Bounty Paid in Full

You find Harlan at the edge of a smuggler's airfield, dust devils spinning between rusted hangars as his transport spools up. He sees you coming and goes for his weapon — and that's the last choice he ever makes. The shot that drops him echoes across the flats longer than it should, swallowed eventually by wind and silence. You stand over him and feel nothing clean about it.

The evidence broadcasts anyway. Guild terminals light up across the region. Your name surfaces — not as a killer, but as the woman Harlan Voss tried to bury alongside twelve others at Colvin Station. The formal clearance arrives three days later, a terse bureaucratic absolution that doesn't mention what it cost.

Eli sends a single message: He should have stood trial. You don't reply, because he's right. The truth is out, your debt is paid, and Harlan will never answer for Colvin in any room that matters. You holster your gun, climb back into your crawler, and drive west — carrying a cleared name that somehow feels heavier than the one you buried it under.