The air over Louie's Island shimmered in a curtain of humidity that clung to fur and feathers alike. It smelled of salt rot and hot metal, with the sharp tang of aviation fuel burning off somewhere down the strip.

Selena adjusted her satchel, the worn edge biting into her shoulder. A bead of sweat traced down her snout before she wiped it away. The bomber jacket stayed on despite the heat. Scars didn’t show. Neither did the pistol at her hip.

She moved along the dock with steady, deliberate steps, boots thudding against the planks. Below, turquoise water lapped against oil-dark pylons. Her workboat, the Rusty Vulture, sat tied off at the far end, engine pulled open and gutted down to its block with parts scattered about like a crime scene. Three days ago the prop had thrown a fit and cracked the housing. The mechanic’s estimate was robbery, and the parts had to be shipped in from goddamned Thembria.

Every hour grounded cost her.

Inside her satchel, the salvage contract for the Grey Lady felt heavier than paper should. A cargo hauler lost in the Soup two weeks ago. The currents in that sector buried wrecks fast. Another month and she’d be digging through silt instead of cargo holds. She needed a lift, a winch, and a pilot with steady hands in a crosswind.

Ahead, the neon sign of Louie’s Place buzzed and flickered. A brass band filtered through the slat windows. Distantly, an engine roared to life on the strip.

Selena pushed through the double doors, stepping from blinding glare into dim, smoky haze. The light shift left her blinking. The air inside was thick with stale beer, cheap cigars, and fried fish. Glass clinked. Someone laughed too loudly. Louie’s voice drifted over the crowd, smooth and effortless.

She stopped just inside, back to a support pillar, her tail giving one slow twitch as she took stock of the room. The pelican face-down in pretzels was out. So was the warthog arguing with a wall.

She wasn’t here to make friends. She was here to buy competence.

“One steady pair of hands,” she muttered. “That’s all I need.”

The socket wrench slipped. Metal shrieked against metal, followed instantly by the dull thud of knuckles colliding with the cast-iron manifold.

Selena hissed through her teeth, dropping the tool. It clattered into the bilge, ringing out before the echo died in the rafters. Sun slanted through the warehouse slats, cutting the gloom with bars of dusty gold that illuminated the autopsy of her livelihood: the Rusty Vulture's starboard engine, stripped down to the block. The Vulture was a squat, steel-hulled salvage boat built for work, not beauty, and was almost as temperamental as she was.

She wiped a smear of oil from her snout, only managing to transfer more grease from her glove. Russet fur and cream markings didn’t hide grease well, to her chagrin.

"Don't give me that look," she muttered to the gaping cylinder heads. "I know we're late."

The engine offered no rebuttal.

Selena leaned back against the railing, eyeing the crate she was using as a workbench. A crumpled parts invoice sat weighed down by a spark plug. The figure at the bottom required triple what she had liquid, and the date at the top mocked her. The Grey Lady contract had a shelf life. Every tide that rolled in out there was burying that wreck deeper in silt, and here she was, arguing with a paperweight that used to be propulsion.

Beyond the open bay doors, the harbor moved without her. She needed a workaround. She needed a scavenged part, or a mechanic who accepted IOUs, or a second pair of hands to hold the intake valve while she jury-rigged a bypass. Asking for help bristled her fur, but the math on the invoice didn't care about her pride.

"Fine," she told the engine, grabbing a rag. "I'll find help."

The deck rolled gently beneath Selena’s boots as she crouched beside the brass helmet, running a thumb along the coupling where rubber met metal. Salt spray hissed against the hull of the Rusty Vulture. The tide was turning. She could feel it in the pull against the boat, in the way the current dragged east at the line.

“One-twenty to the sand,” she said without looking up. “Wreck’s sitting nose-down. Silt-heavy. Five hours of light left.”

Low gray clouds pressed down on the open water, and the Grey Lady's wreck’s marker buoy bobbed thirty yards off the bow, tugging hard against its tether. Mist clung to everything, not quite rain but decidedly not dry.

She tested the lifeline again, firm and deliberate.

“If the line goes slack, you haul. If it jerks once, hold steady. Twice, you haul faster. Three times…” She glanced up, amber eyes flat and assessing. “Three times and you start prayin’.”

The pump sat bolted to the deck, brass flywheel catching what little sun broke through the clouds. She gave it a spin. Smooth, for now.

“Keep the rhythm steady. No heroics. No improvising.”

She stood, lifting the heavy helmet with both hands and settling it over her head. The world dulled to a hollow echo of her own breathing.

She paused before sealing the collar, one gloved hand resting against the rim.

“I’m trusting you here. Don’t make me regret it.”

Rebecca Cunningham did not like being told how to run her business, especially by a fox in a leather jacket standing in the middle of her office with wet boots on the rug.

“Extortion?” Rebecca repeated, hands planted firmly on her desk. “Miss Navarro, I charge what it costs to keep this company airborne.”

Selena stood across from her, doing her absolute best to speak in a level tone and keep her tail from bristling. "You're quoting me double standard lift rates on top of fuel costs."

"I'm quoting double because you want float time over open water while you drop yourself down in that brass teapot."

"It's a diving suit."

"It's a deathtrap."

Selena turned, glancing out the office window and onto the Cape Suzette harbor. Dockhands managed cargo nets swinging from tall cranes, and the Sea Duck, Higher for Hire's prize Conwing L-16, bobbed steadily at her moorings. On the far end of the dock, Baloo was attempting to explain something to a weasel of a harbormaster (literally a weasel) who seemed unconvinced by the bear's enthusiastic gestures.

Above, a large shadow passed overhead. Larger than a gull. Larger than a cargo plane. Both of them froze. The office door swung open as Kit poked his head in. "Uh... Miss C? You might wanna-"

An explosion rocked the harbor hard enough to rattle the windows. Dockworkers scattered as a crane lurched sideways, catching on the roof of a nearby cannery before splashing into the ocean. High above, a pirate biplane swooped down for another pass with wings covered in salvaged metal and crudely painted skulls. A second pirate craft roared overhead, dropping a grappling line that snagged a stack of cargo crates and sent them tumbling across the dock in a spectacular avalanche.

From above, a chorus erupted.

"VIVE LE CARNAGE!"

Rebecca closed her eyes and sighed, before opening them again and pointing towards the door. Selena was already moving.

"Fine. You want float time? Earn it! Kit! Prep the Sea Duck!"