Cook came in early. It’d been slow couple weeks and he had Charlene covering the night shifts again, but habits didn’t leave a man once he’d trained them. He’d woken up with dawn for too many years to sleep much past daybreak now.

The bar was silent when he let himself in. No one was around. Charlene must have woken Des up before she closed; his table empty. Cook had half expected the drunk to still be there. Des usually spent the winter in the bar, saving his credits for drink and not heat.

Cook flipped the lights on and spotted the scrap of paper tucked under a glass on the bar. Charlene didn’t usually leave notes, not unless something bad had happened. The last time...well, he was sure she hadn’t recovered from that. She put on a brave face, but that trip had messed her up something awful.

He cautiously approached the note; half afraid to read it, half hoping it was a dream. The curling script was certainly Charlene’s handwriting.

Someone’s been talking. Off on the first shipper to find out who.

(Group of bandits in town, fresh out the black) Back soon - Charlie.

Cook cursed and crumpled the note in his fist. The only night in years he’d left the bar early and bandits end up in town? He shook his head, walking into the kitchen and turning on the burners. He let the flame catch on the note before dropping it on the stove, watching as it burned away.

Charlene was rushing off to confront gods only knew who because someone was asking questions no one needed the answers to. And Cook was stuck in town with an empty bar. Just like last time.

Making up his mind was easier than he’d thought. He’d argued with himself, with Charlene, with the empty air wondering if he’d chase after the crazy girl if she ran off like this again. Well, here he was and locking the door to the bar too. He couldn’t remember when the shipper was scheduled to head out, but he knew there was only one today. If he missed it, catching her might not be so easy.

Cook knew a lot more about Charlie than she wanted him too, but he didn’t know all her secrets. He’d tried to find out who her contact was, where she got all her jobs from, but she’d never even so much as whispered a location. The jobs came in on the shippers, some miner paid a few extra credits to drop off a note or package, and Charlie disappeared for a few weeks. It’d been that way since she’d started working at the bar. Nothing Cook could say made the slightest difference.

Then one day she’d left and hadn’t come back. For months he’d waited and worried and yelled and stewed and it made no difference cause he didn’t know a damn thing. Then just as suddenly as she’d left, she’d come back. Different though. There was a haunted look to her, something in the way she walked, like her surroundings didn’t matter. Like she’d been through hell and back and now she was just going through the motions of living.

She had been like that for too long and only recently had gotten that spark back into her eyes.

She hadn’t gone off on a job since then, and here she was running into empire space to try and hunt down someone talking about her? No, Cook wouldn’t just sit at home and wait again.

His feet carried his down the main street, the only street, in town toward the port. He burst through the doors just in time to see Edgar closing the gate to the loading docks.

“Charlene in there,” Cook asked, his voice still rough and full of sleep.

“Charlie? Yeah, she’s been here most of the night. Bought a ticket first thing when I opened up and stood waiting around,” Edgar rambled on confused. Cook never left town. No one left town. Only Charlie and the miners lucky enough to live through their shifts.

“Let me on.”

“What,” Edgar was genuinely shocked.

“Get me a ticket! I’m going with her,” Cook pressed, shoving a handful of credits into the man’s hand.

Edgar stumbled over to his counter, typing at the keys until a small piece of paper printed out. He grabbed it and held it out towards Cook. “You sure you-”

Cook didn’t let the man finish. He snatched the ticket, slid under the gate and stomped onto the shipper. He’d almost missed her. He thanked the gods he started his days so early as he felt the engines growl to life under his feet. He took a deep breath. He was going. He was leaving Las Tumbas.