The Bounty Tag
The suit clock blinked 05:12, each second a clean cut in the dark.
Aster Caldwell drifted above the night side of Earth with her tether line humming against her hip. Clouds rolled like bruises. City lights should have been constellations. Too many gaps broke the pattern.
The salvage case floated against her chest rig, clipped tight. Inside waited a Salvage Protocol tag, palm-sized and worth a month of air filters on Luna Station Alpha.
The Vethrak fragment rotated fifty meters ahead, a slab of dark geometry that looked carved rather than torn. No rust. No frost. Only heat scars and a seam that ran down its face like a fault line.
Aster fired a breath of thrusters and glided closer.
Her boot caught a ridge. The suit squealed an abrasion warning, then settled. The ridge had been designed for something else. Everything about the fragment had.
The seam widened into a cavity.
The brief had called it a sensor node access point. Aster had listened with half her mind while the tug crew argued over payout splits. The numbers had sounded unreal.
The cavity made them real.
Aster opened the tag case and took the disc in both hands. Block letters stared back at her.
SALVAGE PROTOCOL.
PROPERTY OF UNITED EARTH NAVY.
ATTACH. SEAL. REPORT.
Vethrak hull counted as nonmagnetic. The disc’s micro-drills extended with a soft click.
Her comm stayed narrow-beam to the tug.
“Thirty seconds,” she said.
“No chatter,” the pilot replied.
Silence returned.
Aster angled her helmet light into the cavity.
A shape sat inside, darker than the void. Smooth. Oval. Grooves spiraled inward as if the thing had been grown, not built.
Her glove brushed the edge.
Cold stabbed through the suit’s insulation, sharp enough to steal her breath.
Aster pulled back and held still, waiting for alarms.
None came.
The cold lingered anyway.
The node did not belong to her old instincts. She had fixed irrigation pumps outside Addis. Later, she had patched pressure seals on refugee modules with duct tape and prayer. Machines had rules.
This thing had a presence.
Aster chose a flat patch of hull beside the seam and pressed the tag to it.
The drills bit.
The disc vibrated in her palms. Vethrak alloy resisted like dense ceramic. The bits squealed, then found a rhythm.
Her visor flashed a proximity alert.
A second transponder had entered her detection cone.
No Protocol handshake.
No Navy encryption.
A ping pattern that meant trouble.
Unregistered.
Hunters.
Aster kept her voice low. “Company. Two hundred meters. Closing.”
The pilot answered without heat. “Finish the tag.”
The countdown ran.
Three.
Two.
The disc chirped.
SEAL COMPLETE.
Aster slapped the activation pad. A pale amber ring lit around the tag’s edge.
Bounty registered.
Ownership asserted.
Report queued.
The tag had become a claim. It had also become a beacon.
Aster pushed off the fragment and reeled toward the tug’s shadow.
The hunter craft resolved into a converted courier pod with external tanks strapped along its belly. No markings. Cheap cold-gas thrusters left a thin mist trail. A harpoon assembly sat on the nose like a stinger.
A broad-band comm request punched through her suit filters.
“Protocol diver,” a young male voice said, trying to sound calm. “Let it go.”
Aster ignored him and pulled harder on the tether reel.
“Nobody owns alien scrap,” he continued. “Split it. Keep breathing.”
The tug loomed closer, a boxy salvage rig with patched panels and a net launcher welded to its flank. The name on its hull had been repainted twice and still looked tired.
CSV MIDDLE DISTANCE.
The pilot broke comm discipline and answered on the broad band. “Navy claim. Back off.”
The courier pod drifted into Aster’s path.
Collision vectors tangled across her visor.
The harpoon assembly extended.
Her stomach tightened into a knot.
The harpoon fired.
The line streaked past her and struck the Vethrak fragment with a spark that looked like a tiny star. The pod’s winch spun. Cable went taut.
The fragment’s rotation changed. The seam yawed.
Inside the cavity, the oval node shifted.
Aster’s visor flickered.
Telemetry stuttered.
Static crawled along the comm channel.
The pilot swore once. “Caldwell, get inside.”
Aster could not look away.
The seam did not glow. It deepened, a black so complete it swallowed her helmet beam. The node moved like an eyelid opening.
The hunter laughed, breathy and thrilled. “Look at that. Look what you found.”
Aster’s hands found the tug’s outer tool rack as she hit the handrail. Fingers closed around a plasma salvage cutter, old and heavy and familiar.
Warmth from its grip steadied her.
The hunter pod reeled harder.
The fragment resisted.
The seam widened another fraction.
Static worsened.
Aster pushed off the tug and kicked toward the harpoon line.
The tether dragged behind her like a leash.
Her boots clamped the cable. Vibration thrummed up her legs.
“Do not,” the hunter snapped, panic breaking through his act.
Aster set the cutter to the cable.
The plasma arc snapped to life, blue-white and harsh.
The cable screamed as it heated.
Aster held the cutter steady.
The line parted.
The courier pod lurched back, momentum carrying it away.
The fragment drifted free again.
The seam darkened. The visor flicker eased.
Aster reeled herself toward the tug with arms burning.
The hunter pod swung around for another run.
The tug’s Aurora Drive lit.
Blue flame blossomed from the nozzles, sharp and contained. The tug surged.
Aster hit the airlock ring hard enough to rattle her teeth. Mag clamps caught. The outer hatch motor whined.
The hunter’s voice filled the open channel, raw with anger. “You do not deserve it.”
Aster spun the hatch wheel until her wrist ached.
The seal engaged.
Pressure rose inside the airlock with a tired groan.
Aster tore her helmet off the moment the indicator went green.
Warm, stale air hit her face. Sweat cooled on her scalp.
The pilot kept both hands on the controls, eyes fixed on the screen. The Vethrak fragment shrank behind them, amber tag pulsing like a stubborn heartbeat.
Aster swallowed hard. “It moved.”
“Vethrak tech does that,” the pilot said.
“It did not want the cable.” The words scraped out. “It woke up when he pulled.”
The pilot’s shoulders rose and fell once. “Protocol will want it more now.”
Aster stared at the screen until her eyes burned.
A tag. A claim. A tiny light on alien skin.
The comm pinged with an automated message from Luna Station Alpha.
SALVAGE CLAIM CONFIRMED.
TRANSFER WINDOW ALLOCATED.
PAYMENT PENDING VERIFICATION.
Payment meant more than credits. Payment meant filters. Antibiotics. Replacement seals. One less week of rationed oxygen.
Aster pressed her palm to the bulkhead, grounding herself in welded metal and human mistakes.
The invasion had taken the sky.
People were taking pieces of it back.
The tug burned for the Moon, blue drive steady, while the hunter pod dwindled into orbital clutter behind them.
Author’s Note: This story takes place in Year 2, when the Salvage Protocol was still taking shape and bounty tags like this one drew both hope and violence into orbit.
If you enjoyed this story, you can follow the main story arc in The Exodus Rush, the first book in The Vethrak Requiem series.