Cargo and Conscience (part 4)

The trap is sprung. Fighters descend. Sparks must decide what kind of captain she wants to be when the smoke clears.

As the asteroid field loomed ahead, the tactical display flared—clean at first, then cluttered with red arcs and fast-moving heat signatures. Sleek, black Church fighters dropped from stealth vectors, boxing them in.

“They anticipated this,” Mathis said, already shunting power from secondary systems to the shields. “They’re closing fast.”

“Then they’re watching the wrong ship,” Sparks muttered, adjusting the trim on the inertial dampeners.

Behind them, Mina strapped into the auxiliary crash harness. She gripped the frame with white-knuckled intensity, the data wafer secured in her jacket. Her eyes tracked the display with flat focus.

The first blast hit the forward plating—not hard enough to breach, but loud enough to rattle the cabin.

“Shields dipping,” Mathis warned. “We’ve got maybe three minutes before this turns critical.”

Sparks flexed her fingers over the yoke. “Then let’s make them count every second.”

The tactical display flared red. Too many targets, closing too fast. Shields were already dipping into yellow; another barrage would push them to bleed.

Sparks gritted her teeth, hands steady on the yoke. “We’re not going to outrun them.”

Mathis was rerouting emergency power from the aft systems, lips tight. “Then we hold long enough to make the drop.”

Sparks gripped the controls, the familiar adrenaline surge sharpening her focus. "Then we show them what this rust bucket can do!"

The Rusty Nail was a freighter, not a fighter, but Sparks knew every groan, every hesitation, every hidden reserve of power. She threw the ship into evasive maneuvers, using asteroids as cover, the hull screaming in protest.

Mathis, a virtuoso of jury-rigged engineering, pushed the antiquated weapons systems past their limits, scoring a lucky hit that sent one fighter spiraling into an asteroid.

But the second wave was forming. Sleek black signatures, closing in formation. A noose.

And then—another ping on the scanner. Large. Fast. Wrong silhouette for anything Church-owned.

“New contact,” Mathis said. “Starboard vector. No IFF.”

The comms crackled open.

“Could use a better greeting, Sparks,” came the voice, rough and unmistakable. “Hull’s still warm from jumping halfway across the system.”

Sparks stared. “Stew?”

The incoming ship streaked across their forward field and opened fire. High-yield cannons, definitely non-standard. The lead Church fighter disintegrated in a burst of plasma and debris.

“Had a bad feeling,” Stew continued, voice clipped but clear. “After you left Ceres, I started checking logs. That run I gave you? You weren’t the first crew they offered it to. But no one else checked in after pickup. Ever.”

Sparks felt her stomach drop. That silence hadn’t just been suspicion. It had been precedent.

“I figured they were cleaning house,” Stew said. “Didn’t like knowing I handed them your address.”

He didn’t wait for a thank-you. Another volley cut across the flank, forcing two more fighters into evasive patterns.

Mathis let out a breath he’d clearly been holding. “Heavily armed for a hauler.”

“Turns out retirement makes you nervous,” Stew said. “So I upgraded.”

The fight didn’t end quickly. But with Stew’s freighter pushing flank fire and the Nail weaving tight around the asteroid belt, the balance shifted.

“Two hostiles down,” Mathis reported. “Three evading. Cerberus is holding distance.”

“Good,” Sparks said. “Let them guess.”

She spun the Rusty Nail under a jagged chunk of iron-rich rock and released a pair of dummy flares—no heat signatures, no beacon. Just static bleed and bad sensor data. Enough to suggest they’d gone somewhere they hadn’t.

“They won’t stay fooled long,” she said. “Church will have backup in the wings.”

“Long enough,” Mathis said, not looking back.

“Then we make the drop and burn like hell,” Sparks said, locking in the new escape vectors.

Mathis routed remaining power to the forward plating. “Radiation shadow on the starward side of the field should cover the beacon pod—if they’re focused on us.”

Stew’s voice came over the channel again. “Clean window’s not going to last. Get your girl and get out.”

Sparks nodded. “Copy that. Beginning docking procedure.”

Three days later, the Rusty Nail limped into Dock Twelve at Dragoon Station. The hull plating bore fresh carbon scoring; the outer sensor dish was half-melted. But she’d held together.

Inside the common ops suite, under too-bright lights and the faint smell of old air scrubbers, Sparks handed the data wafer to a quiet, uniformed officer with a neutral face and eyes that missed nothing.

No ceremony. Just transfer of evidence.

Mathis stood beside her, arms crossed. Mina flanked them both, giving her statement in slow, measured detail. There was no need to embellish. The data spoke louder than any summary.

Later, after the debrief, Sparks leaned against the observation window overlooking the hangar. Mathis handed her a mug—barely warm synthbrew.

“Not the ship you wanted,” he said quietly.

She looked down at the Nail. Scarred, but still breathing. “No. But maybe the one that made the right call.”

Stew met them at the lift bay, a rental jacket slung over one shoulder. “Word is, Church is backing off. Authority’s poking into asset chains. Quietly, for now.”

“You okay?” Sparks asked.

Stew shrugged. “Lost my ship. Again. But I didn’t lose you. So yeah. I’ll call it a win.”

She didn’t smile. Not exactly. But the corners of her eyes eased.

“What now?” Mathis asked.

Stew gave a dry laugh. “Now? I get a drink that doesn’t taste like recycled piss and wait for the next job I’ll regret.”

“Not hauling for Church,” Sparks said.

He nodded. “No. Not again.”