"Do you know what we're gonna do?" whispered Tess. She and Keira sat in the back of a Freedom League freighter, waiting for Ashelin to board. The cargo door was open. Walkway lights reflected in the rippling canal water of New Haven.

Keira yawned and rubbed her face. "No. I didn't know it was going to be at night, either." She picked at the cheap cloth of her chair. "All Ashelin said was to be ready to go when she dT'd us."

"Daxter said he was going on an important mission tonight. I wonder if we're meeting them in Kras, or something."

Keira shrugged. "She just told me to bring my tools."

"Okay, ladies," said Ashelin. She stomped up the cargo door with a thermos in one hand. After adjusting a few electronic devices on her belt with the other, she hit a button. The door slid up with a woosh, sending a puff of cool, coffee-scented air into the ship. Keira pushed her hair out of her eyes. "We are ready to go."

Ashelin set the thermos on the pilot's terminal. She adjusted the seat and powered up the freighter. The screens on the walls flashed with a marquee of text. "Tess, what do you know about Bullet X?" Ashelin pulled a few levers and they rose from the ground.

"Ooo," said Tess, her eyes lighting up. "It's an old gun maker's dream. Basically a blend of dark eco and blue eco." She scurried across the myriad keyboards set up in the back of the vehicle. Tess pushed buttons and pointed to the displays. "Nobody's been able to make it. Dark eco destabilizes everything, even other ecos. But it was theorized in Eco and Ammo." She grinned and brought up a picture of her prized ballistics magazine. "That by spinning them together under pressure, you could trap the two in a clathrate of eco ore."

"Wow," said Keira, running her hands through her hair, making a face when she found a knot. "Sounds like you'd need some heavy-duty machinery for that."

"Definitely," said Tess. She scratched her ears. "Mixing the ecos is the impossible part. But if they were stable, it wouldn't be too hard to get that kind of ammunition out into the streets."

Ashelin downed her coffee and set the thermos to the side. "What kind of mobility are we looking at?"

"Surprisingly, nothing huge. I think, if you had the right stuff, you could fit it in a revamped peacemaker. The old ones, Sig's style, already have a chamber built to compress energy. You'd just have to modify that – carefully – and add a thermal damper so it doesn't slag itself."

"Hmm," said Ashelin. She tapped her fingers on the wheel. "Kras City's the junkyard for Haven's outdated weaponry. Most of the old KG weapons were standard tazer issues or pistols. Krew and the Underground were fond of morph guns."

"Yeah," said Tess. "Jak's gun had the most mods as of last year. Even it wouldn't have the space for Bullet X. But, um, are we talking abou-"

"Really?" asked Keira. "I would've guessed you could fit it in just fine. What if you took out some of the larger components?"

Tess thought, tucking her fist under her furry chin. "Wellllll… the biggest component is the gyro burster drone regenerator, which, if you took it out, would cut the major power source for the other mods." She waved one hand through the air. "Even the mass inverter is too wired in to remove."

"What if you sacrificed the morph ability for Bullet X?" asked Keira.

"But, see, there are other, cheaper guns that would probably be better for that. Like the old peacemakers." Tess scanned the blue text on the screens. "Ashelin… are we still talking about a hypothetical, here?"

It took Ashelin a few moments to answer. "I sent Jak on a mission. The info on those screens? That's what the sensor Vin cooked up detected. I want to know if she has a walking version."

Tess punched buttons, straining for the hard-to-reach ones at the top of the monitor. "Well, I can't say for sure, but… I doubt it."

Keira fiddled with the assortment of wrenches and screwdrivers tied to her belt. "If she does have it, what if she armed something bigger with it? Like a racing vehicle or zoomer?"

Ashelin grimaced and pulled the freighter to the left. "Damn. I hadn't thought of that," she muttered.

"Can the power cell converters be partitioned off?" asked Tess.

"Yeah," said Keira. "You could modify a street zoomer, but it would have less speed. And a racing vehicle, yeah, probably. Those things are built super-efficiently, so you'd have to find a place to stick another converter." She pulled up a schematic of her Kras City racer. "See, the undercarriage is lightweight. Everything's balanced as perfectly as possible." Another racer ghosted in on top of hers. "This is Razer's vehicle. Same idea, different approach. He sacrificed panel armor for a plated-"

"Keira," said Ashelin, failing to hide her annoyance. "You're getting side tracked."

"But, you wanted to know-"

"Yes. I do. I want a full write-up of what you can do with Bullet X in the vehicle department. If it's feasible, I'll give you a grant to work on it. But we need to focus on what's real. Can either of you interpret the sensor's data and give me something we can work with now?"

Tess and Keira looked at each other.

"Um, well," said Tess. "Neither of us are eco experts. I don't know where Rayn would find one, either. I haven't even seen blue eco pure enough for Bullet X in a really long time."

"So Rayn's hired out some specialty miners," said Ashelin, her voice getting louder. "She's probably contracted scientists from other land masses. Hell, maybe she's tapped Vin's brain electronically!"

Her anger hung in the air like a cloud of debris.

"Does she have a working version of Bullet X or not?"

"Um." Tess highlighted a section of data.

Ashelin stared down a smear between the sea and sky in the distance.

"Keira, do you know how to crunch this?"

"Yeah, hang on." Keira waited for Tess to climb down from the keyboards and typed. "Mineral compositions suggest that there is a small amount of stable Bullet X."

Ashelin swore. "I hate when the bad hunches are right."

"The room also has a tank of low-grade dark eco, like the old stuff swirling around Haven's grid, and a generator. Probably in case the power goes out." Keira tapped the keys. "If Rayn has a pocket of blue eco, it's not in that room."

"Okay. Good." Ashelin glanced at an outline of the room. "This mission has three parts. We're going to break in, get the Bullet X, and make Rayn's life a living hell."

"What do you think, Keira?" Tess had awkwardly wrapped a haz-mat shirt around her body and was holding up her tail. The freighter had landed in Kras City without incident. Ashelin was powering down the engines and pounding commands into terminals. "Should I cut off a sleeve and cover my tail, or just leave it out?"

Keira glanced at her friend, bundled in layers of anti-eco, plasticized cloth. The tough shirt material refused to fold and sharp points stuck out of Tess' body at odd angles. "Um. Let me adjust that for you. And, yeah, you should cover your tail."

Tess held her arms up as Keira clipped and wound the shirt. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," said Keira. She finished the job and pulled the material around Tess' ears. She thought of Tess scrambling around the terminals, straining for keys just out of reach. "Um. I have a question. I've been wondering for a while. What do you think of… the transformation?"

Tess sniffed and looked at the ground. "I love Daxter. I really do! But… but I wish I'd had more time to think about this. It's been really hard to adjust. It's easy for him; he's been like this for years. But me, I can't do the things I used to do. I can hardly even work on guns anymore. The tools are too heavy. Everything's the wrong size." She sighed.

Keira smiled sympathetically and opened her mouth, but Ashelin's shadow loomed over them both.

"Here you are, ladies. These are dT wristbands. I've altered the signal frequency so they will only communicate with each other. I doubt they'll be detectable by Rayn's hall sensors. If they are, we'll find out pretty quick. Hopefully, it won't be a problem."

Keira snapped hers on. Tess held hers above her head and almost burst into tears.

"Here, uh, how about this." Keira fumbled with the wristband, tightened it as far as it would go, and snapped it around Tess' waist.

"Alright. You ready? Good." Ashelin glanced out a circular window. "I know neither of you have much military experience, if any. Remember, Jak wasn't able to complete the mission, and he's good. He's very good. So we're going to be very careful. Normally I don't give a whole spiel before a mission, but, here we are." She glanced out the window again and holstered her old KG gun.

"We are currently on launch pad five at Kras' north landing strip. This is a small strip, not the one we used when we raced here. It's closer to Rayn's HQ, so it's less closely observed, but it's on the bad side of town. Keira, wear this haz-mat cloak. Bunch it around your belt so no one sees your tools. Keep your head down. Tess, you're riding with me, Daxter-style. It's not raining, yet, but it will be soon."

Keira and Tess regarded her with varying degrees of wariness and fatigue. Ashelin handed Keira a gun and a laminated card. "If anyone stops us, follow my lead. That means, if I shoot, you shoot. If I act civil, you keep your mouth shut. That card is a counterfeit courier barcode. It's respected by most of the gangs in Kras, but not all." Ashelin tucked her dreads inside a cap and pulled haz-mat clothes on over her KG armor. "Any questions?"

"Yeah," said Keira. "If Jak couldn't do it, why do you think we can?"

"Because sometimes a mission requires skill, and not just a testosterone-riddled explosion." Ashelin loaded her secondary weapon. "Also, that bitch double-crossed us. And I want to hit her, hard." She sneered. "Rayn made it personal, coming into our lives with her sob story and her poison. She used us. Tonight, we are sending her a message." Ashelin handed Keira a map. "Once we get inside, you'll be separating from Tess and me. This is her HQ, as far as we've been able to map out."

Keira took it, her hands shaking. "Why am I going alone?"

"Because you're the best mechanic in the world," said Ashelin. "Tess and I are stealing the Bullet X, but you're going to ruin Rayn's livelihood. If I wanted her garage simply blown up, I'd've sent Jinx to do the job. But you know what's necessary, what the most expensive machines are. Disable them. If you can sabotage something so that it looks fine but malfunctions later, do it. If you see something you want, take it. And if it's too big to take, destroy it."

Keira glanced at the ghosted images of her and Razer's vehicles. "Is Rayn allied with Mizo's old gang?"

"Yes. She's absorbed most of their assets. I picked tonight for this mission because my contact informed me that she would be meeting up with Razer to finalize things. The HQ will not be as heavily guarded as usual."

"But didn't Jak just break in there?" asked Keira.

Ashelin gave her a wry smile. "Jak's mission was just a prelude. Now, the garage is probably non-mobile and below city level. I highlighted the most likely path to it." She traced the map with her finger. "We'll stick together until here, then you take this turn. This is the room Tess and I are going to. When you finish your part, return to the freighter. Don't wait for us in the HQ."

Keira nodded.

"Alright. Tess, hop up. We're going."

The cargo door slid open; Ashelin killed the freighter's lights and motioned for Keira to follow her along the dock. Old fishnets, some tangled with fish skeletons, rotted on the sides of the walkway. Creaking wooden boats bobbed on the oily water. Ashelin scanned the area with a critical eye. The landing pads were deserted, punctuated by the occasional whitish street lamp. Pink and yellow bar signs lined the street proper. They, and the replacement of fish stink with vehicle exhaust, were the only delineations between the city and the docks. Ashelin nodded her head and they took an alley between saloons.

"Can we talk?" whispered Tess.

Ashelin looked left and right continuously in a smooth motion. "Keep it quiet and uninteresting."

"What are you going to do with the Bul- uh, stuff?"

"Take it. Analyze it. If we can-" Ashelin motioned for Keira to follow, "-we're going to make some of our own."

"What makes it different from regular DE?" whispered Keira. "Seems like it'd be bad enough on its own."

"No one knows for sure," said Tess. "Eco and Ammo guessed it'd have a narrower, but more destructive blasting range. The blue eco would speed up the DE's combustion. Instead of having a chance to spread out, the DE would have a more concentrated effect. Someone at a range where you'd usually just get dark eco burns would die, instead."

"Ugh," said Keira.

"It might work like an EMP," continued Tess. "A big enough-"

"Ladies," hissed Ashelin, grabbing Keira's elbow. "Let's not get too interesting." She dragged Keira past a few men standing outside a bar. "You're too damn slow, courier," she said loudly.

They continued for a few minutes. Kras City towered around them; sleek, neon-lined buildings stretched up to the sooty sky. Finally, Ashelin stopped and put her back to a wall. "We're being followed," she said, keeping her voice very low. "Keira, you go around that way. It'll take you to a door to the warehouse attached to HQ. I'm going this way. They'll follow me, I'll make sure of it. Use the card. Should work for people and doors." She turned abruptly and ran. Sure enough, footsteps clanged down the alleyway after her.

"Ohmygosh," breathed Tess. She wrapped her arms around Ashelin's head and held on tight.

Ashelin planted one foot on the asphalt, bent her knee, and swung her other leg around. As her body circled, she fired, sending bullets through the brains of her followers. They staggered back together, two flailing lumps of dark cloth. Ashelin was gone before they hit the ground.

"Um." Keira winced at the shots. She pressed herself against a building, willing the black haz-mat cloak to render her invisible. She crept towards the door, her bare hands cold on the steel wall.