The Sister passed into Sliprock's field but Maysilee kept our bubble running. I looked out over the side, the town below blocked out in watery shades of grey and black.

  Maysille brought the Sister down on the flat top of the asteroid, where a series of rectangular, interconnected pools crisscrossed where thin walkways formed a series of docks.

  She set the Sister in a pool alongside several squat vessels with overhanging eaves that gave them a top heavy look. As we sank in, the pool overflowed, the excess water funnelled off the back of the asteroid by deep channels.

  I held tightly to the railing while we settled. The Sister was a seaworthy ship, but the difference between cutting through Innerspace and bobbing in the dark water made me feel queasy.

  The middle of the deck peeled open and the lift raised up again, Jenk standing in the middle with a scowl, flanked by a trio of golems. They still weirded me out. They were masterwork simulacrums in the shape of a man, grey wiry bodies, covered with discoloured white plates that pulsed with faint light. Their blank faces were half-covered by wide brimmed hats which were the same dark fabric as the plain jumpsuits that hung loosely off their frames. Large empty sacks hung off their back, and I could just catch the gleaming flash of weapons in the side slits that hid their secondary arms.

  Jenk stepped off the lift and the golems followed, making a soft sound like a tarp cracking in an air current. He spared a glance at the rain cascading down the bubble and tugged at his jacket which he had already zipped up until it had swallowed everything but his furrowed brow and his angry little eyes. "Well, if someone would put down the plank?"

  I rushed to the side, reaching it as Dray did. He frowned at me, but didn't spare the time for another unfunny crack. Despite his nonchalance around the Captain he seemed to actually fear the little quartermaster. A somewhat understandable way to act towards the crewmate who made sure everyone gets fed, and more importantly- at least to mercenaries like the twins- made sure everyone gets paid.

  We each took an end of the plank and pulled it off the railing, then Drax reached us and unlatched the gate. I fed the end through, and Dray gave it a shove, watching it slide down to meet the dock with a grin.

  Noboro stepped up beside me. "Jax, have you prepared?"

  I nod, trying not to feel too annoyed, I was in charge of the drop-off, and I had said I had things ready.

  Instead I say, "Yes, everything's ready, I'm carrying most of them." I spoke up then, turning to look at each of the twins, "You two are guard duty. Keep an eye on unsavouries and protect the packages. Don't run off." Drax nodded and Dray gave a half hearted thumbs up, with an expression like it had physically hurt him. It was the best that I was going to get out of either of them.

  "Noboro, you're carrying the barrel."

  He turns to follow my finger. He knitted his brow and his lips wobbled but he nodded, "Very well, Jax."

  That had gone well. Though, I would see how things went. Noboro would follow the Captain's order, and while I didn't trust the twins- why I had kept any deliveries out of their hands, despite how uncomfortable it was to leave my safety mostly in their hands- but I didn't expect either of them to outright turn on us or disobey an order.

  Either way, Flashpan was a welcome weight on my side, and as heavy as my load was, my hands were free.

  Jenk made a funny cough deep in his throat, "If you are about done."

  I give him the best apologetic smile I can manage while wanting to suggest he take the quick way off of the Sister. "Let's go." I nod Dray down the bridge and follow, Drax behind me.

  The bubble is the lightest silk pressing against us, then we are through, and rain is battering against our skulls. Dray gasped and said a curse that was swallowed by water, as he pulled his hood up, his white hair already stuck flat to his skull, his pink eyelashes soddenly blinking back moisture.

  I took a deep breath, the air was damp and thick, bringing with it a heavy metallic taste. My hair is pushed over my face in brown curtains, but I push it back. It's refreshing in a scouring way that is the opposite of a place like Verak. I roll my shoulders and straighten, refusing to bow under the force. Drax crosses behind me and mutters something about staying on the ship. We wait- Dray uttering more curses under his breath- for Noboro, he comes slowly after, both thick arms clenched around the barrel. He crosses over, the rain immediately saturating his thick fur, outlining the harsh shapes of his muzzle and brow. He already looks miserable, but he can't do much about it, with both arms occupied.

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  My group ready, I lead them to the edge of the cliff, where there waits a woman cloaked head to toe, standing under a small stand. The twins shy away from the edge, shooting distrustful glances at the drop down to the city, hundreds of feet below.

  I raise a hand, stepping close, "Jax of the Silent Sister, requesting passage for deliveries."

  The worker's hands come out to lift the cover off of a small tablet where she makes a few notes."Approved," She says. She grabs a thick rope hanging down the side along a pair of chains linked onto heavy duty arms, and tugs it three times, the muscles in her uncovered forearms flexing. Her job done, she steps back into her cloak.

  "Hey," Dray said, nearly yelling over the swell "Pretty brave, you know. Working that close to the edge."

  The worker doesn't respond. Dray repeats himself, somehow under the assumption that his volume had ever been the problem. I see in my peripheral, Jank making his way slowly down the plank.

  She ignores him again. Dray has just started a third time, when he is disturbed by the increasing sound of the chains. They spin through their loops, pulling their load upwards. Soon, they halt, having winched up a thin, perforated platform with thinner railings, I step on putting my back to the drop, ignoring the slight sag. Dray looks at me like I'm insane, which gives me a nice feeling. Heights had never been much of a problem of mine, and I had delivered to Hessier enough that the vista didn't bother me.

  Then they followed me on, despite their fear, Dray's face turning an odd shade of ice green. as Noboro steps on, his weight making the lift shake."Can we go now," Dray spits out, hand tight on the rail.

  The worker tilts her head to me. A question. I shake my head. Jank huffs. "Jank, of the Silent Sister, I require supplies."

  I nod, and she gestures Jenk and his entourage on the lift. Dray groaned at each additional passenger. Finally, everyone is on, and the worker pulls at the rope again. The lift begins to move down. I catch the shape of the worker's eye under her cloak. I brush a hand across the left of my chest- a mostly universal gesture; Sorry.

  She nods and steps back to her station, her arms peeling away. I relax against the railing, ready for the short ride. Dray laughs, high and reedy like a panicked Wyvern calf stuck chained in a cage- "I think she liked me." His brother just links his arms to the railing.

  ~~~~~~~~~

  The lift touches down on a low hill at the top of the town, besides wide doors into the town hall chiselled into the asteroid's side, and the winch's main contraption, a tangle of gears and chainpulls, powered by a gleaming core, and a pair of sullen workers in the same cloaks.

  I step out, The twins flanking me, Noboro taking up the rear with his package. Jenk comes up beside me. He says, "We will separate here. Do not fail. We will reunite on the Silent Sister." The way he talked weirded me out. Reunite. He probably looked forward to us 'reuniting' about as much as I did.

  "Good luck, Quartermaster Jenk." The small man let out an explosive sigh that sounded more like a sneeze and brought a hand up to stroke where his offensively yellow moustaches usually hung. his hand froze, then twitched before he dropped it back to his side. Without a further word, he took the wide stairs that curled down to the town.

  The twins came up on either side of me. Drax gave a quiet whistle that he quickly choked on when he tried to breathe in. I didn't blame him. despite the times I had seen it, the town of Sliprock still amazed me.

  It stretched out below us, perhaps a hundred buildings, built of colourful pieces, welded carefully together in a dizzying mess of reused siding. Each building had roofs, however. Similar to their ships, their roofs hung over the walls, wide troughs funnelling down into large blue barrels that ran around the edges of each house. Walkways stretched between each house, some barely wide enough for someone of Jenk's size, some wide enough for the four of us to walk with arms stretched out. However beneath the houses, there was nothing. Rather, there were long, jagged stilts, and below that, just out of sight a great churning mess of water.

  The town of Sliprock was less of a town and more a collection of pieced together dwellings, held above a massive reservoir by thin little stilts. A little slip all it would take to send someone tumbling over to join the floodwaters below.

  Dray groaned. "No!"

  ***

  In my travels among Innerspace I have seen a grand many sights. However their memories all pale in comparison to one that I know that I shall never forget.

  It was back in my early, roguish days aboard the pirate vessel the Broken Knuckles; a fearsome frigate under the iron rule of dread pirate Rob Johns. The Broken Knuckles had taken a vicious battering at the hands of an imperial heavy cruiser. We won the fight, but were unable to make it to a habitable realm, settling instead in an unnamed asteroid belt that had spit up from the rim.

  It was a nondescript hunk of mountain, alike in a sea of others. We landed late, and quickly set about repairs. The Broken Knuckles was in bad form, but if we had the time, we could have likely fixed her up enough to limp to a friendlier horizon.

  Instead, we were beset by hordes of Drakes, crawling free from tunnels buried in the rock. The were great in number, and made all the more grotesque by the fungous growths that grew from beneath their scales.

  Tired out and sore, we fought with all the might our weary bodies could provide. It proved largely futile.

  I escaped in a jettison pod, along with a deckhand and a cook, but the dread captain and the rest of the crew were never seen again.

  -Bonelly, Grix, Early days, a memoir. pg39 414 AS