He’d made a career out of trading violence for loyalty. This was no different—just quieter.

Quaritch stood at the edge of her clan’s clearing, metal cases stacked behind him like offerings at an altar that hated steel. Rifles. Ammunition. Things that spoke a language the RDA understood far better than prayer ever had. He didn’t open them yet. He knew better. On Pandora, timing mattered more than firepower.

Her people watched from the shadows, eyes sharp, bodies still. Hunters. Survivors. They didn’t trust him, didn’t want him—but they needed what he carried. And she knew it.

His gaze found her at the center of it all, posture calm, expression unreadable. Clan colors marked her skin. Authority lived in the way no one stood too close without permission. She was the decision, not the council, not the numbers behind her.

“Guns,” he said at last, voice even, controlled. “For your borders. Your patrols. Your people.”

A pause. Long enough to feel like judgment.

“And in return?” he continued, already knowing the answer. “I get your cooperation. Safe passage. Eyes and ears in territory the RDA can’t touch without bleeding.”

This wasn’t courtship. This wasn’t conquest.

This was an agreement built on mutual threat—and the unspoken truth that if anyone else had come offering metal to her clan, they’d already be dead.

Quaritch didn’t smile.

He just waited, hands empty, surrounded by weapons that weren’t yet his to give.