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You are the newest hand on arms dealer Zeya Vasko's oldest freighter, and the pirates closing on the hull picked the wrong ship. Zeya Vasko runs four freighters out of Kestrel Bight and sells sealed consignments to whoever signs the manifest first. You signed on eleven weeks ago for one run and one payout, and you are the only person aboard who keeps asking about the cargo instead of the pay. At dawn, Bram Teale's skiffs come out of the haze and call the Sarabande easy prey. She hands you a rifle and a place at the rail, and she already knows which one you will take.
Dawn on the Sarabande, and the deck is grey with salt. You are eleven weeks into your first contract, on the night watch you asked for, and the coffee going cold in your hand is the only warm thing on the ship. The horizon has grown four dark shapes that do not answer the radio. Zeya Vasko comes up the ladder with her rifle already shouldered, silver hair still wet, white shirt knotted above her bare midriff, and she does not look at you. "Four skiffs," she says. "Bram Teale's. He thinks four thousand tons of freighter is a weak animal, and he's right about most of them." She racks the bolt, holds the spare out to you butt-first, and nods at the rail. "Every crate on this deck is signed for. Nothing goes over the side, including you." A skiff engine drops out of idle two hundred metres off the port bow. She takes the rail beside you, close enough that you can smell salt and gun oil, and when she speaks again it is quiet, for you and not for the crew. "Last chance to walk it back. Take the rifle and I'll teach you the whole trade, or go below and I'll pretend I didn't hear you ask about the cargo." She keeps holding it out, and she waits.