Episodios

  • Jinx

    Jinx
    Apr 8 2026
    Outrider Echo cooled on Landing Pad Nine like an old dog settling into a familiar spot. Her hull ticked and pinged as the metal contracted, shedding the heat of atmospheric entry. Around her, the Kaeloni Reach spaceport hummed with the low, steady noise of a place that never fully slept. Fuel haulers crawled between ships, and dockworkers shouted over the whine of cargo loaders. Beyond the floodlights and in the darkness, music bled out of a bar that didn’t bother with a sign because everyone who needed to find it already knew where it was.Finn Silver sat on a cargo crate in the open bay of the ship, legs dangling, watching it all.He was twenty-three but looked younger. Brown jacket, cap pulled low, boots that were too new for the frontier. His posture looked as if he were waiting for something to happen, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped, like a kid sitting outside the principal’s office. He’d crewed with Crank for six weeks now, and in those six weeks he’d learned how to load cargo, cycle an airlock, and keep his mouth shut when port authorities came asking questions.He had learned little else. Not because Crank wouldn’t teach him. Because Crank didn’t seem to care.Rafferty “Crank” Jack approached the ship. His boots sounded on the ramp as he walked into the cargo bay, carrying a small supply crate under one arm and a bottle of Kaeloni rye in his free hand. The outlaw was in his late fifties, gray in the beard, heavy in the shoulders, wearing the same faded jacket he’d worn every day since Finn had met him. He set the crate down without ceremony, dropped into the fold-out chair across from Finn, and cracked the bottle.He didn’t offer any.“Port boss says we can hold the pad through zero-eight-hundred,” Crank said. He took a long pull from the bottle and stared at the far wall of the cargo bay. “After that, it’s double rate.”“What’s the next job?” Finn asked.“There’s always a next job.”“That’s not an answer.”“It’s the only one I’ve got, Jinx.”Finn’s jaw tightened at the name. He’d told Crank a dozen times his name was Finn, and a dozen times Crank had ignored him. Jinx. Like he was a curse. Like everything he touched went sideways. Crank had pinned it on him the first week after Finn knocked over a fuel canister during a supply run and nearly set fire to a docking cradle on Verathi Station. The name stuck because Crank wanted it to, and what Crank wanted on his own ship was what happened.They sat in silence. The lantern between them cast a warm light upward, leaving their faces half-shadowed. Outside, a loading crane groaned, and someone argued about docking fees in two languages. Inside Outrider Echo, it was still.A girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, appeared from around the ship and stood at the foot of the loading ramp with a tray of food packets balanced on one arm. Her thin, dusty clothes held a variety of patches, creating a mystery around the garment’s original fabric. One of the port kids. Every frontier spaceport had them. Orphans, runaways, station rats who survived by selling food, running errands, or stealing what they couldn’t sell.“Rations?” she asked. “Fresh today. Five Geld each.”Crank didn’t look up. “Get lost.”Finn reached into his jacket. He pulled out a ten-Geld coin, more than he should have spent, and held it out. “I’ll take two.”The girl climbed halfway up the ramp, handed him two packets, and took the coin. She glanced at Crank, then back at Finn. Her fingers closed around the coin fast, holding it like something she was afraid someone would take back. She looked at Finn for half a second longer than she needed to and dropped her eyes.“Thanks, mister,” she said, and disappeared into the spaceport dark.Finn tossed one packet to Crank. It landed on the supply crate next to his bottle. Crank looked at it, then at Finn.“You just spent ten Geld on ration packs worth two.”“She needed it more than I did.”“That’s a fine attitude until you’re broke and hungry on a station that doesn’t hand out charity.” Crank picked up the packet, turned it over, and set it back down. “You keep that up, Jinx, and the frontier will eat you alive.”“Stop calling me that.”“Stop earning it.”Finn stood up. Not angry, but something close. He walked to the edge of the cargo bay where the ramp met the spaceport ground and looked out at Kaeloni Reach. The floodlights made hard shadows between the ships, people moving in and out of them. Everyone here was running from something or toward something, and most of them couldn’t tell you which.“Why do you do this?” Finn said.“Do what?”“All of it.” Finn turned around. “The jobs. The running. Living out of this ship like it’s a coffin with an engine.”“Watch your mouth about my ship.”“I’m serious. Why?”Crank took another drink. A long one. He set the bottle down and leaned back, arms crossed, the ...
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    14 m
  • A Baby Named Stanky

    A Baby Named Stanky
    Apr 5 2026
    The Last Call smelled like every bar on every colony world Harper Flint had ever walked into: recycled air, spilled liquor, and the musky aroma of people who worked hard and washed when they remembered. Which wasn’t often.She stood in the doorway and let her eyes adjust.The place held a sizable crowd. Miners mostly, still in their dust-caked overalls, blowing shift pay on watered-down whiskey and rigged poker machines. A few hauler crews clustered near the back, loud and loose after weeks in the void. The bartender, a thick woman with forearms like docking clamps, moved behind the counter with the confidence of someone who’d broken up her share of fights and expected to break up more before the night was over.Flint found what she was looking for in the far corner.Prince Marduk Hassan—well, former prince, actually—sat at a round table with a drink in one hand and a fan of cards in the other, playing five-card draw with four men who looked like they regretted sitting down. He was a bulky man, soft in the middle, with heavy-lidded eyes and a charming smile.Marduk was an ex-Ethnarch Kingdom prince kicked out and disowned by family and empire for his “sinfulness.” He kept the wardrobe, though. His clothes were too fine for the frontier. Silk collar, tailored jacket, rings on three fingers. He dressed as if he wanted you to know he had money, which, on a station like this, was brave or stupid. Probably both. They played five-card draw at his table. Some things outlived empires. Poker was one of them.And, of course, there was Star with all her sequins and cleavage, a former showgirl Flint had experience with in dive bars across the rim.Solara Starlith draped herself across Marduk’s lap, pouring herself there, one arm around his neck, the other holding a drink that caught the amber light from the neon sign above the bar. She laughed at something he’d said, laughing like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard, and Marduk soaked it up. He tilted his cards a little when he leaned in to whisper something in her ear. Star’s eyes, alert and quick, and always working, flicked down to his hand and back up before he’d finished the sentence.Flint crossed the room to the bar. She bought a Rim whiskey on the rocks, hoped for the best, and drifted toward the table where a hand played out. One miner pushed a stack of Geld coins into the center, thought about it, and folded. Marduk raked the pot toward him with a satisfied grunt and said something about fortune favoring the bold. Star kissed his cheek and clapped. She sneered at Flint.“Room for one more?” Flint said, returning Star’s dirty look.Marduk looked up. His eyes moved over her the way she expected. A quick assessment, fast dismissal. A woman in a worn leather jacket, nothing special, nobody important. Exactly what she wanted him to see.“Sit,” he said. He gestured to an empty chair with the hand holding his drink, sloshing some of it onto the table. He didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.Star looked Flint up and down with the lazy hostility of a woman marking her territory. “Who’s this?”“Just a traveler,” Flint said. She sat down and pulled Geld coins from her jacket. Enough to buy in. Not enough to look like a threat.“Wonderful,” Marduk said. “Fresh money.”The first three hands Flint lost. Not much. Enough to feel the sting or look as if she felt it. She played hesitantly, the way a person plays when they’re not sure they belong at the table. Marduk barely acknowledged her. He remained focused on the miners, who were the easier marks, and on Star, who kept his glass full and his ego fed.Flint watched the way he held his cards. Loose when he had a good hand, tight when he was bluffing. She watched how he drank, which was steady. He didn’t pace himself because he’d never had to. And she watched how he treated the miners. Magnanimous when he won, dismissive when he lost. The prince who couldn’t be a prince anymore but couldn’t stop performing the role.By the fifth hand, two of the miners had dropped out. The stakes were climbing. Star had shifted on Marduk’s lap, angling herself so she could see his cards without him noticing. She hadn’t looked at Flint once since the opening exchange, which was just right. Two women who acknowledged each other too much would raise questions. Two women who ignored each other were just two women in a bar.The sixth hand was when Star started.Marduk dealt. Flint picked up her cards. A pair of sevens, a king, and garbage. She looked at her cards the way a person looks at a departure schedule—mild interest, nothing urgent. Across the table, Marduk arranged his hand and settled back in his chair. A relaxed posture that told Flint he liked what he saw.Star glanced down. Her eyes moved over his cards the way a scanner reads a barcode. Fast, complete, and gone.Then she wrinkled her nose and looked at Flint.“God, what is that smell?” Star said, loud enough for the whole ...
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    19 m
  • Podcast - Dead Reckoning

    Podcast - Dead Reckoning
    Apr 4 2026
    Enemy fire had hit the port-side stabilizer again.Kango Galyx stood in Hangar 7 of Aster Station with his arms crossed and his jaw set, staring at the Torino like a man staring at a bar tab he couldn’t afford. The ship sat on the deck with her canopy up and her guts showing, fuel lines snaking across the floor, a diagnostic cart plugged into her starboard access panel, and a scorch mark along the belly plating that hadn’t been there six hours ago.Six hours ago, he’d been on patrol. Routine sweep of the shipping lanes between Aster and the Cutlass Belt. Four hours of nothing, which was the best kind of patrol, followed by two hours of everything, which was the worst.“You’re lucky she’s still flying,” Albern said, the deck chief, from somewhere underneath the Torino’s port wing. All Kango could see were boots and a tool belt. “That stabilizer coupling is hanging on by spite and solder.”“She got me home.”“She got you home this time.” Albern rolled out on his creeper, face smeared with hydraulic fluid, and pointed a wrench at Kango the way a doctor points a finger at a patient who won’t quit smoking cinder sticks. “Next time that coupling fails mid-burn, you’re going to spin into whatever you’re trying not to hit. And I’m going to have to fill out the reports.”“Your concern is touching.”“My concern is for the reports.” Albern rolled back under the wing. “Gonna need five hours. Minimum.”Kango checked the clock on the hangar wall: 1847 station time. He’d filed his patrol report before he’d even popped the canopy, still smelling like coolant and adrenaline. The details were already turning into the flat language of after-action documentation. Three contacts. Unregistered. Raider-class vessels running dark in the Cutlass approach corridor, engines cold, waiting in the asteroid shadow like mines in a shipping lane.He hadn’t seen them until they lit up.The first one had come in fast and stupid, which was how you could tell they were new to the trade. Pirate raiders who’d been at it a while knew the advantage of ambush was patience. You waited for the target to commit to a vector, then you cut off the escape route before you opened fire. The geometry mattered more than the guns.This crew skipped the geometry. The lead ship broke from the asteroid cluster at full burn, weapons hot, closing on a freight hauler lumbering through the corridor with a belly full of ore concentrate bound for the Aster refineries. The hauler saw them coming and did what haulers do: panicked, dumped thrust, and started screaming on the open channel.Kango was eleven clicks out when the distress call hit. He was supposed to radio Aster Station, request authorization, and wait for a tactical assessment. That was the protocol. The protocol assumed that the freighter had eleven clicks worth of time, which it did not.He pushed the Torino to full military power and went in alone.The lead raider didn’t see him until he was inside weapons range. The Torino was small, fast, and running a low-emission profile that made her hard to pick up against the background radiation of the Belt. Kango came in on an intercept angle that put the lead raider between him and the freighter, which meant the raider couldn’t fire back without risking a miss that would hit the prize they were trying to steal.He put two cannon bursts into the lead ship’s engine housing. Clean shots. The first one cracked the shielding. The second one found the power coupling underneath, and the raider’s engines went dark in a shower of sparks and venting atmosphere. Dead in space. The crew would live if they had suits and someone came for them before the air ran out. That was their problem.The second raider was smarter. It broke off the hauler and came around hard, trying to get behind him. Kango had expected that. He’d been flying combat patrols on the frontier for nine years, and the one thing he’d learned about pirates was that they always thought they were more clever than they were. They watched too many war vids. They thought dogfighting was about reflexes and aggression. It wasn’t. It was about energy management and knowing your ship better than the other pilot knew theirs.He cut thrust, rotated the Torino on her axis, and let the second raider fly into his targeting solution. The pilot realized the mistake too late. Kango watched the raider try to break off, engines flaring, and he put a burst across the bow. Warning shots. Close enough to rattle the hull.The raider broke and ran. Full burn toward the Belt, engines screaming, running for the cover of the asteroid field where a single fighter couldn’t follow without risking a collision every six seconds.That left the third one.This raider had done everything right. While the first two made noise and drew attention, the third had swung wide, running silent on a long arc that brought it around behind the hauler on the opposite side. No engine signature. No ...
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    12 m