Oh yeah that tomorrow

The docking bay smelled like rust and recycled piss—standard Freeport Nebula ambience—but the *Vorax* scent hit Susan’s nostrils three corridors away: fermented meat and gun oil, with a top note of unwashed armor. She elbowed Adam as they rounded the final bend. "They’ve got friends."

Docking Bay Tau was a graveyard of stripped hulls, its flickering emergency lights glinting off seven Voraxians clustered around a gutted freighter. Their leader—the one who’d pinned Susan to the fight pit wall—turned with a wet snort. His tusks gleamed with fresh polish. "Little meats are punctual." Behind him, a younger Voraxian with half its cybernetics exposed hefted a plasma cannon the size of Susan’s torso.

Adam whistled. "That’s a lot of gun for a pickup crew."

The leader—Vorax, apparently—grabbed Susan’s wrist and pressed her palm against his chestplate. The metal was still warm from re-entry burns. "Smell pack now," he rumbled. Susan sniffed. Gunpowder, burnt hair, and something disturbingly similar to old gym socks. "Charming."

Vorax grinned, exposing yellowed tusks. "Pack hunts tonight. Soft meats prove worth." He jerked his head toward the freighter’s open cargo ramp, where three figures slumped in gravity cuffs. Susan’s eyebrows shot up. The middle captive was a Zyxian magistrate—last seen sentencing them to vivisection on live feeds. His carapace was cracked along the thorax, leaking greenish hemolymph.