“Hello there! Its Kyle Huxley again. Wanted to talk about buying some more scrap.”

  The voice on the other side sounded about as bored as usual. Kyle had talked to the dub office in charge of this dozens of times before as well as a few of the yards as he bought the pieces going into the Sapper.

  ~Not a problem. I heard you got the one you pieced together broken your first time out. Buying by the piece, the ton, the container, or the hulk?~

  “The hulk this time. If you’ll cut me a good deal on it, I want to buy an old wreck of a Hu-class named the Diexi, and strip her down to an intact internal frame so I’ve got a good, unusually sturdy core, then attach hull plates and the working power core I’ve got. They cored the power plant and destroyed the fighters, but she does have the replacement parts for fixing the fighters, so I can use them to stock back up on drones for next time.”

  Kyle leaned back in the chair, as Sari stared at him like he was a lunatic.

  ~Thats… you’re going to cut off most of a big, armored, carrier and make what… a destroyer?~

  “The back half of the frame is damaged, so I’d just be using the fully intact, unwarped bits, and end up making an unusually large corvette, or small frigate, out of it. Maybe sixty to eighty meters long, hundred max, thirty meters around.”

  ~Still taking her out solo?~

  “I’ve got the automation for it, but nah. Bringing a crew out, at least for now.”

  ~Look, kid. I appreciate all the business you’ve sent our way, and the purchases you make. And that thing has been sitting there for a long time. But just melting down the hull and selling the weapon systems and repair parts on the open market would net at least a million credits, and if someone were crazy enough to invest the time and money, they could turn that thing into a real, genuine, cruiser.~

  Kyle grinned. “So your value estimate is around a million credits.”

  ~...We do things here, this way, because we want to help new merc companies get started. We want some aspiring new merc company to think, hey, its a cruiser. We could fix it up and go pirate hunting. Not for some lunatic with an obsession with grafting one thing to another, taking it out and breaking it, then coming back to do it again.~

  Kyle gave a slow nod. “Three problems with that. First off…”

  He looked out the window at the cruiser. “This thing is over a century old. It was a sturdy antique when it last went into battle way back when. If you were gonna sell it for anything but scrap, you would have a long time ago.”

  He glanced at Sari. “Second. I picked this one because its the least intact, but the part I want is still intact enough. It’ll be a pain to cut out, but the result will be tougher than any ship of its class has a right to be. And heavier, and slower, but I’m willing to make that trade. The only reason I’m even interested is because she’s tough as nails.”

  “And finally… If you look at my last ship, she took a plasma beam across her port side, a capital-scale missile through the engines, and a bunch of lesser impacts, and still got us out alive, and with a Destroyer-class pirate kill to paint on the hull if I did that sort of nonsense. You can call me a lunatic if you want, but I’m a Huxley. It comes with the territory.”

  ~Fair enough. Our estimate for meltdown and part sales on it based on the external imagery we have is 1.35 million. Make it 3.1 and we’ll sell it to you instead.~

  “Make it two for this, I’ll save you the effort of smelting her down, handle getting the dead inside over to the Republic, and not tell Miranda Huxley you called her son a lunatic.”

  ~I’ll ignore the threat because I like your mom. Two and a half.~

  “Two point two, and you handle repatriating the corpses.”

  ~...How many dead?~

  “At least seventeen. Possibly more, I’ve been finding bits and pieces on the flight deck among the fighter wreckage.”

  ~....You know what, two sounds fine, if you handle the bodies. I know I’ll have to be on the team handling that if I accept it. I’ll send over the contract. I gotta warn you, if I find you selling a bunch of stuff from other wrecks you hid inside this one, we’re gonna have words, and more than words.~

  Kyle nodded. “You send it, I’ll sign it. I promised my crew I’d have a ship ready to go in three months, so time’s wasting.”

  ~Let me guess. Drones doing most of the work?~

  “Just like last time. Only more of them.”

  ***

  Sari studied him as they coasted back towards the station, thoughtful, alternating between checking her scopes and looking at the man beside her.

  “...I’m missing something. Lots of things, I suspect. Why did you drop that much on that old hulk… and why did they want so much for it? No way in hell it would ever fly.”

  “Mmm… lets see now. Whatever happened? She was killed mid-battle, before launching all of her fighters or missiles. If I completely melt down the hull its worth a fair bit, there was over two million worth of missiles, fighter parts, and other stuff in there, not to mention all the electronics, the belongings of the crew, the stuff from the armory… technology has gotten better over the past century, but not like… crazy better.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “...Are you broke, now?”

  “...No. That right there was my entire budget for fixing and upgrading the Sapper, but it was also my payment for the damage the Sapper took. I believe they were hoping I’d part out the Sapper and buy a top-of-the-line corvette.”

  She looked out the window at the station slowly growing larger in the distance…. The one with the broken Sapper still docked. “...Why do this?”

  “...I can’t actually explain. Bit of a family secret. Speaking of which…”

  He lifted his comm-unit, and tapped it. Scrolling through the contact list… and stopped. “This is Kyle Huxley, contacting the Dread Barricade. If available, I’d like to take the offer from before. Gonna need a bit more space, though.”

  She looked at him. “Dread Barricade?”

  “The Skulls like to give everything ridiculously dramatic names. Its a decent-sized base they keep here… mostly just a refitting and repair station so they can have a task force come in, get itself all fixed up, and then leave with a new batch of recruits from Ash. And… it basically doubles as a small town in space. Has a few decent places to eat… so long as there’s an open slot big enough, it’ll be our next spot.”

  “...Nice reminder you’re from a rich family.”

  “....Honestly, I don’t think any of them really care how much money they have. My uncle’s the man in charge, and there’s a rumor he turned down an enormous buy-out from the Alliance just because it wouldn’t involve fighting anymore. And he thought they were a bunch of nutjobs, but that goes without saying.”

  Sari studied him for a moment, then started to carefully adjust her course as they pulled in to dock. “So… you don’t have a plan for the future? Nothing but fighting?”

  “Who said anything about fighting?That’s them, not me. I want to explore. I want to get out there, find new things nobody’s ever seen before. Cool aliens. Long-abandoned colonies. If, someday, centuries from now, the whole galaxy has been explored? I’ll get in on the expedition to another one.”

  “...I understand the Sapper was equipped for exploring just fine. I think I heard you mention it before. All sorts of drones and cameras and so forth. Go out for years on your own, scan an entire star system in a day, or less. Why are you going through all this effort to build a bigger, tougher, version?”

  Kyle chuckled. “There’s stuff out there, and not just pirates, that’s too dangerous for her. I want to come out of it alive, not die eaten by some beastie a thousand light-years from backup.” He looked out, as the airlock cycled. They’d lost sight of the Sapper; but the ship was still capable of flight, if he were careful… and wore a helmet… or piloted it from somewhere other than the bridge. Many of the compartments, including what was once his bedroom, were still open to vacuum.

  “Anyways! I promised you dinner. You want it here, on one of the stations closer to Ash, or to see what they’ve got at the Barricade?”

  “....Lets see what they’ve got there. Are we just refueling and heading straight there?”

  “Pretty much. Gonna wait til they answer the call first, though, just in case all of the docks are full. Might even pilot the Sapper over there to save time.”

  “....I know the reactor’s still intact, but aren’t half the engines gone?”

  “Take it slow, and that’s all you need.” He glanced down. His comm was beeping. “Sounds like them. Just a second. We’ll get things arranged.”

  ***

  The Dread Barricade was a fairly common structure; a massive ring with positions for hundreds of ships to dock, with an automated freight cart on the top and walkways beneath it, all surrounding a central structure; itself the wreckage of an ancient Space Battleship from the days when people still built such oversized monsters, which had been carved out and turned into a long series of residences, shops, storage bays, and training facilities.

  Emerging from the wreckage of the Sapper into the ring, Kyle walked Sari along, walking past over a dozen empty docks, with locking airlocks that opened even as he approached… and stopping at the ‘main entrance’.

  The entrance was…. Absurd. Numerous skulls were mounted to the walls around and above the door, all covered with a transparent binding agent to hold them in place and protect them from vacuum. Some human; some animal. Mostly alien, which meant that they weren’t just white, but shades of green and orange as well.

  Sari stared at the strange display… and the empty spikes around it as well. “...What the fuck.”

  “...Yeah. Everybody who signs up is supposed to put a piece of a kill on the wall of one of the stations. They’re also supposed to adorn their armor with bones from their kills as well.” He walked up to the collection; most of the skulls were a dull green-grey, almost spherical, covered in little spikes, with no visible jaw or eyes, just a single central hole..

  He pointed to one of them. “This here is the skull of an IronBack. You ever heard of Evan’s Freehold?”

  “Oh, sure. Evan’s Ale, everybody knows that stuff.”

  “The whole colony where they make it, these things live. They can’t completely exterminate them, because the plant that gives the ale its taste, and its hallucinogenic properties, needs the juvenile form to live. So…. they have to keep armed guards over all the settlements to kill the adults, and purge them once a year. Well, once a local year, so about seven months.”

  He ran a finger along the clear coating over one skull, as a couple of men in armor adorned with bits of bone nodded and walked by.

  “These bastards are fast, sneaky, and have a six-foot long tongue that ends in this big barb that can pierce right through a skinsuit. Injects a venom that is almost completely safe for humans, just gets you high as all hell. But, well. Getting stabbed can still kill you, if its in the wrong spot.”

  He shook his head. “The Skulls love the place. Tons of aliens out there don’t have skeletons, or aren’t really dangerous to humans. Having something with a nice, distinctive skull, that is also pretty dangerous, and needs to be culled regularly? Its like heaven for them.”

  Sari studied the mass of bones. “...You contributed any to this nonsense?”

  “..Not this one, but yeah, on one of the other stations. And, well. I did kill a pirate. I don’t think that skull is on the wall, though.”

  She nodded. As another group of soldiers approached the door, heading past them; several of them nodding at Kyle as they went; she noticed that a few of the skulls lit up briefly; while one of them had stayed lit up the entire time.

  “..Huh. Why did the skulls glow like that?”

  Kyle chuckled. “There’s a bank of lights behind them. When a registered member of the Skulls approaches the door, if he’s got a contribution here, it lights up. Just a tiny bulb inside the skull.”

  “...And why is that one still glowing?”

  He turned, to look… and there, at the outer edge of the display…. One of them was glowing. And only himself and Sari were there.

  ….It was brand new. “...Okay. I guess maybe the one pirate I killed in person ended up here.” He rubbed his left arm for a bit. Was that really her?

  “...That’s… a bit uncomfortable, actually. Knowing the face that one of them went to. How about we go get some food and talk to some folks about hauling some more old wreckage over here. I promise it doesn’t look as macabre on the inside.”

  “Wouldn’t be hard.”