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I fear the feds are onto me. Two of them sit in black tactical gear in a booth against the window wall of the spaceport bar. They steal glances in my direction. One is human, the other an olive-hued Retterwan with scales that ripple like waves of little plates of armor when he looks at me.

I’m trying to protect lives, but they won’t see it that way.

My ship is parked in a dark, desolate part of the galaxy that most won’t bother entering because it’s too dangerous. It’s empty at the moment and biometrically coded to me so no one can steal it while I await my shuttle to the Alien Bride Race.

I’m sure the feds are wondering where my ship is. They love an excuse to poke around in things that aren’t their business.

Unfortunately, if I let people or aliens get one foot into the door of my life, they want more, want me to tell them secrets I don’t have the answers to. They want to find my father’s stockpile of stolen goods.

But I’m not that person anymore. I haven’t been for over a decade. With him finally gone, I thought I was off the hook. Yet since his death, I’ve been hounded more than normal. I’m only out in public for a short time, but I have no doubt someone will recognize me from the bounty hunters’ catalog on the darknet.

I down the last of my Supernova, a sweet, milky, minty drink I’ve never tried. I usually stick to cheap beer because my cover operation, hauling dry goods between planetary systems, doesn’t pay much. I wanted to celebrate my upcoming vacation and toast my mother’s memory with something she’d like.

“You want another?” the bartender asks. He’s a spotted Halthidori, green on orange, one of the few species I do trust in this universe.

“Can’t afford it. Just water and those mozzarella sticks.”

After a moment, he sets a beer on the counter beside a basket of fried food. “On the house, Zariah.”

“You don’t have to.”

He smiles, exposing his long black teeth, as he turns to take someone’s order at the other end of the bar. “Someone has to watch out for you.”

“Thanks, Jaaka.”

Exhaustion grips me, and it becomes a fight to eat the best food I’ve had in a week. My knuckles are streaked with gear oil between the splits. I doubt any alien royalty or warrior will consider me a prize.

What would we even talk about? The bulkhead door that likes to stick shut, the igniters I have to replace every month, or the freeze-dried food I live on? But this is what I’m stuck with for living a mostly honest life—a fourth-hand old StarBuster Cargo Transport.

My father would be ashamed if he was alive, but I never gave two fucks what he thought after he turned me into free labor, mopping up the ship after a battle gone awry and a machine to haul his precious crates of stolen goods from one ship to another.

A memory of the last treacherous gauntlet of spiked pillars he made me run to collect a bag of unique augmentation chips flashes through my mind. I escaped, but no one sees it that way.

I check the credits in my account via my wristband, wishing they’d increase, but they haven’t changed except for the Supernova charge at the bar. Jaaka gave me the shipping contractor’s discount.

I need this vacation. I can’t keep going on like this forever. A week of free food and a safe place to rest sounds pretty good to me, but I know it’s only free because of my mother.

Does she really expect me to marry some dude I barely know?

The idea of giving up my life, my crucial undercover job, to be someone’s mate is not something I’m ready for. I may never be. But she was good to me. She tried to protect me from Branthor, the man who took whatever he wanted from whoever he wanted.

She sacrificed everything for me. I can’t justify disregarding what she requested, even if the idea of giving up my body in exchange for safety makes my skin crawl. I’m not into disrespecting the dead, not when I know how hard her life was in our refugee camp thanks to my piece of shit father.

Maybe no one will pick me, and I’ll win a million credits.

That thought makes me smile a little, but I don’t believe it’s possible. If I think about it too much, that hope will turn into expectation. And that’s a dangerous mindset when trying to survive transporting goods in deep space. I have to stay alert.

Distress calls turn into back stabbings. Navigation help becomes a raid. That’s just how things are on the fringe of Sol Federation territory, where they don’t patrol, and communication satellites are few and far between.

So now I trust no one, and I just keep my head down, pretending I don’t hear their calls. Out there, bounty hunters and pirates are always trying to find any way they can get inside my father’s vault.

But I don’t know shit.

My fingers tremble as I hold my mother’s last gift to me. Paper feels strangely smooth and delicate compared to the metal crates and starship parts I usually handle. In her final days, she spent everything she had on me.

I don’t want it. I had zero plans of searching for a man, least of all an alien, to start a family with when ours was broken.

Her video message blinks in a corner of my wristband’s screen. I tap on my earbud and hit play just so I can hear her gentle voice again.

“Hi, honey. I don’t have long left, but don’t worry. I know you’re making your way on your terms. I’m proud of you. You always had his independent spirit.

“I’m sorry for not giving you a safer and more stable childhood. I want to be sure you’re safe from your father and anyone in his line of work. I can’t give you money because he’ll just try to claim it’s his. Your brother will, too, I’m afraid. Breaks my heart.”

It’s infuriating to have to call him my twin when we’re so different these days. Things weren’t always that way, but he took the easy route. I wish he would’ve escaped with me.

“Anyway, those alien men sure are protective. I watch them run the race every day on the holovid from my bed. But, hey, if you don’t find one, at least the ticket will give you a chance to live it up for a week in a secure place. They have lots of security.

“I love you. But more than that, I love your spirit. Find a man with a spirit like yours.”

Someone bumps my shoulder, snapping my attention to them.

A familiar face gives me a twisted smirk beneath cybernetic glasses that light up in red hues. “What’s hoverin’, grease monkey?”

“Fuck off, Lingon.” I lock my wristband and return to eating.

He sucks on the diamonds in his teeth and casually swats his friend, Condor, in the chest. I’m not surprised to see them on Catalyst Five. It’s a classier joint than I usually hang out at, and they’re high-tech wannabe pirates.

Behind me, many sets of boots rustle and scuff the floor like the owners are too lazy to take full steps.

“Brought the whole club?” I ask as men take seats in the bar, a few others leaning against metal posts around us. They’re dressed in ocular augments, leather, and armor and have weapons strapped to them like they’re going into battle soon, though I’m sure most of them have never set foot on a planet on the outer rim.

“Shipping convention this week.” Lingon lifts his hands in innocence, and I know he’s lying.

He hooks a finger inside the zipper of my leather work jacket and draws me closer. “I don’t know why you hang around such a nice bar. Your kind aren’t welcome here, Scrubbie .”

I hate Lingon almost as much as my father. He’s the worst of the good guys in shipping. Lingon and his fellow captains are the exact opposite of me. They do humanitarian missions with all the cameras on their shiny ships, then sneak around in the shadows, taking care of their dirty business.

I slap his arm away with force, then shove him back. Lingon stumbles a step, and I savor my small victory. “Last I checked, there were no rules that said captains weren’t allowed in here.

Lingon saunters toward me as another man grabs my elbows from behind. “ I’m making the rule for anyone not bringing in six figures a year.”

Jaaka is already calling security. I hope they get here before the others behind me decide to take my head.

“I’ll let you stay,” Lingon continues, “if you tell me where that treasure of your daddy’s is hiding.”

Ah, there it is. “I don’t fucking know. I jumped ship years before he died. You’re better off hunting my brother. You know that.”

“Oh, I am.”

“Cap,” Condor, a large tattooed man with cybernetic wings built into his back like a Talhuskin, lifts my ticket from the floor. “Get a load of this.”

“Give me that!” I scramble for it, realizing it must’ve fallen out of my pocket.

Lingon leans away from me as he reads it. The man behind me draws me back.

“Alien Bride Race?” Lingon throws his head back, laughing at me in front of everyone in the bar. And suddenly, I’m ashamed for ever hesitating to be grateful for my mother’s gift. All I feel is utter seething anger.

The captains that now fill the bar jeer at me.

I am the only female pilot with her own ship in the room. I have no crew. My StarBuster is always in need of repair. And I barely bring in enough credits to fix what breaks and feed myself. But at least I do moral work.

“One of us could give you a good pounding,” a Ginarigon captain remarked, pumping his hips.

I grimace. “Not into baby carrots.”

Some men chuckle. The Ginarigon turns a deeper hue of orange.

My mother was smart to get me a paper ticket that didn’t come with a digital tracker. But now, I’m not sure if getting it back in one piece is worth the risk of doing whatever Lingon is scheming behind his ugly red eyes. His artificially forked gray tongue swipes over a pale lip.

He doesn’t want me. He wants to punish me. And I’ve seen the bruised women that leave his ship.

I’m surprised the feds aren’t stepping in unless this is the first time they’ve encountered Lingon in such a manner. Maybe they’re excusing his behavior because he parades his humanitarian work while stealing from those he helps behind their backs.

Maybe they’re in on it.

My father used to say something about things not being a crime if it was happening for the first time. Legal crimes versus moral crimes are where we had our biggest differences.

The feds aren’t police. They’re investigators. They can detain but not jail. They’d need Spaceport security or police for that. But right now, I wish they would intervene.

“Tell me where the stockpile is, and I’ll let you go. Where did your father store his prized possessions?” Lingon asks.

“A planet called Agorak in the Cibarra system.” That was the last place I ever served him. “But I’m sure you already know that.”

“Checked there.”

“Met my brother?”

Lingon waggles his head. “Didn’t crack him, but I rattled him a little.”

Doubt that. “Cazir is probably playing you. He’s real maniacal like Dad.” He didn’t used to be.

Lingon holds my ticket in front of him and grabs another corner as if to rip it in half. “Try insulting me again.”

Panic lances through me. “I don’t know, Lingon! I’d tell you if I did because I don’t give a damn about the shit he stole! You could have it all for all I care! But I don’t fucking know!”

The pressure in my face tells me I’m probably red with rage. I don’t care. I can’t take my eyes off the paper.

“Ooh,” Lingon sings out. “She is pissed .”

“That is the last thing my mother gave me! Yes, I’m fucking pissed.”

“So am I,” a deep voice rumbles.

Lingon pales and arches. The men around us freeze.

“Give it to her in one piece. Let her go. Or my Haxgun will blow you in two. ”

The muscle in my chest races, thrusting my pulse into my ears and making me tremble with fear. I don’t know what’s happening or who has them all spooked. But I’m immediately let go. Lingon hands me the ticket but doesn’t relax. Curious, I slowly walk around him.

Someone has the balls to stand up to Lingon and every single one of his buddies. The gall, the power they must possess, but more so the heart they must have to risk it all for me and my little piece of paper, has me unexpectedly hot.

They extend a second weapon that lights up around their wrist with a multitude of shots.

Green skin. High-tech weapons. Who the hell is this guy?

I have to thank them, and yet I fear their price. In this universe, everyone works for someone.