Sable

Session #13

JUNO...
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"You know this is the part where we get killed, right?"

Spike didn't even glance at me as we crept down the cramped maintenance corridor of a half-dead station orbiting Mars. The lights overhead buzzed like angry insects, casting everything in flickering amber and shadow. Pipes hissed. Somewhere nearby, something dripped. Probably coolant. Hopefully coolant.

"Wouldn't be the first time someone's tried," he muttered back, adjusting the collar of his ill-fitting faux Syndicate jacket. It hung wrong on him, too rigid in the shoulders, like a costume someone had made from memory and bad taste. "You really think we're going to blend in like this?"

I looked down at my own disguise — matte black with a high collar and a patch that read "Logistics." The name tag said Bo. Classy. I plucked at the shoulder. "What? You don't think I pass for a career criminal with deep-seated emotional issues and a loyalty complex?"

That earned me a sideways glance and half a smirk. "That's my job."

We reached a junction and paused. The station was a wreck — dented steel walls, a thin film of rust curling around bulkhead edges like rot, and the scent of recycled air that hadn't been properly filtered in decades. It had the ambiance of a forgotten lung, wheezing its last breath. Appropriate, I thought, for what was about to happen here.

Jet's voice crackled in our earpieces. "You two in position?"

"Roger that, boss," I replied sweetly. "Just another glamorous night infiltrating a crime syndicate."

"Keep it tight," he said. "The encryption logs show this is the third clandestine meeting in the past month. They're planning something big."

"No kidding," Spike muttered.

We rounded the last corner, ducked under a dangling light fixture, and stepped into the viewing chamber — a long, narrow balcony overlooking a rotunda one floor below. Through the metal grate beneath our feet, we could see them gathering. Figures draped in anonymity, their faces hidden behind opaque masks — some matte, some chrome, all impassive. Classic Syndicate flair: drama, mystery, and death.

It was like watching a cult's board meeting. Muted voices echoed up from the chamber, distorted by acoustics and encryption static. Jet was working on cleaning that up in real time. I leaned against the railing, peering through a crack in the paneling. Spike stood next to me, still and tense, one hand on the gun hidden under his coat.

The masked men began to speak.

"They're not just removing capos," Jet's voice came through, filtered but urgent. "They're replacing them. Quietly. One by one."

Spike tensed beside me. I didn't ask why — I didn't need to. He knew this game better than I did. And I'd played some dark games.

Below us, one of the figures tapped a data slate, and a schematic flared to life in the air — a list of targets, names and dates scrolling across the projected screen. Jet whistled low in our ears. "That's a hit list. Politicians. Cops. Informants. Syndicate members. One of 'em's tied to the Mars Congress."

"This is about more than turf," I said, voice low. "It's a coup."

Spike didn't answer. He was staring at the figure at the center of the group — the one not speaking, not moving. Just watching.

"Anything on the quiet one?" I asked.

Jet answered, "No ID, no trace. Like a ghost."

"Yeah, well," I muttered. "Ghosts have a way of crawling back."