"Nothing to worry about," Turner said with a gravelly chuckle, the kind that rattled in his chest like a loose bolt. "This here is Minerva Kane, though you might know her by another name."
He turned slightly and gestured toward the woman seated beside him. "The Paintress."
That name carried weight. The Paintress. Rumor had it she could reprogram a battlesuit in under a minute and rebuild a warp engine blindfolded. They said she was a Genesis-Awakened, a rare mind that could see machines not just for what they were, but what they could become.
She didn't look like much at first glance, young, lean, hair pulled back in a practical coil.
Kali gave her a curt nod, then turned back to Turner. "Why did you call me here?"
Turner didn't answer. Instead, Minerva rose, slow and deliberate. She stepped forward, not close enough to challenge him, but close enough that he could smell the grease still clinging to her gloves. Her voice was calm, and confident in a way that didn't ask for permission.
"Because I have a proposition," Minerva said, her voice calm, measured. "For all of you. Turner tells me the four of you have worked well together in the past."
"We sure do," Kharv replied with a grin, resting a meaty hand on his hip holster. His voice was gravel-thick, like it had been run through too many engines.
Sela nodded once, her expression unreadable behind her tinted visor. "We don't get in each other's way," she said. "That's as good as teamwork gets out here."
Brann leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the workbench. "So what's the job?"
"A few decades ago," she began, "a Machina-era blueprint was recovered from a derelict mining colony in the outskirt systems. No one realized what they had, some fragments of late-phase engineering, possibly pre-Fragmentation tech. It was passed between corporate hands until it ended up on Gliese, a mid-tier industrial world in the Tau Leonis system."
"And I'm guessing the company that held it had no clue what it was worth?" Brann said.
"They didn't," Minerva replied. "They sealed it away in a secured vault, classified the entire structure, and then promptly forgot about it. That's your target."
"Sounds too easy," Sela cut in, her arms crossed.
"It isn't," Minerva said without missing a beat. "Gliese is a dead planet now. Apocalyptic biocrisis followed by a planetary-scale winter. Total ecosystem collapse. The virus mutated most form of surviving fauna. The planet's surface is crawling with man-eating mutants. Half the planet is shrouded in darkness, and dangerous elements in the air makes flight impossible. You'll have to land in the slightly habitable zones, then advance from there."
Kharv gave a low whistle.
"That's just the beginning," Minerva continued. "This intel I'm giving you? It's not exclusive. Word's already leaked among the upper echelon of Caladrian. Every major fixer, guild, mercenary house, and collector's agent with a shred of ambition is going to be gunning for the same target. It'll be a race, and a war, all rolled into one."
"So we're fighting the planet and rival crews?" Sela said, her tone sharp.
"Correct. You'll need to outpace, outgun, and outlast. Ideally, the job could take weeks, maybe months, depending on your approach and how much opposition you encounter. If you survive long enough to reach the vault, you still have to breach it, extract the blueprint, and get off-world."
Silence fell like a curtain.
No one moved. The hum of cooling fans, the distant hiss of pressurized valves, those were the only sounds in the stall now. Even Turner leaned back slightly, letting the weight of it settle.
Then Kali spoke, low and direct. "How much?"
Every eye turned to Minerva.
She paused. Then, without a hint of performance, said. "Ten million credits."
Kharv let out a low grunt. Brann raised an eyebrow. Sela tilted her head, finally intrigued.
Minerva leaned forward. "Split evenly. With bonuses depending on data integrity and collateral minimization."
Kali exhaled, slow. "Dangerous odds."
She met his gaze. "I didn't come to you because I wanted safe."
"We'll do it," Brann said without hesitation, speaking for his crew. His tone was decisive, almost eager.
The weight of the room shifted. All eyes turned to Kali.
He didn't respond immediately. Ten million credits was a fortune, his cut was more than enough to buy a ticket to the Messier Cluster. But this job reeked of risk and he wasn't some daredevil trying to throw his life away.
Minerva seemed to sense the hesitation curling in his silence.
"Give us a moment," she said, nodding to Brann and the others.
Brann gave Kali a look, half challenge and half understanding, then stepped outside with Kharv and Sela. The stall's atmosphere shifted again, quieter, more charged. Only Kali, Minerva, and Turner remained now.
She didn't waste time. "Turner told me you were First Order awakened," Minerva said coolly, stepping closer. "But now that I've seen you, I know he got that wrong."
Kali didn't flinch. "I like to keep my cards hidden."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of her soot-smudged lips. "Good. That's exactly why I asked for you."
She moved with a casual grace, perching on the edge of the workbench where Turner had been tinkering with a plasma compressor. "Mutants have their uses, sure. But I prefer awakened on missions like this. Especially ones like you." Her eyes locked onto his. "Then there's the matter of your Widowmaker."
Kali's jaw tightened. His gaze cut sharply toward Turner. "You told her?"
The old mechanic shrugged with a lazy smirk, unbothered. "Relax, kid. I trust her. Believe it or not, she apprenticed under me, three whole months before she went off to become the Alliance's favorite engineer."
Minerva raised both hands in mock humility. "Guilty. I was a pain in his ass the entire time. But I learned enough."
She hopped down from the bench and dusted her hands on her thigh. "I'll fix your exosuit, Kali. Better than the old man ever could, and no offense, Turner."
"None taken," Turner muttered, clearly offended.
She extended a hand to him. Her fingers were smudged with grease, her nails chipped, but her grip looked firm and sure. "What do you say?"
"What do you think?" Kali whispered in his mind, eyes still on the stall's doorway where Brann and the others had exited. He wasn't talking to Minerva or Turner anymore.
He was speaking to the quiet presence in the back of his mind.
"I'm here to guide you," the Machina said, his tone rich with calculated patience, "not make your decisions for you."
Kali closed his eyes briefly, a faint exhale escaping his nostrils.
"That's not helpful," he muttered.
"It's not supposed to be," Rizen replied. "You are the one with skin in the game. But if it makes any difference, she's not wrong about the Widowmaker."
"I'll do it," Kali said aloud, the words cutting through the stale mechanic-scented air of the stall. He extended his hand across the workbench.
Minerva took it without hesitation, her grip firm, her smile faint but knowing. "Glad to have you onboard," she said. No celebration in her tone, just the quiet assurance of someone who expected to be agreed with eventually.
Turner, who had been quietly polishing a servo-wrench like it was a prized heirloom, gave a grunt of approval and turned to the comm panel embedded in the wall. "Brann, get back in here. Deal's sealed."
Moments later, the partition curtain rustled aside and Brann entered first, flanked by Sela and Kharv. The latter gave a low whistle when he saw Kali still inside.
"Well, I'll be damned," Kharv said, crossing his thick arms over his chest. "I hear you're coming along. Must've been some convincing." His grin was all teeth, the kind that came from someone used to surviving ugly jobs.
Kali didn't respond, just gave a slight tilt of the head, a non-answer in itself.
Minerva stepped forward, her voice easily cutting through the idle noise of tools and clinking parts. "You leave in one week. That's all the prep time you'll get. Gliese does not take kindly to visitors, and it takes even less kindly to those who plan to steal from it."
She glanced around the stall, meeting each of their gazes. "Gear up, say your goodbyes, and settle your debts. Once you leave, you may not return."
Sela's expression hardened. Brann nodded silently. Even Kharv's grin faltered slightly.
Kali remained still, a memory of his last time on the beach playing in his head. It would be a long time before he would feel the peace he felt then.