He stayed longer than he thought he would.
Not because he was overwhelmed, but because the Guild here, sleek, efficient, honed to the bone, revealed itself slowly. Not through words or architecture, but through rhythm. Through posture. Through what people chose not to say.
Ethan stood near one of the outer columns that lined the mission ring's perimeter, arms crossed, watching mercs move in and out of contract review pods like cogs in a glittering machine. Others gathered in small groups across the open floor, holding private discussions just far enough from listening range. The way they leaned in, how quickly eyes darted to new arrivals, how shoulders tensed when unfamiliar steps echoed too close. It was a language all its own.
A place where perception was everything.
He found his thoughts wandering back.
To Valeris City.
To the heat. The dust.
To the old Guild building with its creaking staircases and half-functional lights, where the warbled intercom buzzed overhead like an ancient fridge struggling to stay alive. But the people? They mattered.
The Guild Branch on Kynara had felt like a strange blend of survival and community. A mix of stubborn old vets, hopeful freelancers, quiet loners, and locals who'd lost too much and were still standing.
They didn't have titles or swagger. They had history. Grit. Stories traded over bad coffee and better scars.
And at the center of it all had been Kael. Guild Secretary, station keeper, and the kind of man who didn't smile often but made sure every merc that walked in the door had at least a fair shot at getting out alive.
Grizzled. Soft-spoken. Sharp eyes that didn't miss a detail.
He didn't run the Guild like a business. He ran it like a lighthouse keeper tending a storm-wrecked coast.
Ethan remembered that first day vividly. The sting of sand still in his hair, his ship a small wreck on the docks of Valeris. He hadn't known much than what Iris told him, barely understood the need of stable source of income, and had no idea what the rules were to become a merc.
Just a fake ID registered by Iris and a desperate need for direction.
Kael had taken one look at him and offered that thin, tired nod.
He hadn't said much than what was needed. But he'd stayed available. Walked Ethan through the basics, contracts, Guild points, gear access, rank paths. The little-known field rules that weren't written. How to talk to clients without underselling yourself. When to walk away from a deal that smelled wrong.
Not because he had to.
But because someone needed to.
And Ethan had never forgotten that.
He hadn't realized at the time how rare that kind of guidance was. That kind of grace.
Now, as he leaned against the console in Ashen Prime, watching a young duo across the mission floor argue in hushed tones over a pirate sweep contract, it hit him:
This Guild didn't nurture. It evaluated. It didn't teach. It filtered.
These mercs? They didn't have Kael. They had quotas. Kill counts. Screens flashing payout estimates. Glorified leaderboards.
Ethan could almost hear the old man's voice in his head, that low, gravel-throated wisdom echoing like an old lesson meant to last:
"Out there, you can't fully trust anyone with your safety. Watch your back, always. But this place? You can consider it a permanent sanctuary. A home, if you ever decide to have one."
It hadn't meant much at the time.
But now?
Now, standing in the sharp, stainless steel corridors of a Guild branch that measured you the second you walked in and never stopped, it meant everything.
Ashen Prime was efficient. Streamlined. Polished to a mirror shine.
But Kynara… Kynara had heart. And more importantly, it had people like Kael.
Ethan watched the younger mercs again. One was fidgeting with a neural patch, clearly unsure. The other looked more eager, maybe even reckless.
He saw the moment their job was accepted.
The moment they stopped being rookies and became potential statistics.
The field wouldn't go easy on them.
And no one here would either.
Not like Kael would've.
Ethan turned away, the weight of memory heavier than expected.
He wasn't sentimental by nature. But that kind of mentorship? That rare mix of toughness and quiet care?
It stayed with you.
Ethan drifted toward a smaller console off to the side and activated a private terminal with his ID.
D-Rank +. 5000 Guild Points.
The interface rippled into three core menus:
Gear Access
Exclusive Contracts
Fleet Affiliation Requests
He started with Gear Access.
The catalog was expansive, far more than what Kynara ever had on offer. Adaptive impact suits, exo-bracers with customizable torque control, HUD-linked ocular lenses calibrated for high-orbit combat or planetary blackouts. Dozens of field kits, from toxin-filtering masks to mag-adhesive grappling gloves.
He skimmed. Some of it was tempting. But nothing leapt at him. Not yet. What he needed was flexibility, not specialization. He didn't know what he'd face next, and that uncertainty demanded adaptability.
He switched to Exclusive Contracts.
More than thirty listings popped up.
Some were clearly corporate, boardroom execs requesting private protection while they inspected mining operations in unstable systems. Others had government sigils attached, covert asset retrievals, classified data runs, containment protocols for bio-threat zones in distant quadrants.
His eyes narrowed at one flagged Rank-C: "Artifact recovery and anomaly protection in the Tharnic Divide."
High risk. High pay. No clarity on the client. A contract like that screamed hidden agendas.
None of them, however, took him anywhere near the core sectors where he needed to go for his C-Rank promotion.
He exited the menus.
A loud clunk echoed behind him. He turned slightly to see a merc in full exo-suit gear slamming his gauntlet into a debrief terminal, frustrated with whatever his payout was. The staff didn't even flinch. They were used to mercs unraveling.
Ethan exhaled softly through his nose and took a few slow steps away.
"Kynara was chaos. But it had rules, real ones. Built by necessity, not politics."
Here, the rules were written in the contracts, but not the kind that showed up on screens. The real rules were the unspoken ones.
How long you stood near the board before someone asked if you belonged.
Whether you walked alone or walked in formation.
How fast your datapad lit up after a briefing,because in Ashen Prime, jobs weren't just accepted. They were watched.
He watched a trio in matching armor accept a classified mission. Their names and assignments were immediately logged into a nearby display, visible to others. Reputation wasn't earned quietly here. It was projected. Quantified. Monetized.
Ethan let the moment settle. Let himself feel the thrum of the space, the ambition, the tension, the endless edge of competition.
And then he backed away.
No contract today.
Because knowing when to act was just as important as acting at all.
He moved toward the exit with even strides, not in a hurry, not lingering. Just enough to blend. The doors opened without resistance. The hallway outside was quieter now. No one followed.
And as the doors hissed shut behind him, Ethan Walker, D+ Rank, Independent Operative, Federation Clearance Level Medium, walked away from the board with nothing but silence.
And intent.