Reborn as a Spaceship

The air in the lounge still carried the residue of confrontation. Cold logic had cooled most of my anger, but not all of it. Jack our would-be infiltrator, and now self-declared spymaster sat with an infuriating calm, posture loose, eyes alert. He didn't flinch under Laia's constant scrutiny.

I called the crew to the lounge. They arrived in staggered silence, eyes drawn to the stranger reclining at the edge of the room like he belonged. He didn't, not yet.

"I'll keep this brief," I said. "This is Jack. He has demonstrated skill in circumventing security, analysing network vulnerabilities, and navigating the kinds of diplomatic minefields most of us prefer to avoid. He'll be staying aboard the station, effective immediately, as our spymaster."

That got the reactions I expected with curiosity from Stewie, silent assessment from Mira, and distrust from Kel. Lynn said nothing, her posture tense.

I turned toward her.

"Lynn," I began, keeping my voice level, measured. "Your initiative to staff the station was sound in theory. But the lack of consultation, the bypassing of my authority, and the reliance on outside influence undermined both operational trust and command structure." She didn't speak, just kept her eyes locked on to mine, jaw tight.

"I had planned for you to oversee station deployment," I continued. "That won't be happening. T'lish—" I turned, meeting her eyes now " you'll be assuming command. Effective immediately."

There was a beat of stunned silence.

"Me?" she asked, voice low, uncertain. "Not Kel?"

"He's qualified," I said. "But his loyalty, first and always, will be to his sister. I need a station lead without divided priorities. Someone analytical. Methodical."

T'lish hesitated, then nodded. "Understood."

Lynn said nothing. But I saw it in her shoulders, the way she turned slightly away from Kel. She seemed to be understanding her mistake or I hope she was.

I dismissed the crew and I didn't linger in the system more than I needed just enough time to make sure the station was stable in its orbit and the other structures meshed with it. We transferred those who were leaving across to the station. Laia said there were a few complaints of T'lish being a Kall-e and unqualified to lead the station, but Kel shut those down.

I didn't linger. The station, for all its strategic value, now carried the sour taste of things decided in shadows. But we needed it. Jack's arrival only reinforced that. Influence, information, infrastructure. I knew these were the levers of power we lacked. The station was our foothold.

Just as I was considering the next phase, Stewie approached, holopad in hand and a grin tugging at his face.

"Laz, you need to see this," he said. "Secure packet. Encrypted channel. No idea who sent it, but the routing's clean."

I took the pad. Onscreen: an invitation. Drone racing. High-stakes. High-payout. "Asteroid Gauntlet," it read, with attached coordinates and a massive Telk prize.

"Where's it from?" I asked, already scanning the encryption headers.

Laia answered before Stewie could. "Routed through shadow channels. Obfuscation patterns match… I believe this a subtle message from Jack."

I messaged him at his office on board the station. He offered a shrug and that same insufferable smile. "Thought you could use a change of pace."

Of course, he did. This would be a good test to see where Jack's loyalties lie, we would follow his path, but I had to be prepared to be betrayed.

"Plot a Shift," I said. "Let's see what this 'Gauntlet' is."

"It's strange, this system doesn't appear on any of our standard maps, or maps we gathered, without the address provided we wouldn't have found it." Stated Laia.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The Arbiter shifted seamlessly. Dimensional space folded, and the stars twisted. We emerged in a system without a name. No welcoming beacon, no orbital markers. Just wreckage repurposed into habitation, makeshift stations fused with asteroid husks, ships bristling with modifications and unregistered weapons.

It wasn't a system. It was a haven. A den. The underworld. It made sense pirates needed a base of operations as well. But boy, did we stick out with our clean and slick ship.

A repurposed O'Neill cylinder loomed ahead it was the main station in the system, leaking atmosphere and alive with illicit traffic. The channel cleared with a single phrase: "Invitation confirmed."

We were directed to a moon in the out system a grey, cratered, and carved into something far stranger. The racing hub sat embedded in the rock, part canyon, part industrial maze. The track twisted through cliffside pylons and cavernous drops.

Entry cost: five hundred grams of pure Telk. Rulebook: one page. Rule 1: There are no other rules.

Turns out there were some rules, but it was only about the size and shape of the drone. It had to fit inside the starting tube a 20m long cylinder with a 5m diameter. I had assumed weapons, traps, countermeasures all of this would be acceptable.

The crew took to it instantly. Stewie and Mira and even Laia huddled around design schematics like kids with a new toy, throwing around terms like "microburst shielding" and "adaptive thruster flares." Mira, already sketching plans for countermeasures. Laia debating drone AI optimisation. Stewie coming up with engine designs. The three of them working in sync again. It felt right.

We had two weeks. Time to build. Time to test. Time, maybe, to figure out exactly what kind of web Jack had just thrown us into.

The surface-level assumption was clear enough: make a good showing, win a few hearts, build some ties with the underworld community orbiting this race. But how that turned into tangible influence and into allies, leverage, or protection was still murky. Jack, hadn't even given any useful intelligence. Whatever his angle was, he was playing the long game. And now… so were we.

Wayfarer had taken a particular interest in the locals. He watched them through our sensor net and the external monitors, absorbing everything. He said little, but I could feel his quiet fascination. They were outcasts some brilliant, some half-mad, dangerous. People who had fallen through the cracks or chosen to live beyond them. He understood that kind of existence. Maybe even respected it.

Laia, Stewie, and Mira volunteered or actually insisted on going down to mingle with the racers. To get a feel for the competition, scope the opposition, maybe trade a few insults and modifications. I didn't like it. The system was crawling with ship mercs, bio-modders, repojack, and enough criminal syndicates to start a small war. But Laia assured me she could handle it. And she didn't go in her usual avatar either.

Her new body was something else, it was grown from mixed nanites and organic compounds, she said. Resistant to nanite disruption, strong, subtle, and incredibly lifelike but could no longer shapeshift. She'd taken the form of a large, muscular male Kall-e, complete with combat-grade musculature and subtle armor plating built into the bones. They were going to pose as rich thrill-seekers slumming it for some action, with Laia playing the role of their gruff, no-nonsense bodyguard. And the best part? That wasn't even a lie. That's exactly what they were.

As they left, Wayfarer came into presence long enough to offer a dry send-off. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. You must be cautious." He said it without irony, then vanished back into the ship's systems. I need to restrict his access to my memories.

We monitored the outing via Laia's clone sensors. It didn't take long for the locals to start sneering. The trio's fancy clothing and naive curiosity painted targets on their backs. There were a few tense moments. One drone jockey lobbed a crude insult at Stewie, who predictably fired back with a sharp jab about their lack of a mother. That earned some laughs and a few begrudging nods. Another tried getting handsy with Mira, but Laia intervened before it could escalate. She stepped in, seizing the offender by the throat, and pinning him against the wall until his crew stepped in to drag him out of her grip but couldn't. That little display earned a round of cheers. Respect through dominance: classic underworld currency.

Afterwards, a tall, leathery-skinned being with half his face replaced by chrome implants approached them. The track owner, if Laia's surveillance was correct. He asked a few too-casual questions about their ship and their background. Why they were here. Stewie handled the talking. Kept it light. Said he wanted to test his drone designs somewhere "real," not just simulation fields and Alliance-mandated races. I could tell the owner didn't buy it well not entirely but he didn't dismiss them either. Maybe we were interesting enough to keep an eye on.

And that was fine. That was the first step.

I watched the playback alone on the bridge later that night. Watched the way the locals shifted around them, testing, evaluating. Watched how Stewie held his ground, how Mira smiled just enough to charm but not enough to appear weak, and how Laia navigated the threats with wordless intimidation. It reminded me of some of the rougher neighbourhoods from pre-stasis. It felt like we were a businessman who walked into the wrong part of town, we would need to use our wits to survive.

Tomorrow, we'd start building our own entry drone. Something unique. Something fast. Something dangerous enough to turn heads and subtle enough to say: we're not here by accident. We're not just playing.