Few Solons will ever see the mines within the Fringe.

  And even fewer will ever survive them.

  But for those who do... immortality.

  Arbiter Recruiting Pamphlet

  A few moments later, Constane angled the Ore ship’s oversized bow so close to the landing pad’s main docking collar that even the thin air surrounding the Forge barely had room to maneuver between the two.

  “Look at her,” Constane said as he witnessed the great Mevasi jump back from the railing out of fear that this time might be the time he finally crashes. “Definitely going to give her grief for that little move.”

  Resembling a heavily plated eighteen-wheeler without the wheels, the ungainly vessel lurched from side to side against the cold wind under his deft touch. After a second of thrusting with the docking engines, he found the equilibrium he was looking for.

  Sensing the arrival of a ship, three umbilical lines shot out from beneath the gangway like hungry snakes looking for a meal. Quickly, the lines leached onto three induction ports alongside the vessel’s forward hull. Instantly, hissing gases could be heard from somewhere deep inside the hull. A second later, those gases started to expel outward in small plumes of white vapor before disappearing into the tumultuous wind surrounding the ship.

  From beneath her feet, Mevasi could hear a familiar buzzing sound reverberating through her bones as tight groups of bulky transport skiffs rocketed into sight. Each carrying two Dockers a piece, the truncated barges of heat and light encircled the boxy rear end of the Ore ship like a swarm of angry hornets preparing to strike.

  But before the unorthodox unloading could begin in earnest, the hovering skiffs hesitated as the transport’s spine began to stretch apart like an old accordion doing its best to fill itself up with a breath of air.

  “Hold,” the lead skiff commanded as the boxy rear, which at a distance appeared to be one long container, split itself into ten smaller sections to compensate for the added length. Once the conversion was completed, the still buzzing skiffs broke off into two Fentee teams and began latching themselves on to the newly formed containers full of unprocessed ore.

  “Clear!” A booming voice sounded off from one of the ore ship’s external speakers. “I love this part!”

  As a follow up to that enthusiastic declaration, a series of four subdued explosions rang out among the clatter of skiffs and containers. This sound was quickly followed by a well-hidden door near the front of the ship’s bridge swinging downward then smashing itself onto the Landing Pad’s railing with a thunderous clang.

  “Why do you keep doing that, sir?” A meek and feeble voice said from just inside the ship’s brand-new opening. “This vessel has an actual docking port we’re supposed to use.”

  “I know it does, Panero.” The first, more confident voice shouted in response to such a foolishly banal observation. “The ship also has deceleration thrusters. I guess I should use those as well.”

  “Actually…” Panero said with a hopeful tone. "Now that you mention it."

  Before another lecture could arise, Constane escaped his words by leaping out through the hatchway and onto the platform. A full head taller than Mevasi, her aging friend’s coat of fur was still as orange as the day his mother gave birth to him. Long and slender, he had the appearance of younger Fentee even though his age put him near the time of passing.

  “You know, Mevasi.” Meeting her stern gaze with an extended paw, he greeted his friend with the air of a harsh teacher. “I don’t think this pup will ever truly be ready to take over for me when I’m finally gone.”

  “You know that’s the escape hatch, right?” She asked pointing to a small, scuffed up placard bolted just above the opening. It read, EMERGECNY ESCAPE HATCH.

  “So…” Constane didn’t bother to follow her finger because he knew his ship and its doors better than anyone alive. “You know how much I hate cycling through the docking access hatch. The blasted thing takes forever.”

  “Takes forever for you?" Mevasi raised an eyebrow. "What about the next ten minutes Panero’s going to have to waste fitting new explosive bolts back into place? Bolts, may I remind you, that should only be fired off in case of real danger.”

  “Please, Mevasi.” Constane happily turned back to the hatchway and saw an extremely miffed Solonian stammering words of derision under his breath. “Panero loves refitting the hatch bolts for me after I use it. In fact, refitting explosive bolts is probably the thing he lives for most in this short life.”

  “Not short enough.” Panero muttered to himself as he began to strip away the old bolts from the blow-away hinges which held the whole thing together.

  “I heard that, Panero.” Constane couldn’t help but laugh at his copilot’s mirthful shot. “But wait on that for a few moments. I want you to check the shipping manifests first. You know how shoddy those miners have been of late. We need to make sure they didn’t shortchange us on the inventory.”

  Dropping what he was doing, Panero meandered down the makeshift ramp and sidled up to the Landing Pad control station. With a touch of a few buttons, he could monitor the ore as it was being off loaded into the refinery.

  “So,” Constane leaned to the side of Mevasi’s judgmental body to see General Suvo slowly getting back to his feet. “You were saying something about only in cases of extreme danger?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Remembering that she had just been in a fight, Mevasi swung around to acknowledge Suvo’s still bloodied up face. Without a hint of sarcasm, the Tralon general ignored his wounds and saluted his momentary conqueror with a mischievously sexy grin.

  “I look forward to another spirited contest of flesh, Sentee.” With that parting innuendo, he retreated down gantry way back toward the entrance to the main hub.

  “I think I should have knocked out both sets of heads.” She remarked about Suvo’s right head where all his animal passion was stored. “It would have made that parting... less awkward.”

  “The general can’t help himself.” Constane observed innocently as the Tralon General disappeared into the hatchway which Mevasi had just emerged from. “It’s just in their nature after a good tussle to want to breed.”

  “Then maybe he should change his nature.”

  Constane took a moment away from chiding his second in command to fully take in the amount of marks which littered his oldest friend’s face. Were there even more there than the last time they saw each other? To be honest, he really couldn’t tell anymore. “Changing one’s nature is not as easy as you make it out to be, Mevasi.”

  “Depends on the nature you’re attempting to change.” As she spoke, she could feel her friend’s eyes lingering over her face… her scars. “Do you think this was easy?”

  The old freighter pilot lowered his head. He knew exactly how hard changing her nature had been. After all, how many Fentees had tried to force themselves upon her over the last two cycles? How many had wrestled in the darkness, acting on ingrained instincts like their kind had always done for millennia?

  And how many had paid the price for such blind arrogance? Dozens? A hundred? He didn’t truly know the number. But every fresh wound Mevasi bore upon her body represented a moment in her life when someone else tried to gain control over her. While every healed scar served as a warning for the next fool not to attempt such a dangerous folly.

  Still, scars only stopped the weak ones.

  “No, I don’t.” He quickly turned the conversation back to subjects of a more light and frivolous subject matter. After all, this dying Fentee had enough sourness in his life. “So, what are you doing here, besides making time with a Tralon general that is?”

  Mevasi instinctually narrowed her eyes on the Arbiter’s sky ship as the vessel’s massive engines slowly began to power down. The behemoth had finally found a birth in which to moor. “I was here to tell the general his ship would be postponed.”

  “Postponed? Why would his ship be postponed?” Constane asked as he leaned over Panero’s shoulders to double-check the figures coming back from the refinery. Then, he looked toward the black conical ship hovering silently above the Forge’s largest docking bay. “Oh, that’s why his ship’s been postponed?”

  “Of course that’s why it’s been postponed. Are you saying such an unwelcome sight escaped your vigilance on reentry? You had the ore ship so tightly on the vessel’s stern, I’m surprised you didn’t smash into the back of it.”

  “I was keeping my attention on more important things.”

  “Are you referring to that silly game you play of trying to scare the life out of Panero?” Mevasi grimaced at her friend’s odd sense of humor.

  “Oh, my heavens, Mevasi! You should have seen him weeping like a swaddling cub when I clipped a small asteroid near the edge of the belt.” The gregarious captain grasped his slight copilot by the shoulders and shook him warmly. “To see him react in such a way. One would have thought the ship’s hull was breached, on fire and going down.”

  “We were going down like the hull was breached. The ship just didn’t happen to be on fire.” Panero pushed a button which triggered the computer to compile all the empty containers of cargo. “Fifty five percent so far, Captain. With only two containers left to unload, the final haul should be somewhere near seventy.”

  “Well,” Constane removed his paws to lean in closer to the screen. “At least those miners weren’t shortchanging us with the numbers again.”

  Satisfied that his ship’s load count would prove to be mainly correct, he turned back to find a preoccupied Mevasi staring intently at the Arbiter’s ship. “Have you spoken to Timarn since her incarceration?”

  Mevasi’s yellow eyes contracted to tiny points as a shallow breath caught in her slightly constricted throat. This was a question she had been both dreading and avoiding ever since the incident. “I haven’t yet, Constane. The Council’s been keeping her sequestered away near the Elder Temple and no one’s been allowed an audience with her.”

  “Allowed?” Constane shook his skeptical head cautiously. “I’ve never known you to wait for the allowance of others to do anything. What have you been waiting for?”

  “Waiting?” The timeworn friends shared a look that screamed of past exploits gone horribly wrong. “I’ve been waiting for an insane pilot to offer me a dangerous ride. Do you happen to know where I can find one?”

  Their conversation paused suddenly, allowing the still visibly shaken Panero a chance to insult his commanding officer. Both waited to see if the normally ‘by the book’ copilot would bite. But after a tentative look over his slumping shoulders, he silently declined.

  “How long before we can make our way to the surface?” Mevasi asked.

  Constane laughed at his second in command’s restraint. How many times before he passed on would this hampered Fentee bite his tongue in the face of obviously unfair treatment? “Hardly any time at all since your friend Duxon called me back with hardly a decent load to speak of.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” Mevasi moved closer to the Ore ship’s escape hatch, examining the blown bolts along the outside seams. “He’s not my friend.”

  “Sorry,” Constane smirked at Mevasi’s facial expression as she said the word friend in relation to the Forge commander. “I keep forgetting how loathsome you find the idea of friendship.”

  “Not the idea, just the implementation.”

  She turned back toward the main hub in time to see a protruding section of the Arbiter’s sky ship break loose from the main body and begin a slow, controlled descent toward an unoccupied construction bay. That was quick for an arriving ship, she thought to herself. Normally visitors require at least a day to acclimatize to the Solonian atmosphere.

  “Besides, I already have all the friends I need, you old fool.” She added the last part in an unusually timid voice.

  “True… a whole legion of three the last time I counted.” He followed her line of sight until he too caught view of the Arbiter’s encroaching shuttle. Constane was also astute enough to recognize the speed at which they were moving. “But with the good judge’s speedy arrival and my ensuing end close at hand, two of those three are currently on the way out.”

  Mevasi’s face transformed from placid interest into a swirling mess of anger and fear. “You know I don’t like talking about that subject, you old crust bucket.”

  “Fine… continue to delude yourself if you must about my fading light. But time will bear out my warnings on this subject, mark my words.”

  Constane swiveled around and yanked Panero’s arm. The co-pilot sputtered, then jerked rigidly to attention. “Back to resetting the escape hatch young one, I want to be in the air before their shuttle touches down on the Forge. Do you understand?”

  Panero didn’t bother with acknowledging his captain’s request. Instead, he just went about the business of getting the Ore ship ready to fly again without any hint of distaste in his sad, yet loyal eyes.

  “You were blessed to find a Fentee with such a little spine to be your copilot, Constane.” Mevasi said with an air of controlled disgust. Panero’s lack of courage usually brought out this tone in her voice. “Because there’s no way in the heavens, I would let you treat me with such disrespect.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think I never asked you to be my copilot?”