The brine gauge dropped below a quarter tank, and Captain Northstar Lightwalker felt the ship's hum thin out under his boots. He was a dill pickle in a captain's coat, standing on the bridge of a starship he had built to look like the one his grandfather kept on a shelf. That model was bolted above his bunk now. The ship below him ran on Force-infused brine, and no other ship in the fleet did. Without more brine, the USS Brine would drift, and the search for a new world where no pickle had gone would end in a quiet, floating death. His navigator rolled to the console, a green-domed droid built along the lines of an old R2 unit. R6-C5 was the only crew member who did not flinch when the lights browned out. "Range to the nearest fuel station," Lightwalker said. "Six hours," R6-C5 said. "At current draw, we have four." "Options." "One. I ran three simulations. The third says cut life support to the lower decks and coast in." "No." "Then one option remains." R6-C5 pivoted its dome toward the rear of the bridge. A green oval of light was already tearing open the air behind the captain's chair. Out stepped another pickle in a white coat, portal gun still humming in his glove. Pickle Rick did not ask permission to be there. He never had. "Heard your reactor coughing three dimensions over," Pickle Rick said. He grinned like the emergency was a joke only he understood. "You want a shortcut or you want to die pretty?" Lightwalker had known him long enough to distrust both offers. "Shortcut to where." "Fuel hub. Big ring station, brine pumps, glowing green pipes. I've been. They don't like me. They'll like you." R6-C5's dome clicked. "I cannot plot a course through a portal I did not model." "Then don't plot it," Pickle Rick said. "Ride it." Lightwalker closed his eyes. He felt the low thrum of the brine in the walls, the way his grandfather had once told him to feel a room before he walked into it. The Force moved through the ship like a slow tide, and the tide was pulling toward the portal. "Open it wide," he said. "Take us in." Pickle Rick fired. The green oval swallowed the bridge windows. The USS Brine lurched, and then the stars outside were different stars, and a ringed station hung close enough to see the docking arms turning. Brine pumps glowed along its spine. R6-C5's dome swiveled to the forward screen. "Captain. They are hailing us. On a fleet channel we do not carry." Lightwalker stared at the station. Someone here already knew the name of his ship. Someone here had been waiting. "Answer it," he said.

The station answered with a woman's voice, calm and bored, and told Lightwalker his docking slot was ready. He cut the channel before he agreed to anything. Whoever waited out there could wait a little longer. The brine tanks were the emergency he had come to solve, but the quartermaster's report was blinking red on his armrest. The galley was down to three days of food. Seven thousand crew. Two hundred pets. He had brought them all this far from home to find a new world, and he could not lead a starving ship into first contact. He left the bridge and took the lift down to the galley deck. The smell told him everything. Empty racks. Bare hooks. A cook stood by a steel table with a single sack of flour and a look Lightwalker had seen on his grandfather's face during a bad hand of cards. Pickle Rick was already there, sitting on a prep counter, swinging his boots. He held up a small black cube. "Molecular food unit," Pickle Rick said. "Prints anything you can name. Kibble. Steak. That weird green loaf your engineers eat. I stole three. You get one." Lightwalker turned the cube in his hand. It was lighter than it looked. "Cost." "You owe me a favor. I'll collect." He should have said no. He thought of the mess hall two decks up, and the pet bay where the ship's cats waited at empty bowls. He set the cube on the steel table. "Show me." Pickle Rick tapped the top. The cube unfolded into a printer the size of a footlocker. A green light climbed its spine. Lightwalker reached through the Force and felt the brine in the walls answer it. The two hums matched. "Feed it a sample," Pickle Rick said. "It copies forever." The cook brought a heel of black bread. The printer swallowed it. A minute later it spat out a fresh loaf, steaming. Then another. Then a bowl of kibble that smelled like real fish. The cook began to cry into his apron. Lightwalker keyed the ship intercom. "All decks. Galley is open. Rotate by shift. Pets first." He watched the line form on the monitor. Seven thousand crew, fed. The mission would hold. He turned to thank Pickle Rick, but the white coat was already halfway through a green oval by the far wall. "Favor," Pickle Rick called back. "Don't forget." The portal closed. The printer kept working. Lightwalker's comm chimed. It was R6-C5, dome-clicks tight and fast. "Captain. The station is sending a boarding party. They say you are late for a meeting you did not schedule. They are armed." Lightwalker looked at the loaves stacking on the counter. He had bought his crew another month. He had five minutes before someone he did not know walked onto his ship.

Lightwalker took the lift up as the boarders crossed his airlock. He had four minutes and no answer to the only question that mattered: who did these people serve. Guess wrong and his crew got shot in their own corridors. Guess right and he still might. He stepped onto the bridge. Six armed figures already stood at the rail, rifles low but ready. Their armor carried no insignia. R6-C5 rolled tight against the captain's chair, dome clicking a warning Lightwalker did not need translated. The lead boarder lifted a gloved hand. "Captain. You are late." "Whose meeting." "You know whose." He did not. He reached through the Force and felt the brine in the walls hum back. It told him about the room. It did not tell him a name. He needed time, and he had none, so he bought some. "My navigator will confirm the docking log," he said. "Two minutes." The lead boarder nodded once. Lightwalker turned to R6-C5 and spoke low. "Open a private channel. Any friendly ship in range. Anyone." The droid chirped and worked. A screen at the helm lit. Not a fleet channel. A private crest — a small crown over crossed reeds. A woman's face filled the screen. Green skin, white robe, brown eyes that had already read the room through the camera. Behind her stood a tall green droid with yellow eyes, hands folded like a butler waiting for bad news. Lightwalker had never met her in person. Every captain in the fleet knew the crest. Senator's daughter. The one who rewrote bills and let other people take the credit. "Princess Hope," he said. "I have guests." Her eyes moved to the armor behind him. "Unmarked plate. Second-tier station guard. Not fleet." "Whose." "The general who runs the hub. He books meetings no one agreed to. Then he collects fees." The droid beside her spoke without turning its head. "He shoots the ones who don't pay." "D7-OX is blunt today," she said. "He is also right." Lightwalker kept his face flat. "Advice." "Pay the docking fee. Not the meeting fee. Call it a clerical error. He needs the story more than the credits." She paused. "I am six hours out. If it goes wrong, say my name on an open channel. Looks worse for him than for you." The screen cut. He turned to the lead boarder. "There has been a clerical error. I will pay the docking fee now. Twice, for the inconvenience." The boarder's helmet tilted. A long second. Then a short word into a wrist mic. The rifles came up to shoulders and slung. "Credits by the hour," the boarder said. "Do not be late again." They filed out. R6-C5's dome sagged an inch. Lightwalker sat down. He had kept his bridge. He had also just been named, on a private channel, by a princess who did not offer favors for free.