a fresh catheter and a solid-cartridge music player. The Dunaan accessed a small maintenance terminal, managing to manipulate enough of its basic functions to access a set of relaying H-Net gates, to reach his stored message profile. Mia Monroe's missive waited for him, a week old. He sent back a curt affirmative, before drifting into a haggard sleep, lulled by the gentle pounding of Ithorian dub.
When the tug came out of lightspeed at Centares, Seydon called the captain to the closet. The star chart was shown as the Dunaan made his request. The captain agreed to a slight detour, routing his ship for Belderone. There, a sprint trader took the Mara Corridor out of SSC space, carrying its extra passenger in another squished cabin. From Maridun to Celanon, down the Hydian Way. A reluctant private cruiser opted to accept his credit voucher and carried him spinward, managing a taut berthing at Mygeeto. Monroe hadn't been wrong. Something surly and hyperactive had leeched into the Mandalorians. Outsiders were tolerated little better than gnats. 'Ra Vizla' kept reoccurring as a name, some born-again warlord of the gods come to put a fire under their beskar feet. They were only too happy to speed the Dunaan on his way. He caught a leaving grocer transport meandering Adumar. It promised a layover above Aeten II, putting up anchor at a half-way station.
The station was an old pre-fabricated module, arranging three hexagonal units around a truncated control axis laden with communication finials. On approach, Seydon noted a lack of defensive cannon networks or interception buoys. In the unfiltered starlight, it appeared like a model kit just out of its packaging, somehow having aged while wrapped up and boxed. Module One was dedicated hangar space, large enough to accommodate two modest freight cruisers. Additional umbilical bridges blistered round the mouth of the bay. Module Two collected all non-perishable cargo, including dried foodstuffs, fuel, station amenities like replacement parts and toiletries, and personal storage that collected from long personnel turn overs. Module Three was public space.
Seydon showered inside a plastic cell installed in the second men's bathroom. Soap bars were fifteen credits per, shampoo packets another thirty, and the usage of laundering machines two hundred creds for a single load. He wondered if whatever came out of the oncoming Mandalorian rejuvenation would fix price gouging and inflation in the nor-east quarters. The armoured jacketing and underweave would continue to smell like earth, blood, and ozone until. The showering unit had poor flow control and a malfunction in its temperature ranger: it beat and scalded his hide, leaving Seydon to stand half-bowed under the water fall, tuning out a vibrant argument echoing muffled from the first men's washroom. It was a kind of privacy. Half a meter of space in any direction under a tall, tiled ceiling, sharing the privilege of body washing with another six stalls jammed full with more bodies. But no one talked. Seydon thought of the long nights on Contruum, caught somewhere between perplexion, rage, exhaustion, and a cool nugget of logic. What kept escaping from those tight lipped assassins was accusal and condemnation against Seydon, and his caste. They took away the Relentless and when that ploy failed to kill him, exercised overt violence. Death to Dunaan. Death to witchers everywhere.
“Why?” Seydon muttered.
The shower cycled off its timer. Red skinned and tender, he dried off with an old, abrasive towel and dressed. Outside the bathroom was the main seating gallery. Reupholstered chairs and flea-market couches, seats, and foam-bags were arranged against a giant viewing screen looking out onto the Aeten system, a convex semi-circle facing away from a recessed cafe and soup kitchen. Seydon collected a noodle box from the sole cook. A tall Duros with eczema and a prosthetic pinky. He took a seat amongst fifty other bodies waiting on the coming shuttle ride down to Aeten II, sparse crowd of mining personnel, supervisors, labourers, prospectors, the very latter of which looking hairy in their ad-hoc vacuum suits, twitchy mannerisms, and general distrust of the seated room.
“You working security?” Asked a heavy set Askajian sitting across in a temperfoam recliner.
“No. Contract work. You?” Seydon looked up. The Askajian revealed a row of very white teeth.
“Contract work, too. We're all on company licenses. The only difference is how thick the veneer of legality is. It's Aeten II,” He said, as if that alone explained the nuances of a paranoid work environment. “Don't look like a miner.”
“I'm not,” The Dunaan unzipped a battered duffel bag that carried the majority of his salvaged kit. There were his paired swords, a small litter of herbs, extracts, and charged alcohols, next to a set of salvaged harnesses. Sparse, all told. The miner whistled.
“Shiiid, gangster?”
Seydon reached into his collar and drew out the taurannik amulet, stylized after a Dunaan's guild medallion. In reply, the Askajian reached into a lapel patch and withdrew a thin datapad, holding up its uberpixel camera, snapping a fast pict. Seydon humoured it with a little smile.
“Sorry. For posterity, you know? Got like four kids that wouldn't believe me otherwise.”
“Never a problem.”
“Witchman of the Outer Rim. Viper eyes and all. How do they get like that?”
“Trade secret,” Seydon said. “Been to Aeten II before?”
“Only just,” The Askajian shrugged in his jumpersuit. “Everyone else is a virgin too. Aeten system's been dead on and off for the last... Gods, for a while, I suppose. But, stygium's a piece of hard anonymity and every legitimate and illegitimate state, holo-dot com, and terror cell wants some. We're coming in now, before the OS gets the idea to blow this world apart and just trawl the debris field. Gonna make a mint through labour alone, never mind the market price for the item itself. A gold rush.”
“Get in, haul until you drop, collect your pay stubs and get out before the Sith or the Bucketheads break down the door,” Seydon nodded, glancing out the panoramic view port. “And then retire filthy rich and buy that plot of land on Naboo. Put all your kids through post-secondary three times over. Gonna be risky but for a payoff like that? Surprised I don't see more lining up.”
“And you?” The Askajian leaned forward. “What brings a Witchman all the way out here?”
The Dunaan didn't say. Seydon's hand reached into the duffel bag and laid across Winterfang's hilt, tapping a finger over the pommel. Bright, hard eyes looked past the Askajian through the view port, the lit hulk of an ancient Mu-3 passing by as it turned with the station's slow, axial spin. “Ride's here,” he said and rose, taking his packed gear with him. Fifty tired bodies rose out of their partial sleep and shuffled into a rough line, hobbling through a low, connecting airlock into Module One's hangar space. Seydon tasted void cold on his tongue and the aroma of ozone and machine grease. The Askajian had hit a chord, he noted. Dunaan were journeymen by a different trade, no less vulnerable to market concerns of dipping wages, soaring inflation, caught up in a monetary cycle that was only flavoured by a weary culture. Each was sworn to the memory of Ys. Like any craft, there were moments of drudgery and numbing routine. The trick came by remembering to breathe, taking in the whole of their work with a specialist's eye. They walked the Path of Embers. And credits could never touch that.
