“Meaning they’re not above killing people who threaten the consortium. Don’t make the mistake of just thinking of this as a group of miners and businessmen. They could give some syndicates runs for their money.”

  Karin glanced at the moon in the display. “And we’re going to help these people?”

  “Izzy might be an asshole, but he wasn’t wrong when he talked to me about this. We’re not always going to be able to get paid for doing a job that doesn’t have any questionable implications.” She looked around. “I’m not going to ask anyone here to do anything they don’t feel comfortable with, though. You’re all volunteers, but I would hope that you trust that if I take on a job, even if it’s on the edge, I’m not going to set us up for something that’ll make it hard to sleep at night. For now, though, we don’t have the details of the job. I’m not going to say no because of rumors and bad feelings.” She nodded at the moon. “We’ll head there and send out the ident signal. And we’ll go from there.”

  The uneasy looks on her crewmates’ faces unsettled Mia. She kept going back to Izzy’s rant. The way he’d phrased things implied he expected her to want to reject the job.

  By the time this is all over, how deep will I have dug?

  Traffic around the moon wasn’t heavy during the Erinyes’ approach, making it easy to watch for threats on the sensors. A paranoid part of Mia whispered about enemy Obfuscate Systems, but at least there weren’t any Bleakers showing up.

  “We’re well within optimal comms range,” Debbie II reported.

  Mia had sent everyone else off the bridge, including Ito to the engine room and her flight mates to their fighters. She didn’t mind being killed in a straight-up fight by someone who was better. Dying because she was foolish and unprepared would be annoying.

  “Send the ident signal,” Mia ordered.

  “Sending,” Debbie II confirmed.

  Mia rolled her shoulders. She focused on the sensors for any indication of ships or missiles breaking their way.

  “Landing coordinates have been transmitted,” Debbie II let her know.

  “Open up comms on that frequency and prepare to transmit,” Mia instructed. “Attention unknown client. I’m the captain of the team sent to discuss the contract. I understand this is a direct briefing contract, but we haven’t been given any real information about the job. Telling us to land without offering more details presents an excessive risk for my crew. We have no idea what you could be sending us into.”

  An annoyed grunt came over the comms, followed by a weary voice. “We need help settling property disputes. You’ll meet your contacts at the coordinates to go over the details. They’ll be unarmed. We don’t require you to come unarmed, and if you’re as tough as your handler says, you’d have no reason to fear us.”

  “That’s promises without much proof. I didn’t come all this way to die, and the lack of detail on the job makes me wonder if it’s worth the risk.”

  “I’d say you’re being paranoid, but that’d be hypocritical. I’ll sweeten the deal. I doubt you were flying around this system. You’ve come a long way, and we need someone with both skill and discretion. If anything, your rude paranoia proves you understand discretion. We’ll give you a nice lump-sum payment to show up to listen.” He rattled off a number roughly equal to about a quarter of what they made on a standard straightforward job. “What do you think?”

  Mia found this all too good to be true. She kept her voice flat. “You’re saying you’ll pay that much just to listen? And if we decide we don’t want anything to do with you and walk?”

  “Then at least you’ll have enough money to pay for the fuel it took you to get out to this system. It’s up to you, but you need to go to those coordinates. You bug out now, you get shit.”

  Mia wasn’t going to call another meeting to discuss the offer. She needed to be a leader, not a delegator. Everyone trusted her to take on the jobs, and she needed to trust herself. It was all too elaborate for a bounty trap. There were easier ways to capture people for human trafficking and raiding privateer ships for equipment wasn’t worth the danger or the hassle.

  “I’ll be there soon.” Mia killed comms before transmitting to the rest of the ship. “We’re landing. Everyone on standby. I’m going to meet with the contacts alone, and that includes Charlie. If it’s a trap, then you can all come shooting.”

  Mia worried less when the sensors picked up the small installation at the coordinates. She’d been imagining an out-of-way mountain valley, a perfect spot for an ambush, not a landing pad with more transports flying around than fighters, and no obvious heavy AAA.

  She set the ship down and reiterated her orders. Sensors indicated an acceptable atmosphere on the moon, though not enough oxygen. Not wanting her senses dulled, Mia slipped on a rebreather instead of a full suit. After strapping on her pistol belt along with tactical webbing holding grenades and magazines, she headed off the ship.

  A tall, thick-bodied older man with graying hair waited for her in a rebreather and with no obvious weapons. Mia had been expecting security despite the claim of no weapons, but the only other people present were two far younger people, a young man and a young woman. Their rebreathers concealed some of their features, but not enough that she couldn’t see a family resemblance.

  Mia approached them slowly. She took in the sturdy functional structures surrounding the landing pad, trying to spot any unusual movements or concentrations of people or security drones.

  The older man narrowed his eyes. “I’d like to negotiate directly with the captain.”

  Mia locked eyes with him. “I’m in command. That going to be a problem?”

  He stuck out his hand. “You come recommended, so I suppose not. Cailan. I speak for the consortium.”

  Mia gave his hand a firm shake. “I’m Mia.” She tried to ask where they were going to talk, but the rumble of a transport flying overhead drowned out her words.

  Cailan inclined his head toward a nearby door. “I’d rather talk somewhere we can be heard without yelling.”

  Mia nodded. She followed Cailan and the other two people into the small building and to a small office.

  “Confirm no jamming,” she whispered.

  “No active jamming or other evidence of electronic warfare,” Debbie II replied.

  Cailan sat behind the desk. The young man and woman had their own chairs off to the side. Two chairs had been set up in front. Mia sat in the one slightly closer to the door.

  “I’m here,” Mia began. “Tell me the details, and I can tell you if it’s a job for my crew.”

  Cailan’s brow lifted. “Not one for small talk, are you?”

  “This isn’t a social visit.”

  “No, it’s not.” Cailan reached into a drawer and pulled out a datapad. “I’ll get straight to the point, then. The job is dirty, from start to finish, which is why we needed to be so circumspect in how we advertised for it.”

  “What’s to stop me from listening to you, taking my payment, and then telling people?” Mia asked.

  “I don’t think FSC would have sent us someone not interested in the job,” Cailan pointed out. “And I’ve got an eye for this sort of thing. Someone as paranoid as you doesn’t want more attention.”

  Mia wanted to argue with him. She wanted her free payday more, though, so she motioned for him to continue instead.

  “Refugees from the recent Bleaker offensive have started pouring into consortium territory,” Cailan explained.

  “It didn’t seem all that high traffic on my way to this moon.”

  Cailan shook his head. “They come in waves. Freelance transports make good money off their misery. They can charge a premium for passengers, and the way Bleakers have been hitting lately, we’re the closest thing to human civilization for many affected systems.”

  “Aren’t you worried about the Bleakers coming here?”

  “KCAP and corpos have been hitting them harder, and that’s given us respite, but until we have reason to believe those aliens are on their way, we need to operate with profit in mind. Many of these poor bastards are only leaving their home systems because they’re worried about a repeat of what happened on Trila V. Everyone’s running around now saying the Bleakers have got spies everywhere ready to weaken defenses.”

  Mia gave a shallow nod despite her thundering heart. Izzy would need to hurry up and find out who’d set them up.

  “I’m sure that was an unusual situation,” she answered. “Otherwise, the Bleakers would have taken over this part of the galaxy a long time ago.”

  “The point is that scared people are coming. I don’t care why they are. I care that they’re coming into consortium territory.” Cailan glanced at the young man and woman. They sat so rigidly they might as well have been statues. “The real issue isn’t ships passing through our territory. Other than premium fuel charges, that’d be easy to handle. But too many of these refugees aren’t interested in running. They’re interested in staying.” He shook his head. “They thought they were squatting in unused tunnels, but those tunnels had only been left alone while we were finishing up upgrading a fleet of new mining tools and vehicles.”

  “And now you have a squatting problem with the refugees?” Mia ventured.

  Cailan nodded. “Our resources are stretched thin for a number of reasons, including having to worry about Bleakers. The squatters renovated our mining tunnels to make them easier to live in, but they don’t know what they were doing. They’ve left major parts of the tunnel system unstable. There have been collapses, and we’ve lost miners, and the refugees have lost people.”

  He entered a command into the datapad and turned it so Mia could see clearly. A ragged group of men and women were using pipes to beat a man in coveralls labeled Jakicz Consortium.

  “There’s anger on both sides.” Cailan gestured to the pad. “And it’s gotten worse. The squatters have organized little militias to attack any mining detail coming near them. The greedy bastards have started pushing into other areas.”

  Mia folded her arms. She was missing something obvious.

  “I understand all of this. It’s straightforward enough, but these are a ragtag group of refugees, not an elite corpo assault team or KCAP military unit. Why do you need privateer help?”

  Cailan pulled the datapad back. “The consortium is over a barrel in this situation. We need to mine the area they’ve claimed, or we’re at risk of a major financial setback after all the money we’ve shoveled into updating and improving our equipment and vehicles for this new vein system. We could end up in bad enough shape to see the consortium dissolved if our debts are called in early.”

  “High-risk, high-reward new mine?” Mia probed.

  “I know everyone thinks we’re a bunch of gougers, but it’s not cheap mining out here on the frontier of the Fringe. We look weak, we give the KCAP or the corpos an excuse to come knocking. They’ll start gobbling up pieces of us and fight over what they can’t swallow in one go. It’ll be the end of us.” He shook his head. “We haven’t put this much blood and sweat into this consortium to give it away.”

  Mia glanced at the younger man and woman. Their facade of placidity had given way to obvious tension lining their faces.

  “That’s all the more reason for you to push them out,” Mia suggested. “Even if you don’t have a huge security force, I’m sure you can give each of your miners a gun and have them threaten people.”

  “We could,” Cailan admitted. “We could go hard on those mines, kill every last one of them. Don’t think it hasn’t been discussed. But if we go in there to flush the squatters out, even with one arm tied behind our back, a shitload of people are going to get hurt and killed. Too many KCAP or corpo citizens end up dead in that sweep, then we’ve given the bastards an excuse to go to war and seize what we’ve built.” He slammed his fist on the desk. “And how is that fucking fair? It’s not our responsibility to give up everything we’ve built for these strangers who didn’t even ask for our permission before showing up. We’re fighting for our way of life and what little leverage we have that keeps our freedom.”

  Mia nodded slowly. The puzzle pieces had mostly fallen into place.

  “I understand that you want us to flush them out, but did you have something specific in mind?”

  “Yes,” Cailan answered. “We want you and your crew to pose as raiders or pirates. You’ll start hitting and then harvesting, pillaging, whatever you want to call it. You’ll take out their major supply centers in their camps. Raiders picking the low-hanging fruit in a situation like this is plausible. No one will question it. Starved of supplies, the refugees will have no choice but to accept our offers of relocation elsewhere. There’s only so long you can go without water in an underground mine. We won’t have to wait that long. Once they’re weak, we’ll sweep in and we’ll look like we’re doing it for humanitarian reasons.” He gestured to her. “You’ll get a nice payment from us, and we’re more than happy to offer you a good price on anything you recover from the refugees.”

  “What if we want to keep it?” Mia asked.

  Cailan gave her a confused look. “You’re welcome to, but don’t get confused. We’re talking mostly about food and water. They’re not exploiting those tunnels yet. They haven’t grabbed any valuable minerals, and I doubt you need a small colony’s worth of food and water on your ship.”

  “That’s reasonable. One thing’s got me confused. You’ve made an offer to relocate them already?”

  “Yes. We did it before putting out the contract. They’ve got it in their head they don’t want to run more.” Cailan scoffed. “I think some of them are betting that the Bleakers will be pushed back soon, and they want to be in an easy position to head back to their homes. Others are just sick of being on ships.”

  “And what about another option?” Mia asked. “What about absorbing the refugees into the consortium?”

  Cailan leaned back in his chair. His expression was haunted as he draped a hand over his face. “Even if a majority of the consortium agreed, which is required for bringing in new members, the fact is that right now the refugees aren’t talking, only shooting and beating. And even if everyone agreed, it still ends with them being moved, because we need to rip that entire area apart for mining. For whatever reasons, they don’t want to be uprooted again. We’re out of options here.”

  Mia could see the pain in his eyes and hear it in his voice. This wasn’t a sustainable situation for either group. If the situation continued, the violence would only grow worse, and an individual miner would take it on himself to solve the problem too aggressively, leading to a pile of dead bodies and the consortium falling anyway.

  She was mindful of Izzy’s warning. She needed the work, and she needed Izzy and FSC to keep funding her true mission. Given the bounty on her head, she wouldn’t be able to find work with another company.

  The best solution for everybody was for her crew to take the mission. They were skilled enough that they could minimize the casualties and collateral damage. In a sense, they’d be getting paid to save lives in the long run.

  This situation had reached a boiling point. She didn’t want to waste too much time with debate.

  “What do you think?” asked Cailan. “You’ve listened to us. I’m willing to pay you and see you on your way if you’re not up to it.”

  Mia shook her head. “We’ll take the job.”

  An hour later, Mia sat in the briefing room aboard the Erinyes with the entire crew. She’d taken the job, and she remained confident in that choice, but as she laid out the details and saw the frowns and scowls, she was no longer sure if the crew supported her.

  She waited, her gaze searching the table for someone to break the long, awkward silence after she finished her briefing.

  Charlie stood away from the table. They still needed to get him a chair that fit his massive frame somewhere other than his cabin. “The refugees picked a fight they can’t win. It’ll be kinder to force them out before they’re all killed.”

  “This is…wrong,” Ryoko insisted. “This isn’t about us taking down corpos. We’ll be attacking innocent people.”

  “I can see where Mia and Charlie are coming from,” Karin put in. “If we don’t take the job, it’s not like no one will take the job. We’ll lose out on a big payment, and the contract will end up in the hands of some privateers with far less restraint. They might butcher all the refugees.”

  “Wouldn’t that just lead to the KCAP and corpos coming in?”

  “Not if the consortium could spin it as pirates,” Mia mused. She looked between Ito and Paul. “What about you two?”

  Ito shrugged. “The refugees are getting kicked out one way or another. That’s just how things work out in places like this. People should be happy the consortium hasn’t gassed those tunnels and tried to pin it on corpos or Bleakers. This crew might be the only chance those people have of not getting slaughtered.”

  Paul stared at the table. “What if a mission goes wrong? What if we’re forced…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He lifted his head to look at Mia. “You should have talked to us first.”

  “No,” Mia replied instantly. “I want to be clear that I respect your input, but at the end of the day, I’ll have to make the calls. I can’t let this crew become a debate club that’s paralyzed every time we need to make a hard call.”

  He scoffed. “Maybe we should have just stayed in the Navy if we’re just supposed to sit down, shut up, and take orders.”

  “You think you’d never be called on to do something uncomfortable if you’d stayed in the KCAP Navy?” Mia’s voice was cold. “At least the consortium is trying to resolve this without murdering everyone. They might have their own self-interested reasons, but that’s the truth. That’s more than the KCAP did on Ice. No matter what we do in this galaxy, we’ll have to make hard choices. We’re not always going to be able to sleep well after them, especially when we start going hard at the conspiracy behind the KCAP.”

  Ryoko slumped in her chair. “If you think we can and should do this, then I’ll back you.”