Vera Goss had six minutes before the shuttle bay opened, and a throwing star was working its way out of her left sleeve. She stood in the pilot's ready room aboard the Clustervoid carrier, wearing a dead woman's flight suit. The real pilot was folded inside a supply locker two decks down. Vera had the woman's face memorized, the woman's clearance chip in her collar, and a classified flight packet she had not yet opened. She also had a full ninja rig strapped under the uniform, and the seams were losing the fight. The suit was cut for a smaller frame. Every time Vera moved her arm, a blade edge slid toward the cuff. A coil of wire pressed a visible ridge across her hip. She could feel the harness digging under her ribs. If a crew chief looked twice at the bulges, the mission ended before it started. She locked the ready room and stripped fast. The ninja gear came off in pieces on the bench: blades, wire, smoke pellets, hooks. She kept only what she could hide against skin. A pink swim bottom from her go-bag went on first, tight enough to hold three flat shuriken against her hip without a bump. A matching top pinned two garrote spools flat under each breast. The bright fabric hugged everything close. Nothing shifted when she twisted. The long blades and climbing hooks would not fit anywhere on her body. She swapped them for a pair of stiletto heels linked by a short chain — chained nunchucks that read as shoes until she needed them otherwise. She clipped them inside the flight bag under a folded jacket. A small repair kit went in the thigh pocket: adhesive strips, a mirror, thread. Anything torn, she could patch in a corridor. The uniform zipped clean this time. She turned in front of the locker glass and checked every line. Flat. She practiced the dead pilot's walk, shoulders back, chin level. The intercom called her callsign. Vera stepped into the corridor and met the crew chief at the bay hatch. He looked her up and down the way men do when they think it's professional. She let him. She leaned a shoulder into the hatch frame, held his eyes past the point of comfort, and asked about his engines in a low voice. His clipboard dropped to his side. He waved her through without scanning the chip. Inside the cockpit, alone, she pulled the sealed flight packet from her thigh pocket and broke the tab. The order named a target station, a payload, and a window that opened in ninety minutes. It also named a co-pilot she had not planned for. A second name, a second face, a second person who had flown with the real pilot before. Vera stared at the name and heard boots coming up the ladder behind her.