Hartwell examined the handful of scrap that had been salvaged from the crater. It wasn’t even worth the effort it had taken to dig.

  “From three haulers to two,” Liam said. “That’s going to slow us down.”

  “I know,” Hartwell said.

  “We could be back up to four if we took apart the sleeper hauler and used it for scrap,” the Old Bastard grunted.

  “Your legs would be the first to give out, Bastard,” Jen grunted right back.

  “Keeling over dead is my way out of here,” Old Bastard said. “Hauling scrap is yours. We were barely keeping ahead of interest on our debt with four hauler loads, Hartwell, we’ll be losing money with just three, no matter what that suit is bringing in.”

  “Well we don’t really have a choice,” Hartwell said. “Unless someone knows where to find an intact hauler lying around.”

  Rush’s hand went up.

  “Rush? You know where to find a hauler?”

  “I might. I know a ruin that’s consistent with a vehicle depot.”

  “Why didn’t you mention that before?”

  “It’s been years. I don’t know if the ruin is still sealed. If it is sealed, then the security will still be active.”

  “What kind of security?”

  “The deadly kind,” Rush said. He was hard to read under the best circumstances, but Hartwell had the odd feeling Rush wasn’t comfortable discussing this.

  “Rush, is there something dangerous about this ruin?”

  “No more than a lot of places on Scrapworld.”

  “Talk straight, kid,” Old Bastard said. “What’re you hiding?”

  “I don’t want to go there,” Rush said. “It’s where my dad died.”

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  Upon hearing that, even the Old Bastard backed off -a little.

  “Well I’m damn sorry to hear that, Rushmore, but there’s a lot of living people here who need to move material,” he said. “We get even one hauler you’ll be saving lives.”

  “If it’s a sealed depot there might be two or three,” Jen added. “If we could move material like that we might actually stand a chance of getting off this rock.”

  “Don’t start daydreaming now, Jen,” Liam said. “We don’t even know where this place is.”

  “I could find it on a map,” Rush said. Liam went to go dig it out of the sleeper hauler, and handed the slab of metal to Rush, along with a piece of chalk to take notes. Rush charted out a course to their destination with surprising ease. The potential depot was only about three days away, though the direction was a problem.

  “Three days to the east,” Hartwell said. “If I’m right, that would put it right on top of that trap Gemini warned us about.”

  “Trap?”

  “There’s a locked door. That kind of thing gets attention from Junkers, people try to crack it, just like the Crash Crater,” Hartwell said. “Apparently a bandit caught wind of the attention and started using the site as bait a few years back.”

  This did not prompt any of the reactions Hartwell had been hoping for. Giza crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

  “And we don’t go looking for fights,” Hartwell said.

  “We aren’t going looking for a fight,” Jen said. “We’re going looking for a hauler. Some bandit tries to cause problems, he gets what’s coming to him.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be one of the anti-suit people?”

  “I’m ‘anti’ unnecessary risk,” Jen said. “This one’s necessary. The Old Bastard’s right, if we can’t haul raw tonnage we’re all going to be as old as he is before we got off this damn station.”

  “That doesn’t justify going out of our way to kill someone,” Hartwell said.

  “When it’s us or them, it absolutely does,” Jen spat.

  “I don’t kill the bandits,” Rush said. “Not on purpose.”

  “And yet they’re all dead,” Old Bastard spat. “Come on then, enough arguing in circles. Let’s put it to a vote and be done with it.”

  Hartwell grit his teeth and reluctantly headed out to put diplomacy into action. Liam followed to help things get set up, and couldn’t help but notice Shinji Aso sitting at a distance, carefully perched to observe the conversation. He had no idea how that guy outranked him. No subtlety whatsoever.

  Shinji was, of course, not the only person who’d been trying to eavesdrop. Those who weren’t mourning friends lost in the same attack that had cost them the hauler were trying to figure out next steps. A good chunk of the caravan had been listening in on the meeting of de facto authorities. Shinji was just the only one whose position allowed him to keep an eye on those who were keeping an eye.

  With a stiff gait characteristic of too much time spent marching in lockstep, Arthur Reynolds tried to head away from the scene without looking suspicious, and failed. Shinji’s eyes followed him every step of the way, and watched the “former” soldier nervously fidget with a part of his prison jumpsuit. Shinji smiled to himself.

  Everything just kept getting more and more interesting.