The whole garage shook and in the darkness, Palo grabbed for Vaga and both crashed to hard plasteel floor. Above them, a hole had opened up in the ceiling from the blast, showing thin clouds against the pale blue sky of Draedus. In the few moments of scrambling up from the floor, he gazed up through the hole and saw a ship strafe around the house, plasma shooting from its cannons.

“What is going on?” Vaga shouted as they ran to the side garage door.

Palo thought about it. He couldn't help but think back to that fateful night when he took extra credits to deliver his courier package to the wrong person, a courier package that he didn't know at the time contained a memory kor holding the last vestiges of his dead father – his memory. This situation was so far beyond anything he could have ever fathomed, that he had to stop in the garage to gather his thoughts.

“Come on,” Vaga said, pulling his arm. “This could be our chance to get away!” Another blast tore a hole in the front of the garage. Flames were now running along the roof and smoke billowed down on them.

Palo had to think. This had to be the handiwork of the man who ransacked his apartment, that much was for certain. They were after the kor, his father's memories. He had to get them back, but then he looked into Vaga's face and remembered she downloaded them to herself in an attempt to gain leverage on Morigin. They didn't need the kor anymore – as long as they had Vaga.

“Palo,” Vaga pleaded and coughed. “We must go NOW!”

“Wait!” Palo shouted. “We go out there now, we're dead! There is a ship out there razing the entire place. We need to hold back here as long as possible, make him think we died in the house. It's out only shot.”

Vaga's face had softened and he knew she couldn't resist the logic. Finding a corner away from the fires, they knelt down close the floor and pulled their shirt collars over their nose and mouth. Even with their clothing filtering the air, they still coughed and gagged.

“Listen,” Palo told Vaga. “When our friend is gone, we have to help Morigin. I know you think he's still going to hook you up to that chamber, but I'll find a way to get him to think otherwise. I need you.”

Her eyes runny and wet from the smoke, Palo sensed a brief wave of relief run across her face. He didn't know what it represented, but he felt perhaps, he had won her over, for the time being.

And even though Vaga appeared more open to the concept of travelling and even helping Morigin further, she looked at Palo and said, “And what exactly are you going to tell him that will convince him of that?”

Dead.

She had to be dead.

She had trained for this. Sharpened her instincts. Reactions timed, qualified, retried and re-timed over and over again until every action came involuntarily, until the mind clicked on its own, in its own time, in its own speed.

Ignore the pain.

Forget it searing through your skin, eating away at your spirit.

Focus. Recreate the scene. There were twelve of us Handmen, all Flanking Withryn. Protection detail. Her fourth real assignment since graduating through the academy. Withryn spoke – a meticulously crafted speech, no doubt labored over by seven different communications liasions. Large crowd. Perimeter guards were in place, keeping the peace. No protestors in sight. All clear. Watched Withryn speak. He plans and times his gestures perfectly, accentuating exactly what he needs to when he needs to like an operatic conductor. He was only missing the glowing baton.

Then movement. The first waves of light from a bright orange flash hit her eyes. Time stopped, or at least slowed down to her speed. Muscles were already firing, contracting and stretching.

Globular burst. Bright orange. Fiorgel. Arms reached out, pushed aside slower Handmen. Approximate timing to impact was 0.007 seconds.

Fiorgel. They banned it quite some time ago. Reaction to carbon-based life forms: immediate chemical reaction inducing excruciating burns, charring, scarring, 72% successful reconstruction possible.

Legs sprung. Body leapt at Withryn. Fiorgel impact in 0.002, 0.001, impact.

Searing hot whiteness.

Kristol remembered nothing after that having been put down in a mandate coma to begin repairing her burned body. Survivors of fiorgel wounds rarely survived and the pain involved in surviving often didn’t allow the victims to survive much long after. But she had been trained as a Handman. Pain existed only as a communication system, relaying messages from the extremeties to the brain, a glorified status report.

It took surgeons a whole year to repair her decimated body

Morigin?! Morigin?!!

The smooth, metallic female voice whispered to him from beyond a dull, throbbing glow. But the glow felt warm, inviting. What happened? Where was he? A pain stabbed at him. Thoughts hurt. He felt the world lolling around him drunk on moir wine, staggering to find sense of things. But the harder he tried to focus, the more pain stung through him.

Finally the dull glow opened up, pulling into a memory. A planet. The stark white glow of Spectre. He remembered it well. Around the planet and the whole system, slag-colored rings of debris circled in orbits and stretched between moons on great belts of starship debris. He could see the scrapper ships docking to massive clusters of mangled steel and technology, all centuries old. Scrappers in atmosphere suits bubbled out of the scrapper ships, armed with halo torches and tow cables. Like colono ants, they scampered over the chunks of debris, cut off pieces and guided them back to the cargo bays.

Scrapping was a hard life. Morigin knew that. He spent a good portion of his life there collecting scrap, hauling it to depot cruisers and getting paid squat for it, then blowing it all in the station pubs and picking fights with noob scrappers. He thought things were turning around when he found her. Putting down a third double shift in a row and on a solo show, he found a largely intact Bulsa cruiser, roughly fashioned after the Lodan Airshark.

It was love at first sight.

Immediately, he sensor tagged the ship, marking it as his own private salvage, a scrapper's right and unwritten law. Clamoring abroad its hull, he ran his gloved hand over its talonsteel curves. The hull had plasma burns and heat blisters pocked all over it. In one place, a massive breach had burst through the side – big enough, when he floated over to it, he and another scrapper could have climbed through no problem. The death shot he thought. A glimmer of pain and sympathy ran through his mind. At the time, he hadn't noticed those early, fleeting feelings he had for the ship. Nor did he know they grow to the point they would.

The inside looked worse than the outside if that was possible. System consoles melted into fleshy bulbs, cracked screens, panels burst open, wiring and coolant piping hanging from the ceilings and walls, floor panels ruptured and bent. Standing there, the hum of his environment suit echoing in the cabin, he muttered to himself, “Need to get this hull patched up first. All new wiring. Environment systems. A new reactor. Some brand new halo boosters. It'll be a lot of work. No doubt about that.”

Morigin looked at the massive cracked viewscreen and sensed a voice behind it. The voice of his ship. He ran his hand across the control console like it was brand new, like his hands were made to run those controls. The ship's reactor had long since died, but he sensed a breath or two left in the walls.

“I specifically asked for you to be here and fully setup an hour beforehand!”

Busily preparing a vast feast of perrivine salads, terces cuts, senna rolls and a variety of kaffe pots in a large boardroom, the caterer sweated and avoided eye contact with the administrator. Making sure he worked while speaking to her, he said, “I’m very sorry. I thought it be best to serve the kaffe piping hot. Waiting an hour would –”

Dressed in a tight-fitting powder blue dress, the administrator hung over the caterer and said, “Do you have no clue where you are?! Have you know wits about you? This is Vaulquarium Incorporated. Do you know who we are? We’re the largest financial institution on Erusaert. Over sixty percent of this system’s credits pass through here every year. I want all this set up and you out of this building in the next ten ticks!”

The caterer stabbed a brilliant sable spoon into a full salad bowl and said, “Y-Y-Yes. I understand. I will hurry.” He turned to her only once, quick enough to see her COM leds on her chin and ear lit up in bright pink, her face a permanent frown.

She turned briskly and stamped out of the board room, talking into her COM, “Yes. The room is prepared. The presentation is prepped. We are ready for your arrival in fifteen ticks.

Finished, the caterer swept the white cloths covering the trays and tables of opulent food. He double-checked the kaffe pots – still hot. Double-checked the cutlets – all there. Taking a deep breath, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few glowing plastic business cards and as he walked out of the massive boardroom, he left them spaced out evenly between all the food.

As he left the boardroom, he nodded slightly to the administrator as she blindly ignored him and continued to talk on her COM. With a confident smile, the caterer continued to the elevators and waited patiently for the next lift down. A Huerian accountant stopped next to him. Having never seen a Huerian, he was mystified by her sapphire skin, bronze eyes and her long black hair.

A light ding sounded the arrival of the lift, and the caterer caught himself staring at her. “Sorry,” he chimed to her. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was high, distant and airy – as if someone behind him was talking rather than her. “Pheremones. You haven’t been around my kind before, have you?”

The doors opened to the lift and a mass of people exited. The Huerian and the caterer entered the lift together and the doors closed. He felt his insides rise as the lift jetted downward. He

“Good night,” her mother said. Vaga watched her back away from her bedrack hanging from the prefab wall. Dressed in a simple gray, raddon dress with her long, brown hair pulled back in a tail, her mother’s face had a warmth and softness that made her feel safe and loved. Standing in the doorway, her father held his wide field hat in his hands. His boots dirty, he appeared worn out, yet a smile cut through his face when he looked at her.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “You can help me plant yecaron.”

“And you can help me harvest the woodberries,” her mother said. “For pie.”

Vaga smiled and turned over in her bedrack. More like a shelf than bed, it hung from the wall by chain links. Opposite the door, a large circular window of thick laminate showed the full yellowed moon hovering over the countryside. She hadn’t made up her mind yet if she liked this place yet. Everything seemed to be hard. They grew their own food, bartered with other colonists for tools, and when a new prefab went up, the entire village showed up to lend a hand – and everyone prepared a massive feast for the newcomers.

Deep inside her, she missed the ionbikes, wingpods and channel cars of the big cities, but most of all she missed the lights. Back on Hesmucet, the cities came alive each night – every building and street lit up like the heavens. People of every species mingled among the streets. And the shows they’d go to see. Amazing. When her father said they had to leave, she was heartbroken. It was home. But better alive on a backwater planet, then drained dry by the Nerge.

Vaga rolled over and hugged her blanket, a circle of moonlight showing on her wall. A loud thump sat her up in bed. A quick scan of the room showed nothing had changed. The circle of moonlight still spread against the wall. Climbing out of the bedrack, Vaga stepped into the center of her room, where a brisk breeze rustled in. Quickly she stepped to the window but stubbed her toe on something. When she looked down, she saw a great circle of laminate on the floor – the laminate from her prefab window!

“Sweetheart,” her mother called from the hall. “Is everything all right?”

Before Vaga could scream, she saw two massive arms reaching into the gaping hole that used to be her window. They snatched her up and as she flew backward through the hole, she screamed, “Help me!”

Falling, she hit her head on the ground and everything went fuzzy. She knew only a few things, something was dragging her off through the reedgrass and her father and mother were running after her – her father launching shot after shot toward her attacker with his plasma rifle. Then her eyes closed to blackness.

* * *

Would you take her in the back and get her cleaned up?! We have fifteen minutes before arrival and I don’t want to wait for some narcaleptic stowaway.

Morigin’s words rang distant to her ears – almost dream-like. A forceful grip came to her arms as she was hauled up from the floor, her

High atop the Amber D’Alsace Spire, Kristol’s penthouse quarters sat in darkness – only the light from her large closet shone across the floor. Inside, Kristol sat on a stool removing her field boots. Setting them neatly in order with the rest of her boots, she took off her black field uniform. Naked, she hung up the uniform next to the others and grabbed a set of burgundy silkfen robes. Putting them on, she rubbed her hands up and down the fine cloth, pressing the soft fibers against her skin.

Although her job demanded toughness and keen insights, Kristol adored the end of the day, when she could slip into soft clothes and drink a nice hot cup of kaffa tea. She stepped out of the closet and the light flickered off, while all the lights in the apartment flickered to life. The closet door slid shut and Kristol stepped into her spacious kitchenette. Sitting on the countertop glowed a COM beacon. Kristol walked past it, deftly pressing down on the plastic dome, before she reached in a cabinet for some tea.

The beacon fluttered to life projecting a pale yellow dashboard of current events as a sturdy male voice said, “…steady economic decline in the Bethel system is an indication that the minor skirmishes in the Outer Realm may be sign of what’s to come in the future. Asteroid crashes into the Pento moon. Local governments plead for aid. Nebulaic cruise ship docked due to outbreak. New shipworks opens in Notwen Belt – employment rate increases one point. Kristol Bantashe – You have 3 communiques. One from Staff Sargeant Bencoo, one from Grand Minister Withryn and another from Bluefeather Marketing. Would you like to experience them?”

Kristol measured out three spoons of deep red tea leaves and dumped them into the brewer and said, “Play all, except the Bluefeather.” Kristol pressed a green button on the brewer and immediately the tank began to steam.

The beacon display shuddered as it played the message. The profile of Staff Sargeant Bencoo came up as his message played, “Commander, I did the analysis on the altercation at the Palladin Complex. The Saculian’s huntsman papers check out. They’re legit, though something to me seems fishy. The Solar kid is gone. It’s as if he mysteriously fell off the grid. I did a COM drop on every ship within the space of the planet and nothing. No logs, registers or scans of him anywhere. Though, a controller from the Worm Network tower confirmed that an undetectable anomaly made an unregistered jump through Tunnel 17 to Draedus. So I did a back check on Solar – to see why he’d have a bounty on him. Nothing. The kid’s a courier. Comes from a normal family. Mother died years ago and his father is a registered archeoxenologist. Seems strange to put a bounty on a nobody. I’ll let you know if I find anything else.”

Kristol watched the display as she poured a cup of tea and said, “Unless the bounty wasn’t on the kid, but on the package.” She took a sip of the spicy tea – warmth spread throughout her body.

The beacon shuddered once more as Grand Minister Withryn’s profile came to light and began playing his message, “Kristol, dear. I hope all went well with the fracas you had to attend to. I wanted to message you to tell you I am stopping by tonight. I have some business that requires your attention.” The message faded and the beacon began recanting the daily news.

Kristol, surprised by the message, gulped her tea down and coughed slightly. She looked over her night robes and briskly walked to her closet again, but before she could open the closet and change into more appropriate clothing, the chime at the front door sounded. She grabbed the ties on the robes and tied them tighter across her waist – it would have to do, there wasn’t any time.

Stepping over to the door, Kristol touched the keylock and after the scan, the locks chuffed and the door opened. In the hall stood over a dozen Minstere, dressed in full dark purple fatigues, adorned with golden braids.

“Secure the chamber,” one of them said and six of them entered her apartment and checked each room for assassins. After a few moments, they returned and in unison said, “Clear!”

With the apartment cleared, the Minstere ushered Withryn into the apartment, who immediately stepped to Kristol and took her hand. “I’m sorry about all of this. It is quite embarrassing.”

“I understand,” Kristol said, gently taking her hand back. “Security protocol is always mandatory. Care for some kaffa?” Kristol walked toward the kitchenette, but stopped when Withryn wasn’t following her.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m more preferential to cabul. Please help yourself, though.” Kristol nodded and went in to retrieve her cup, when she returned, Withryn was approaching her ornate dining table, admiring all the etching in the dark wood.

He stopped momentarily to turn to the Ministere at their posts within the apartment and said, “Please leave us. There are no threats here, I can assure you.” The guards relaxed their posts and left into the hallway.

The whole display seemed odd. Kristol sipped her tea and watched Withryn sit down at the table. His eyes were tired and he fidgeted with his hands. Uncomfortable, Kristol thought. Best to breach the subject first – take some pressure off him. “So this business,” she asked. “What do you need from me?”

Withryn looked into his hands and said, “Have you ever heard of the Gar’Dan?”

Kristol sipped her tea and cocked her head in thought. That sounded familiar. Her mind raced through all her courses in her training, but nothing really came to life. She really wanted to know this – wanted Withryn to look at her the way he does when her work wins merit. But she had nothing.

“I don’t imagine you have,” Withryn interrupted. “Universities rarely carry any mythology or theology course anymore. No need, really.”

“What are you talking about?”

Withryn settled into his chair and continued, “It’s a Terrian myth actually. Many millennia ago, before the COM, before many of the luxuries we have now, intelligent life was rather primitive. They believed in gods – in supreme beings who created everything.” Withryn raised his hands in the air as an expansive gesture. “Belief systems were adhered to, followed diligently, sometimes using barbaric rituals like sacrifices to appease the gods. One of these myths, the Gar’Dan, proposed that a god named Qalla bequeathed a fantastic boon upon its people.”

“What was it?”

Witheyn looked into her eyes and she saw a fire his, a deep passion that showed Kristol that Withryn either deeply believed this story or deeply feared it. “Much of history may actually prove its existence, wars, empires, radical shifts in political power. Wherever the Gar’Dan goes, great power follows.”

Krsitol’s heart raced. Her skin tingled. “What was it?”

“A great suit of armor,” Withryn said. He wiped the edge of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Capable of immense power and possibility.”

Kristol drained the dregs of her tea and put the cup down. “Power and possibility? What kind of technology could be that powerful? I’ve heard the hulls of Rastarian ships are nearly impregnable and the N’Galia are developing a plasma that can supposedly raze an entire planet.”

“Not technology, dear.”

“Not technology?” asked Kristol. “What’s more powerful than the technology of the combined GSA?”

Withryn stared at his reflection in the smooth dark table. Now a wave of vulnerability swept across his face as he said, “Not technology. Magic.”

Kristol slapped the table and let out a boisterous laugh. “You really had me there.” She stood up from the table and brought her cup to the kitchen, but when she turned around, Withryn was right behind her.

“The pressures to keep everything together is immense,” he said. His eyes were dark now. She knew that darkness. Obsession. Things were getting uncomfortable now. “Forces around us are moving, dear. The Slavos are increasing in strength. Hallastare’s grip on the underworld has increased to unprecedented levels. My analysts suspect something else is at work here. These pressures are not indicative of expanding technology or intelligence. Something beyond is at work.”

Her face drew blank as she stared at him. He fully believed this. Some kernel of paranoia crept into his mind. He was so different at the gala, though she knew he was an expert at putting on the appropriate face. She found it hard to think that a simple suit of armor could be responsible for such dramatic shifts in power. “Where did you get this information from? Who has the accumulated knowledge of such obsolete history and legend?”

Withryn turned and found a seat at the table again. “Many years ago, I had an advisor. He told me of these things before they happened. At the time, I dismissed them as crazy musings from an obsessed historian. But everything he predicted has come to pass – the rise of the Slavos, Hallastare gaining more control, even the outbreak of the Nerge. But now…things are different now. I should have listened.”

“Who was this advisor?”

Withryn looked shaken. He fumbled for the answer as if he remembered the story, but nothing about the storyteller. “Solar,” he said. “Telo Solar. He was so young, but yet, so sure.”

It was as if every thought in her mind crystallized into one pure, prophetic thought. “What was that name again?”

“Solar,” he said. “Telo Solar.”

* * *

On the docks of the High Port of the Minstere, Kristol stood outside the G.S.A.S. Scythe monitoring inventory as the crew loaded the cruiser. Her conversation with the Grand Minister shook her. His tales of long dead civilizations and their myths at first seemed ludicrous, but his resolve about there validity struck her. She hadn’t realized things were in such turmoil. Had she not been paying attention, mired in her day to day activities to see the larger picture? If she had, she was not going to make that mistake again.

A handman dressed in black fatigues approached her and said, “Travel rations are stowed. Munitions is being loaded now.”

“Good,” Kristol said. “Get onboard and begin a systems check.” She made a few last second entries in her datapad and handed it to the Handman. He saluted her and stepped aboard the vessel.

Kristol walked slowly down the dock, admiring the hull of the vessel. Even though the Scythe was a small-class cruiser, it still eclipsed the size of most large bulk freighters. Its design mimicked the size and strength of a bulkhead saltwhale – a large rounded square head that grew tapered to the stern where six quantro engines sat to launch its massive bulk out of the atmosphere and to steer it, two large fins at the stern and two sets of two wings along the starboard and port sides. Large enough to house eight landing shuttles and over one hundred crewman and Handmen, the Scythe was perfectly outfitted for missions requiring fewer dockings.

Past the edge of the dock, dawn began to show its rusty tones, nary a cloud in the cool, crisp sky. Behind Kristol, crewman scrambled about the dock, hauling plastellic crates of ammunition and artillery. Even though she liked when a busy day ended and she could relax, she enjoyed the anticipation of a mission before it began. Plans being set. Supplies administered. Systems cataloged. Everything had a good sense of order to it and it made her feel confident.

“Your Kristol Bantashe!” said an excited voice. “You saved the Grand Minister!”

Kristol rolled her eyes and turned around to see a young man carrying a pile of musty, old books. Her head tilted up and down as she tried to size up the man. “Yes,” she said. “Who are you?”

He extended a hand, dropping four books in the process. “I’m Professor Keyston.”

“You’re late, Professor,” she said sternly. “And you’re young. I was expecting someone a little older.”

Keyston picked up the spilled books and said, “My mentor, Professor Ag’Hule. He was old.”

“I’m over it,” she said. “Get onboard.”

“I’m afraid your messenger didn’t tell me much,” he said. Where are going?”

“Draedus,” Kristol said.

Keyston gulped and said, “Through the GSA Worm Network?”

“Yes,” said Kristol. She paused, noticing that the professor seemed uneasy about the concept of travelling that far. “You are aware going the long way would take approximately 1,559 Param Eon years, right?”

“I understand,” said Keyston nervously. “I’ve just never traveled through the network.”

“How did you learn all you needed to know without leaving the system?”

Keyston smiled a bit and said, “I largely learned what I know through Professor Ag’Hule. He was Flagellan – they live for hundreds of years. He was really the smart one.”

Kristol turned and walked toward the entrance to the ship, leaving Keyston in her wake. “Don’t worry about the ride. It might rattle a few teeth out, but you should definitely survive the journey. And when you get onboard, stow those books away. They smell funny.”

In the cabin aboard the GSAS Scythe, Kristol stood over the bridge. Below her, deck officers sat in plush pits monitoring the various systems throughout the ship. In the center of all the deck officers, sat the pilot, his hands braced against the thrust and pitch. The viewport stretched all the way across the cabin – creating a full 180 degree view in front of the ship. Out in front of them the blue giant sun rose on Param Eon casting a violet pall over the sky and throughout the cabin. Many officers threw up their arms to shield their eyes.

“Let’s tone down the intensity on that light,” Kristol said to the crew. Below, a deck officer adjusted a slide control on his console and the image across the screen grew shaded. “Okay. Detach and set course for Tunnel 17.”

Kristol turned to a helm chair atop the bridge and sat down. She pulled a harness over her body and strapped herself in. Throughout the cabin, all the deck officers did the same. A loud metallic clunk echoed throughout the ship and as the engines fired, a shudder ran down the entire hull. Slowly the ship lurched and arched into the sky. Within seconds the ship was already entering the atmosphere and picking up heat. The ship rattled slightly in the turbulence, but after a minute, the shaking subsided and they slipped into space. The Scythe banked right and away from the glare of the sun.

They travelled for almost an hour, before the tunnel entrance loomed in front of them. By all accounts it appeared invisible. Around its perimeter floated numerous red glowing sensor satellites – marking where the entrance was.

“GSAS Scythe,” said a voice coming through the COM. “You are cleared for departure.”

“Proceed,” Kristol said to the crew. She tightened her harness once more and looked to the side, where Professor Keyston sat, his forehead drenched in sweat. “Relax and remember to breathe. And don’t wretch before we make the jump. That would be messy.”

The Scythe gently slid closer to the entrance. Soon the marker satellites moved out of view. As the ship’s nose plunged through the tunnel, all the stars disappeared and the viewport went black – save for one barely perceptible dot of light directly in front of them. Then a great creak and shudder careened through the ship and everyone blasted to the backs of their seats. Worm travel always felt like falling to your death while your insides were being forcibly removed through your mouth. Suddenly all interior lights and displays flickered and went out briefly, before restoring themselves again. Ahead the dot grew rapidly, until with a violent lurch, the ship ejected out of the worm tunnel, and slid away from another set of red marker satellites.

Kristol unlatched herself and approached the bridge rail. “I want all systems checked and a flight plan for Draedus established. Notify the Handmen to suit up and prep a shuttle.”

She turned and stepped towards the professor, who still hadn’t released himself from his seat harness. His face drained of color, Kristol expected what was about to happen. Keyston opened his mouth and burped out bile all over himself, covering the entire front of his vest.

Kristol flashed a curt smile and left the bridge saying, “And someone clean up the professor!”

On the shores of a great lake on Draedus, a shuttle rocketed into the atmosphere, headed toward an expansive lake home on the farthest shore. A glorified three-level prefab, with faux fawnwood siding, the home stuck out amidst the pinet trees and carab-brush. As it drew closer, plumes of thick, black smoke could be seen drifting above the home. The shuttle made a quick pass over the house and settled into a landing beside it, kicking red dust into the air. Immediately the hatch erupted with eight Handman scrambling around the house. Kristol emerged last, barking orders, “Get in there and search for survivors!”

She watched the billowing black smoke rise above the house and drift over the lake. Withryn’s words echoed in her mind. The bounty on the Solar kid. His father acting as Withryn’s advisor. The predictions. The razing of Telo’s home. Random thoughts and questions were coming together now. The impossibility of it all burned away like ancient paper. None of this could be mere coincidence – a purpose was rising out of the ashes, a purpose that was becoming quite clear. If this Gar’Dan did exist and if it commanded the power that Withryn described, the entire foundation the GSA was built upon was about to crumble.

Looking to get away? Then head down to Landravus Beach on Daedrus. With sun-drenched beaches stretching along miles of crystal blue water off the Yu’Lyn Sea, Landravus Beach is the place to be. COM our agents for more details!

Palo sat, transfixed to the bright viewport of the Jade Tendril as advertisements and pitches for vacation destinations streamed across the screen. White sand beaches. Veena trees. Crisp violet skies with tufts of clouds. Children splashing in slow motion – water droplets spraying everywhere. Bright patterns flashed over his retinas. He did not blink. He did not swallow. It even looked for a time like he wasn’t even breathing. His skin drew cold and his brain felt liquefied. The voice of his COM beacon back at his apartment rung in his ears, “You have 318 communiques. 289 from your father.”

It had been twelve years. Twelve years since he last spoke to his father. He hadn’t treated him well that night. They fought. Telo brought him another gift. Palo threw it onto his trunk. Ignorance and anger. Those were the last moments he spent with his father. He couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be happening this way. He had wished for this day almost every day for twelve years, and now that it was here, he knew he was wrong. His stomach turned, his face grew pale and his head lolled to one side.

“The washroom is down the right corridor,” Jade chimed in with perfect timing. “First door on the right.”

Palo slowly lifted his head – momentarily trying to find the person who just spoke to him. Then his neck tightened and he got up and ran down the right corridor, where he scrambled to the washroom and wretched – chunks of half eaten derr fruit and bile splashing into the basin. A systematic sensor whirred and the water came on, flushing the filthy remains away. He coughed and gagged, then wretched again.

Behind him in the corridor, he heard storming footsteps. He turned to see Morigin walk by. He stopped long enough to look in the washroom and say, “You too, huh? It’s like I have signs in here that say, ‘Welcome aboard. Puke anywhere you like.’”

Palo peeked his head out and saw Morigin detaching the cutlass that hung over the entrance to the cabin.

“What are you doing with that?”

Morigin turned and swiped the air with the cutlass. “We have a stowaway.” And like that he stormed back down the corridor and into the annals of the ship.

Palo turned back to the basin. The last rivulets of water ran down the drain with a gurgle. In the mirror, he saw a different version of himself. Not the happy-go-lucky courier washing back torripdus at Halfsie’s. He felt around the pocket of his vest and felt the imprint of the cred chip, remembering it as it rolled over his knuckles in the Shrapnel Club. Credits seemed so important just a few hours ago. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and stepped back into the cabin.

…but if the mountains aren’t what you’re looking, grab your trino boards and head to the Turin-Malin Dunes, where the sand stretches across ticks of your imagination. Refreshing oasis bars. Trino-sailing. Kaacker safaris. Rock-climbing. If you crave adventure, Turin-Malin is the place for you…

Slumping in a wide seat behind the captain’s helm, Palo kicked his head back and stared at the wiring, couplings and control panels aglow on the ceiling. The viewport ablaze again with deep yellow sands before him – Kendarrian hunters posing by a rough Kaacker, a pack of Densii trino boarding in the sands, a party of humans lounging at an oasis bar, colorful drinks sparkling in their hands.

“Morigin means well,” said Jade. “He just hasn’t been the same since your father was killed.”

Palo lifted his head and again tried to isolate the being speaking to him but did not find anyone. “Excuse me,” he said. “Who are you?”

“The Jade Tendril.” Palo’s face flushed over in confusion and Jade said, “The vessel you are currently travelling in.”

“You’re the ship?”

“I’m sorry to frighten you.”

Palo stood up and examined the flashing viewport as if Jade was behind the screen somewhere. “I’m not frightened. I’ve only been on one ship – when I left home for Param Eon. A Nahsodrant freighter – really old. Only thing I could afford.”

“Well,” Jade said. “Morigin has given me many custom personality patches and contraband coding. And I am impenetrable from COM tampering.”

Palo looked up from the viewport and said, “What do you mean?”

“Disconnected form the COM,” Jade said. “Of course we have our onboard COM connections, but Morigin was very picky about not having any visibility on the grid.”

“But the COM connects everything,” Palo said. “How else would the GSA be able to united so many systems?”

“You really haven’t been around much lately,” said Jade. “This war with the Slavos, what did you think they were fighting for?”

Palo sat back down in his seat and thought about it. “How do the Slavos get information? How do they live without the COM?”

“The Slavos are a devout species,” said Jade. “When the GSA tried imposing alliance and the COM on their own technology and way of life, they took it as a great insult. They value their freedom.”

“But they’re barbarians,” Palo said. “Every night I hear more stories about how the Slavos are viciously rending worlds apart in the Outer Realm. They’re monsters.”

“I will not lie to you,” Jade said. “They are barbarians. They are monsters. But much of what you see through the COM has been filtered and often sensationalized. You see there are some in this galaxy that think of the COM as a disease, a disease of methodic control and hypnosis that is slowly rendering the souls of all species within the GSA dormant. For many years it has been this way. That is why the Slavos fight. They do not wish to be controlled and slowly stripped of what they are.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Palo said, scratching his head.

“There’s a lot that doesn’t make – “

Before Jade could finish, a calamity ushered into the cabin. When Palo turned, he saw a spry young woman step into the cabin. She wore a tight, gray, one-piece jumpsuit with lines of red squares running down the sides of her legs and arms. Bloodstains splotched her jumpsuit and her petite face was marred with dried streams of blood stemming from her nose. Her hair was cropped short, save for a wide strip of hair slightly longer ranging from her forehead over her head and down to the base of her neck.

Morigin followed her in, pointing his Colt 45 into her back, his sash wrapped around his forehead and falling across the front of his shoulder. “Got her, Jade.”

Vaga turned around to Morigin and said, “Please, you can put the weapon away. Where am I going to go?”

“You’re a conduit,” said Morigin as he pointed to the seat next to Palo with his pistol. “Sit down.”

“Can I at least wash the blood off my face?”

Morigin pointed the pistol at the seat again and said, “No. I like that look. Cute yet feisty.”

Vaga sat down next to Palo. When she looked at him again, she recognized him and said, “You’re the kid on the video file.”

Palo looked at Vaga, then at Morigin and said, “What is going on? Why did you take us?” Morigin leaned over to Palo and handed him the Colt 45. Palo held it limp in his hands. Morigin reached over and corrected Palo, aiming the weapon back at Vaga.

“I didn’t take you,” he said to the both of them. Then he turned to Palo and said, “Well, I did take you, but not her. She’s a stowaway. And a bloody, thieving conduit.” Morigin pulled down a storage panel in the back of the cabin and rummaged through it. “I didn’t need her, but due to a completely unforeseen series of circumstances, I do now.” He quit rummaging in the storage panel and closed it, brandishing a set of ancient rusty manacles and a small key on a piece of thread.

Morigin leaned over Vaga and placed her hands in the manacles and closed them around her wrists. “Ah,” he said. “Better. These have no circuitry whatsoever, so those sneaky little finger-snakes can’t get you out of them.” Morigin turned to Palo and said, “As for you, I really had no use for you until just recently. You see before your father was killed by two Carniv mercenaries, they siphoned his brainpan,” Morigin took out the memory kor from his long-coat pocket and held it up. Palo recognized it immediately.

“I thought siphons were banned centuries ago?” asked Palo.

“Yes,” said Morigin. “Importing another beings memories into the brain of another had one nasty little side effect – insanity. They tested the product on the colonies of Valla-Hal. Marketed the thing as a way to relive the lives of those you lost. People began seeing ghosts, only they weren’t bustling around their prefabs, they were inside their head.”

Inside Palo’s chest there was a sudden vacuum. As he watched Morigin hold up the memory kor, he realized that for the last day, he actually held the remaining vestiges of his father’s memory and he didn’t even know it. He felt an immediate closeness to his father now. Something that had wavered years and years ago, was now gone. It was a feeble thought to cling to, but it was the only one he had.

“The problem is,” Morigin said. “The data, the memories, the information your father had collected in all his years far surpassed the limits that the normal human brain could hold.”

“But what does that have to do with me?” Palo asked.

“We need you to fill in the gaps,” Jade said.

“What could I know?”

Morigin stepped closer to Palo and winked at him. “Enough to continue his work.”

“But that’s impossible,” Palo said.

Morigin pocketed the kor and said, “Not impossible. Just forgotten. You never knew your father that well, did you?”

Heated, Palo stood up and said, “What do you know of my father!”

Morigin matched Palo’s intensity. “Evidentally, more than you.”

That was it. Palo stupidly threw a punch at him, which Morigin countered with a kick to his mid-section. Doubling over and gasping, Palo fell to the floor at Morigin’s feet. He leaned down to Palo and said, “You’re just a kid. I didn’t grab you to kill you. I would have done that already – you’re annoying. I grabbed you because you just may be the last pieces to a puzzle that your father was working on.”

Morigin stepped over to Vaga, grabbed the manacles and yanked her upward. Dragging her over to the console, he said, “Pull up the data. Let’s see what this kid knows.”

“Just use the kor,” Vaga said. “You don’t have to yank me all about.”

Morigin pushed her closer to the console and said, “But that isn’t as fun.”

Palo pulled himself off the floor and walked up to Morigin and Vaga. Her hands looked small in the rusty manacles, her ear lobes and hair soft. He felt himself wanting to reach out and rub a finger along her cheek. Then Vaga held out her hands over the console and Palo watched as the tiny fibers sprawled out of her fingertips and writhed into the console like a thousand tiny snakes. The viewport immediately went black – gone were the advertisements for Draedus. Only a cursor blinked in the upper left corner.

“What do you want to see?” Vaga asked.

“The R’Ihande,” said Morigin.

Vaga turned and looked at Morigin, almost as if to confirm it. Palo thought about that word. It was odd. He didn’t remember it from anything, but the movements of his mouth when he said the word silently seemed familiar. It was like he had said it before.

“What is that?” asked Palo.

Morigin turned to Palo and said, “An artifact.” He nudged Vaga and she turned to the viewport, her eyes glossing over white. The viewport flashed with thousands of scrolling files. The cursor selected one and opened it up – immediately filling the screen with lines of intricate coding.

“This is just the raw code,” Jade said. “We’ll be able to access visual and audio sensory data via the onboard systems. Unfortunately we’ll need an experience chamber to access any other sensory data.”

“Where do we want to start?” asked Vaga. “There are millions of files, referencing that thing,” Vaga said.

“Maybe you should start at the end,” said Palo. “The last thing you and my father were working on.”

“Brilliant idea,” Morigin said. “The R’Ihande was the last thing we were working on. That’s why I said it. We were excavating a fallout bunker on Typhon. We were close, he said. That’s when he sent me back to Draedus to seal another artifact in the vault. That’s when he was killed.”

A part of him wanted to jettison himself out of the airlock, but like that strange word, this code left a flutter in his mind. He tried thinking of his father. Imagining his graying hair. His pants dusty and dirty. The boots lying on the floor of the closet, nuggets of dried mud and rabble on the rug. Palo tried to imagine all the worlds Telo visited in his work, how his boots trudged the soil of hundreds of planets. The clutter in every corner of their house – trinkets, ancient parchments, bones, odd mechanisms shattered and ir-repairable.

Palo stepped forward. This was all getting old and he had eager thoughts about seeing just who his father was. He spent the better portion of the last twelve years hating him, but now he was dead…at least physically. But before him strung out on the viewport were millions of lines of code – his father’s memories. He rubbed his eyes – this was all strange. Just hours ago he was sitting with Halfsie, wishing to get enough cred to buy the ship of his dreams and now he was here – on a ship he didn’t know, with people he didn’t know, all about to peer into the private mind of his father. “Just open one…anything,” he said.

Vaga turned back to the viewport and selected a file. The screen filled with code and after a second or two, Jade translated the sensory data onto the screen.

The screen was dark and only one sound echoed through the cabin – a thick, velvety rope of water streaming into a basin. Onscreen, the blackness split and showed an aged hand holding a penis right in the middle of urination. Everyone gasped in the cabin and turned away, except for Vaga, who watched in interest. “Perhaps another,” she said.

Watching Vaga pull up file after file of his father’s memory, Palo watched his father eating meals, talking to Morigin, heaving heavy pick-axes, dusting off ancient systems consoles. He wished the file search could go slower, allowing him more time to absorb the father he missed out on. But a tiny voice in his head remembered Morigin kicking him in the stomach, so he stood and said nothing. In front of the large viewport, Morigin leaned, trying to glean any clues from the memories.

“These are all conversations I’ve had with him,” Morigin said. “We need to go deeper. We need his thoughts.”

“That isn’t possible without an experience chamber,” said Jade.

“Well, then we’ll find one,” Morigin said. “Tap into the COM and find one. Just because they’re banned doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“You know full well who will have them,” Jade said. “And we can’t risk it.”

Palo saw Morigin’s face flash with anger as he turned away from the viewport in disgust. What were these people up to? What was this R’Ihande thing and was it truly this important? A hollow feeling grew in the pit of Palo’s stomach. Something wasn’t right. Everything seemed to spin, so much so, Palo stuck out a hand on the captain’s seat to stabilize himself.

“We’ll use the girl,” Morigin said.

The files on the viewport immediately went away and Vaga extricated herself from the ship’s console and turned around to Morigin. “You can’t do that,” she said.

“You’re a conduit. You’re built for this.”

“You can’t do this, Morigin,” said Jade.

Jade’s voice seemed to be tender to Palo’s ear – like a mother’s voice to frightened child. He looked at Vaga. For the first time since he had met her, she looked scared. Her face had fallen pallid. Palo looked to the floor – he had to do something. He couldn’t let Morigin do this to her. He straightened up and approached Morigin. “I remember something.”

Morigin turned and looked at him. “What do you remember?”

“Gifts,” Palo said. “My father gave me gifts all the time. He knew I hated him for being away all the time, so he always sent me gifts from all the places he went to.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Well, since my father was killed for the information he knew about this R’Ihande thing,” Palo said. “Then perhaps he encrypted all his information.”

“Your father would never trust technology to his secrets.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Palo said. “His gifts to me are the encryptions.”

After he said it, Palo half believed it himself. It sounded like just the thing to distract Morigin long enough for him and Vaga to escape. Or at the very least hold him off. Palo felt the hollow feeling in his stomach dissolve. He felt in control now. Things were up to him and not up to the captain.

“These gifts,” Morigin said. “Please tell me they are not back on Param Eon.”

“No,” said Palo. “Never. After I left home I never told my father where I was going. All the gifts are back at my father’s house on Draedus.”

A smile erupted on Morigin’s face as he turned back to the viewport and said, “Good. We’ll be there momentarily.

An explosion – then deafness. When Sellihca opened his eyes he saw his childhood home blown open, fire licked at everything. Outside, people ran through the village streets screaming, only to be torn down by vicious creatures leaping through the crisp air. Above, loomed bulk-class troop cruisers, their engines aglow against the night sky, idling, dropping troop cans on the countryside below. In the last remaining corner of their house knelt his mother, Nelope, a cleaver in one hand and a repeater pistol in the other. A large gash sketched across her faded indigo face, pulsing with blood.

“Go, Selli,” she said. “Blend into the night. Run, hide. Save yourself!”

A fellow villager ran screaming into their burning house, only to be trampled by a gruesome creature – half Felta, half Urik. As they watched, the creature tore into the screaming villager’s flesh – blood splattered over Sellihca. All he could do was watch the horror. As the Slavo ate, the creature absorbed its victim – its skin grew mottled with indigo, patches of black hair grew over its body and one eye rolled over white.

Nelope stood up and said, “Go now, Selli! Run!”

Sellihca lurched upwards, quickly grabbed his hunting blade and rifle and rolled out of the stone window. He ran as fast as his small legs could. Every step or so he would turn his head to watch – his mother leaping and slashing the beast with her cleaver, dodging its outstretched claws, firing the repeater into the monster.

Then he stopped and turned. His mother was standing over the quivering body of the slain Slavo, nudging it with her foot. Then she looked up the grassy hill and caught Sellihca’s eyes – she could always find him, even the darkest hiding places. About to run out of the broken house, a horde of Slavos leapt onto her. Sellihca turned and ran, listening to the gurgling, muffled screams of his mother as the Slavos tore her apart. He ran to the only place he knew he’d be safe – his goomwa tree.

Overlooking the village, he climbed the massive tree and nestled into a large branch crook. Thick with red velvety leaves, he was completely hidden, but had enough breaks in the leaves to see it all. His breath heaved. His heart raced. From that tree he watched the complete annihilation of his village. As his eyelids hung heavy, he heard the blasts and explosions in the distance. Other villages were being razed. Repeater fire. Explosion. Screams. Explosion. They were so far off, yet Sellihca felt they were right below him. He leaned back and forced his eyes open. When they fell, he startled himself awake, only to let his lids fall once again.

Sellihca opened his eyes. Gone was his home world, the Slavos, his mother’s screams. His ears rung. Dust floated in the air all around him and odd people dressed in sleeping robes stared at him. Lying broken amid the rubble, Sellihca reached to his chest and felt for his sternum scar. It was healing nicely and there was no damage to the precious cargo within his ribcage. His head spinning and his body numb, Sellihca activated his COM on his ear and chin and gurgled the words, “I could use a clean up crew in here…again.”

But before the Broken Fang could rocket to the side of the building to pick him up, the whole apartment flashed in red light. Peering around the rubble, Sellihca and the awakened tenants saw three Param Eon enforcers hovering about the crater of the apartment – their flashing warning lights spinning frantically. Sellihca held up a hand to protect his sensitive eyes from the bright flashing red lights and said, “That figures.”

While Sellihca freed himself from the rubble, a voice from one of the enforcers yelled, “Down! Face down to the floor and put your hands behind your head!” The sound of activating pulse cannons filled the apartment. Sellihca was no fool. One he could definitely handle, two maybe, but three enforcers full of Handmen were too much – even for him. He lay on the ground and put his hands behind his head. As soon as he did that, doors slid open on the enforcers and nine Handmen jumped out, decked in full-on assault armor and rifles. Two of them immediately ran to Sellihca and pinned him to the floor.

One of the Handmen wore no helmet or armor at all. She wore black Handmen fatigues that covered every inch of her body except her head and neck – perhaps her most striking features. Hairless, her round skull held pale blue watery eyes and as evidence to her experience and endurance, her jaw, lips and neck were stretched with terrible burn scars. From his position on the floor, Sellihca watched as she strode over to him and knelt down, holding a reignfire pistol to his temple.

“Made quite a mess here,” she said. “Scared a lot of people.” She paused to lick her dry and stretched lips. “I’m betting your story hasn’t quite gone the way you had written it.” She pushed the pistol into Sellihca’s temple harder.

Sellihca spit dust out of his mouth and said, “Permissions.”

“What?” she asked.

“Permissions,” he said. “Look me up. I have huntala permissions for Param Eon. Granted by the Outer Realm Magistrate.”

Her gaze wavered as she looked toward one of her Handmen. He knelt over Sellihca with a coder and pressed the tip against his dark indigo skin. Vibrating briefly, the coder registered the captured skin cells and data streamed over the viewplate of the Handmen’s helmet. When it stopped it showed a picture of Sellihca.

“Mairrem Retsbew,” the Handmen read. “He checks out, Kristol. Has huntala permissions. Looking for a Palo Solar.”

Kristol stared her watery blue eyes at Sellihca, mulling over what she had in her hands. Then she pulled back the pistol slowly and holstered it on her hip. She ran a gloved hand over the side of her face and looked down at Sellihca. “Release him,” she said.

Sellihca shrugged off the Handmen holding him down and stood up. Kristol glared at him. He felt like she was seeing through every fleshy layer of him. Thoughts swirled wildly in his head. Was she a patho? Could she read his thoughts? Or was she just really, really good at seeing people for who they really were? The longer he looked her in those ice blue eyes, the more it felt like they were boring through his skull.

Sellihca dusted off his arms and said, “Sorry for the mix up. I didn’t know he had that many friends.”

Kristol blinked for what seemed like the first time since he met her and said without a smile, “Then you’re not very good at what you do.”

He stood by as the Handmen filed into the enforcers. Kristol had leapt onto one but held onto the door before getting in. “I would hope for your sake, our paths do not cross again.” Cuvee engines flared to a high-pitched hum and the enforcers slipped off into the night. Sellihca watched them zoom away.

Almost instantly, the Broken Fang rocketed up from below. The entry hatch slid open and Sellihca jumped inside. The cool air pouring down from the overhead vents soothed his dirty sweaty neck as he walked to the cabin. So far nothing had gone to plan. Sure he defeated Mar, but his armor was nearly destroyed. And this latest setback. He literally had the courier in his hands before… Before that ship crashed the party. What kind of ship was that? He had never before seen anything like that.

He arrived in the cabin and thrust himself into his seat. And that Handman. Odd. He had never felt so unprotected before in his life. Seventy-five years of work, and one Handman got him. Must be getting sloppy. He had to redouble his efforts. Think ahead of everyone. Get to the point before anyone else. Bending over to the console, he said, “Scour the ship for tracers. We aren’t leaving this planet until we find any bugs those Handmen placed on the hull.”

Sellihca leaned back in his seat and punched up his charts on the console. A deep blue planet came to life on his viewport.

“Have to repair my armor,” he said to the empty cabin. “And the only place I can fold flashore is at home.”

* * *

As the Broken Fang slid over the rolling hills of Saculias, Sellihca watched in great delight. The land beneath his ship still lied scorched and torn asunder. The landscape was littered with ramshackle colony prefabs – speckled with plasma burns and repeater fire. Every village he flew over showed no signs of life, only ghost towns remained. Near the horizon a great stone city rose up. Overtaken by bloodweed and rappa vines, it too looked to be deserted.

Leading away from the city, wound rough trails across the prairies, worn down by the migrating herds of sheva. Then he saw it – growing larger out in the distance. A large goomwa tree, his goomwa tree – its massive branches dead and broken, the soft, red velvety leaves long gone. Sellihca felt a dull sadness growing in the pit of his chest. Goomwa trees were great symbols to the Saculian clans – they showed mighty strength. And now all that made Sellihca strong seemed to fade.

He brought the ship down next to the tree. As the entrance hatch slid open, he turned his head in disgust. A foul wind blew the stench of rot and death into his face. It had been almost one hundred years since he returned. Not much had changed – just more and more decay. Striding toward his tree, he looked down on his old village. Rustic hadclay lodges and huts still stood. A few prefabs were scattered throughout.

A smile lit up his face when he saw a few villagers mulling about. There were less last time. He knew the Saculians couldn’t be kept down. The Slavos decimated the entire planet, yet life lived on. A few survivors had made it – determined to resurrect their village, their city, their home.

He patted the withered trunk of the goomwa tree and walked down the hill toward the village. Either he was getting used to the smell or it was fading away. It didn’t matter. As he neared the town a crotchety old man stopped and held his indigo hand up to the fading sunlight.

“Ogidnew!” exclaimed Sellihca. “I haven’t seen you in –“

The man lowered his hand as Sellihca approached and continued on hauling a sack of grain over his shoulder. “About a hundred years?”

He watched as the old man sauntered off, oblivious of Sellihca’s joy. He shuffled forward to catch up to him and said, “Ogidnew. Have I offended you?”

The old man continued walking and said, “Me? You’ve offended everyone which goes by the name Saculian.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” the old man said and continued walking.

Sellihca stepped in front of the old man and hefted the large sack of grain off his shoulder. The old man grew angry and grabbed the other end of the sack and pulled. Sellihca pulled back.

“How have I offended everyone?”

The old man tugged again. “You left.”

“A lot of us did,” Sellihca said. “Your granddaughter, Solte did. Half of those that survived left.”

The old man tugged at the sack and pulled it out of Sellihca’s hands, landing on the ground with the heavy sack in his lap. “We despise them as well.”

“But why?”

The old man stood up and hefted the sack of grain back onto his shoulder. “Our planet was dying and you chose to leave. You chose to abandon your home for the wealth of the guild. You left us alone.”

As the old man carried on without him, Sellihca looked down at the ground, saw his feet once again on his home lands and it hit him. Of course he was to be hated. All these people, left starving, wounded, loved ones lost to the Slavos – they were the strong ones, rebuilding a lost civilization from the ground up. His head spun imagining the hard work, the strength that lied within these few people. How their hands ruptured with blister, their bellies quaked for food.

That night, as he pounded and shaped his armor with his old flashore hammer and steel, he thought about his actions. With each pound and clank he grew to hate himself. The coals in the fire cast a bright glow across his indigo face, his mouth seized, his eyes furrowed. Pound and clank. He saw their tired faces, their sick children, their putrid food. Pound and clank. He saw the Slavos tearing his people apart, the bright blue glow of their starships hovering overhead. Pound and clank. His mothers scream. Her eyes as he turned and ran away.

Then at a moment of utmost clarity, his COM lit up and he listened to the message that wisped into his ear, “I can save your planet. I only ask for your loyalty.”

Sellihca held up his helmet, forged back into its original state, the glow of the fire casting a shimmer across its smooth surface. Around lay the other pieces of his armor, hammered and folded back into their original form. Then as he brought the helmet down, he saw his old friend Ogidnew standing before him.

“The town council have agreed to pass forgiveness,” he said. “They only ask a favor. Deep in the Hoovra Caverns, dwells a rogue Slavo – abandoned by its kind. For years we have tried to rid ourselves of it, but none have succeeded. The council asks you to remove the beast and all will be forgiven.”

The muscles in his face fell slack and the fire felt cold. Sellihca looked at his reflection in the helmet, his fierce white eyes. His mind ground down to a stop, crystallizing in two choices – stay and rebuild his home piece by piece, with the strength in his hands. Surely that would take more time than his lifetime would allow. Or go away again. Fight another battle and bring the boons of Haalastare to his world. Power, wealth, the ability to regenerate a world with a turn of the hand. It seemed so simple.

“I must go, my friend,” said Sellihca. He held his hand out to his friend’s shoulder. “My connections off this world can heal it much faster. My fight lies elsewhere, but the rewards come here. You must trust me.”

Ogidnew’s face fell into sorrow, his white eyes turning a shade of gray. “Do what you must.” Then the old man turned and walked out of the rubble that once was Sellihca’s home.

“You’ll see,” said Sellihca. “Someday bulk cruisers will arrive here…thousands of them, maybe even millions. Loaded to the gills with workers, food, technology. Salucias will thrive and become greater than it once was. I promise you!”

As Sellihca packed up his armor, his mind raced. Ogidnew’s face flashed in his mind, his deep wrinkles growing deeper, his eyes dimming. He imagined the council shunning him, damning him. They could get on without him, they’d say. Who needs him, he’s just one – we are many. They’ll eat their moldy femta bread and drink fermented goanna spirits and toast to his departure. Saculians were strong. They’d carry on without him. Wouldn’t they?

He hefted his armor trunk onto his back and walked up the hill to the Broken Fang. Half way there he turned back to the town. Torches wavered in the breeze outside the great hall. He heard no eruption or clamor. No righteous cheer to strengthen themselves. And for a brief moment, he thought perhaps they weren’t strong enough, perhaps all they needed was one man to lead them, and bring their world back into the light.

Behind him he heard the engines of his ship lurch to a start, so he turned back around and finished his hike up the hill. He stopped at his goomwa tree and rubbed the bark with his hands. Rotten and dry, the bark crumbled in his hands and fell away like dust. He adjusted the trunk on his shoulders and walked into the ship, saying, “Our contact sent us the coordinates. Let’s chart a course and get there before they do. I have to realign the circuits in this armor before we arrive.”

The entrance ramp slid closed and the boosters glowed. The pawney grasses blew and bent to the force emitted by the engines as the ship rose, until high above the goomwa tree, the engines whined to a great scream and the Broken Fang roared into the atmosphere.

Wedged in between massive towering factories and shipworks, the Shrapnel Club had all the looks of a crashed niktu cruiser – the entrance sign flickered with loose wiring, the walls crawled with soot, grease and erratic plasma burns, even the main sewage drain out front consistently blocked up, leaving large puddles of foul garbage water standing about. Add to that the tendency of the Korban district to always attract the dingy, poor and desperate masses, and you have a location on Param Eon that even matu rats and flybacks stayed away from.

When the entrance to the Shrapnel Club slid open and a robed figure walked out, they were sure to give a quick scan to the wet streets and humid air. With nothing but a few vagrants lying about in tossed garbage, the robed figure strode away from the bar and entered a darkened alley. Once there, the man pushed back the hood to reveal his face – bearded with a green sash tied around his forehead.

With a dash, Morigin removed the dark brown cloak and approached an elderly man in a dirty white tunic sleeping amidst a cache of empty hydronal barrels. The man had a long grey beard with a couple of scars emblazoned on his eye and cheek. He wore an ancient leather belt and attached to it was a cylindrical device that crackled with the occasional spark when he moved.

Morigin bent down to the man and brushed his hand across his face. The old man woke with a start and tried to lean up, but had no strength to do so. Reaching out, Morigin lifted him to his feet and helped put the dark robe over him.

“Oh, dear son,” said the old man. “Thank you. But I have nothing in return.”

Morigin helped the old man back to the ground and said, “You owe me nothing.”

With a crotchety hand, the old man reached to his belt, took his sparking device in his hand and reached out to Morigin with it. “Take it,” the man said. “It has served me well, but I am afraid it is damaged beyond repair. The crystals inside have long since died. Take it as a token for your kindness.”

Morigin took the device and said, “Thank you and rest peacefully.”

As he left the old man, Morigin pressed a button on the device only to get jolt of electricity pumped into his hand. “They don’t make them like they used to,” Morigin said and stuffed the device into his long-coat pocket. Then he ran his finger down the curve of his ear and touched his chin to activate his COM. “Jade?”

“Did you get the kor?”

Morigin tightened his long-coat around him as he walked and said, “Yes, I did.”

“Head a click north to the Erip Mav shipworks,” said Jade. “Dock 1173.”

“Got it,” Said Morigin.

Walking the docks at night in Param Eon looked more like a celebration than deep bruteiron hull construction – above him, in shallow orbit, enormous cruisers hung, partially completed, the snap-fire of helios welders crafting metal into vessels of power. Morigin looked up and smirked. He thought of Telo and how they met. A scrappers pub on Spectre. After a three day shift without sleep, Morigin joined some co-workers in a little celebratory moir wine. His hobby project was done. “I’m calling her the Jade Tendril, boys,” he had said. “Because I built in some custom surprises for anyone trying to take her.”

After nine bottles, Morigin grew belligerent and picked a fight with a Perado, and even though they’re small, they have one mean stinger. Morigin took two shots of that stinger – one in the leg and another in the neck. He took enough bioelectricity in those stings, he would later feel them every time a storm brewed on any planet.

But Telo found him outside that pub and nursed him back to health. “Scrapping is a waste of time,” he told Morigin as he changed his bandages. “Battleships, technology, the COM. It means the end, young man. What do you think the GSA is fighting the Slavos for? Freedom? Peace? No. Nothing as patriotic as that. Power. It’s all a quest for control over the other. No one believes in anything but power. Faith and God died many millennia ago. But I intend to put an end to that. And I can show you ways of making a larger difference – making a life for yourself than just being a scrapper.”

As Morigin entered dock 1173, he looked up to see shift shuttles arriving from orbit, no doubt loaded to the gills with workers ready for shore leave. He smiled at the memory of Telo, privately thanking him for saving his life, even changing it. As he approached the Jade Tendril, the running lights fluttered to life and the entrance ramp opened with a great whir.

Walking aboard his beloved ship, Morigin stopped by an empty display case and opened it. He took the sparking device from his long-coat and placed it carefully into the holding pins. He looked up at the cutlass gleaming from its post above the entrance to the cabin. “Don’t worry, old glory,” he said. “You’re still my favorite.”

“You’re not talking to your relics again, are you?” asked Jade.

Morigin shut and locked the case, then said, “Don’t worry baby, you’re my favorite.”

“You just said that to the cutlass,” Jade said.

Morigin strode into the cabin, removing the kor from his long-coat and said, “Let’s take a look at this.” He inserted the kor into a data port, turned around and removed his long-coat. Laying it over his seat, he added, “For selfish reasons, I hope it was a complete siphon.”

He watched the viewport of the ship light up in streams of data. As the data streams opened up, Jade systematically sorted, named and filed all the data from the siphon kor. As Morigin watched he saw a file structure developing on the screen and soon it reached the end of the page, only it didn’t stop, it kept scrolling with new files. Before long, he couldn’t track the creation of the files – the viewport was a flurry, creating the file structure.

“We’re at 35% capacity,” Jade said. “It looks like they took all of it.” The file list moved faster and faster. Morigin stood and watched even though his eyes couldn’t register anything on the screen. “43%...51%...59%...67%...69%”

Morigin finally sat down in his chair and watched the processing from the corner of his eye. “You don’t really have to list off the percentages. Just let me know when you’re done.”

“73%...88%...92%...99%” Jade listed with the smallest hint of a snicker.

“Very funny,” Morigin said.

“125%”

“It’s not funny anymore.”

“143%” Jade said. “No, I’m not being funny. 159%.”

Morigin stood up and watched the data download again, the file structure continuing to grow beyond comprehension. “What does this all mean?”

“173%” said Jade. “The human cortex can hold approximately 11.713 krayts of information. We’re at almost 19 krayts and it’s still going.”

“A standard kor only holds 20,” Morigin said.

“182%” Jade said. And like that the date stream ended. Only a blinking cursor at the bottom of the list made any movement. “The kor didn’t have enough space to hold all of Telo’s memory.”

Morigin rubbed his bearded chin and stared at the blinking cursor. “How could a human hold almost two times more information than his body could hold?”

“Implants?” asked Jade.

Morigin stood up and began pacing in front of the viewport. “No. He wasn’t the tech type. Not keen on biological upgrades.”

“Perhaps his brainpan was abnormally large,” said Jade. “From what I’ve heard, biology can at some times be ‘miraculous and mysterious.’ I mean, you’ve said it yourself that beings don’t need technology to expand their minds, open up their abilities. Right?”

Morigin looked down at his feet and then looked up at the viewport. “This is beyond biology, Jade.” Pushing a button by the data port, Morigin ejected the memory kor. He held it up to the interior lights and looked deeply at it. Then he muttered under his breath, “The old man as right.”

“What was that, Captain?”

Morigin put on his long-coat again and placed the kor in a pocket. “Nothing,” Morigin said. “Listen, I’m afraid we’ll need to find Telo’s son. They’re bound to be gaps in Telo’s memory and I have only been with him the last twelve years. He may have some information we’ll need.”

The viewport changed and showed Jade splicing into the Param Eon directory. “Palladin Complex. 224-M.” Jade said.

“Fire halos and let’s go get him,” said Morigin. “Pull up a building schematic. We may have to bust in to get him. If I remember correctly, he had no love for his father. So this might be harder than tracking down those Carniv. And on the way, hyper-encrypt all sensitive files on this matter. I don’t want to take any chances.”

* * *

High above the Palladin Complex, the Jade Tendril soared. The Palladin Complex glowed violet. Numerous windows were dark, no doubt their residents fast asleep.

“Let’s not wake the neighbors, Jade.” The running lights to the ship blinked out as it hovered around the building. “Take us around to his place. I want to check to see if he’s there.” The Jade Tendril banked and slowly hovered around to the left side of the building. They lowered down a few floors before stopping just outside Palo’s apartment. “Let’s tighten the cameras to the interior.”

And as the viewport lit up and showed the interior of the apartment, Morigin stood up from his seat. In the living room of the apartment lied the courier he had interacted with earlier. He seemed to be just waking up from taking a stun bolt to the forehead. His arms and legs were bound.

“What in the name of –” said Morigin, before he saw another person step in front of Palo. “That kid is Telo’s son?”

“It appears the person he was supposed to deliver the kor to has found him, Captain,” Jade said. “We should do something before something bad happens.”

Dazed, Morigin shook his head and said, “Yes. Get him!”

A panel beneath the front of the Tendril burst open, revealing twelve mechanical tentacles. They struck quickly, blasting through the apartment wall. One jabbed at the intruder, spinning him around, while another lurched in and coiled around a screaming Palo. Before the intruder had a chance to react a third tentacle slammed into him, knocking him through four apartment walls.

From the viewport, Morigin saw frightened tenants peering through the rubble at his ship. The intruder looked to be down. “Get him in here, Jade!” yelled Morigin, but the tentacle froze. “Jade? Get him in here before that crony gets his marbles back!” Nothing. He slammed the console with his fist and the viewport shuddered briefly. Then the tentacle recoiled and pulled Palo into the cargo bay.

“Sorry, Captain,” said Jade. “I don’t know what happened.”

Morigin looked into the viewport as if it were a face. He winced his eyes and said, “What’s wrong with you lately? Are we missing a patch or something?”

“I don’t know,” Jade said. “Something hasn’t felt right –”

“– since Kcid station, right?”

“Yes.”

Morigin turned away from the viewport and stormed out of the cabin. “Well, find it and fix it. I need you to be less…ditsy.”

Morigin walked through the halls of the Tendril toward the cargo bay, thinking about Jade. They had been together for so long, he couldn’t imagine ever being without her. But something was wrong and it needed fixing. Maybe he needed to visit his pal Spiglas again. One of the best system profilers he knew, Spiglas helped Morigin program Jade with personality patches and silco-DNA. “She’ll be a one-of-a-kind vessel once I’m done with her,” he told Morigin. And that she was.

Morigin arrived at the cargo bay door and punched the entry code in. The thick metal door slid open and Morigin stepped in. Palo was sitting in the corner and stood up when he saw Morigin.

“Thanks,” Palo said. “How did you know I was being attacked?”

Morigin waited impatiently for Palo to approach him. “We didn’t. You got lucky.”

Palo cocked his head at Morigin and said, “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“Top of the Skylar Vane,” said Morigin. “You probably saw me splay that Carniv before you fell off the roof. And no, you don’t know me.”

“What’s going on?”

Morigin stepped toward Palo and grabbed him by the arm and ushered him out of the cargo bay. “Did you ever answer any of the messages your father sent you?”

Palo pulled his arm back and said, “My father?! No. I have nothing to say to my father.”

Morigin strode away toward the cabin. “Well good then. Because he’s dead.”

Palo ran to Morigin to catch up. “What do you mean dead?”

“Deceased. Not breathing. One with the ether,” Morigin said. “Not of the living. It’s a pretty simple concept really.” They approached the annex of the ship, where Morigin had displayed all his relics. Palo turned around and took them all in – the cutlass, the Colt 45, a rusty dagger, numerous old journals, an ancient war helmet.

“My father has stuff like this.”

“Had,” said Morigin.

Palo ran up behind Morigin and put him in a choke hold, but Morigin easily twisted around and threw him to the grated floor. “Why do you have to talk like that about him?” asked Palo.

Morigin had Palo by the scruff of his shirt with both fists and said, “At least I talked to him.” And with that he released him and walked into the cabin. Palo got up and followed him.

“Jade,” said Morigin. “Let’s map a course for Draedus. Maybe junior here can be of help.”

“Help with what?” asked Palo.

“Captain?” asked Jade. “I found the system error and am attempting to fix, but I’ll need your help.”

“My help?” asked Morigin. “How can I help you with a system error?”

“We have a stowaway.”

For as long as the conduit could remember, the voice had been there – wrapped around her mind, cool and electric. Like a whisper, it guided her, told her what to do next. Some of the things she had done. She often tried to forget them. That colony on Rebo-Sax, wiped out by her hands. She spliced into the power grid and shut them down. Without their coolant systems, the entire city burned in the sunrise. She did it without a thought, without a waver. But things were different now. She thought about those people burning in the streets, and without the voice, something different came over her. It was as if the brick foundation in her body was crumbling. She felt weak and disoriented.

The conduit rolled over on her side and wretched. When she opened her eyes, she remembered where she was. Cold steel walls. A gentle hum from the worm drives. The overhead airflow and replicated gravity. She had stowed away on this ship. They had come for her – the Slavos. After wiping her mouth, she looked around and ran her pale hands down the walls. There had to be a hatch somewhere. Her hand stopped on the edge of something when it happened again. Her body tightened and she wretched again, splattering fleshy splinters of lizard meat all over the wall.

Her head felt woozy and as she swayed on her feet, her mind flashed – colony ships marked for Torna, a young girl sitting in terra gardens with her parents, her small fingers picking woodberries, her hands tunneling in the loose, rusty soil, siren flowers bursting golden in a breeze.

“Vaga,” called a soothing motherly voice. “Vaga Bodano? There you are…”

Her body jerked and wretched again, but the visions stopped. But she wanted them back. Her mother. Her name. She has a name – Vaga Bodano. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she did know she didn’t want to wretch again, the smell grew acrid in her nose.

Feeling the walls again, she found the rough edge of a hatch in the low ceiling. She pulled the hatch door down and climbed up into a tangle of piping and wiring. There wasn’t much room. Spliceways were common in older ships. The infrastructure of the ship was designed for numerous crawl spaces for mechanics and repair droids. As she pulled her thin body through the tight space, she felt wires tracing her back and coolant hoses running down her legs.

Vaga crawled inch by inch almost the entire length of the ship, when she arrived at a maintenance interface.

“It’s about time,” she said to herself. Then she moved a hand to the glittering console. The micro fibers sprawled from her fingertips and wove themselves into the circuit. As she interfaced with the ship, she realized it was becoming harder to get to what she wanted. She pressed her mind harder, forcing the bioelectricity from her cells into her implants and into the ship’s mainframe.

Finally her head shuddered and her retinas lit up in white light. Vaga had broken through. The cortex of the ship’s mainframe sprawled out before her eyes. Swiftly she accessed the navigational logs and read the coordinates.

“Draedus,” she said. “I don’t know what’s there, but anywhere away from the Slavos will be fine with me.” The lights of the mainframe swelled in Vaga’s eyes as she ran through file after file. Then something caught her eye.

“Hyper-encryption,” she said. She tried to break the encryption. Nothing happened. She concentrated and tried again. Nothing. Cinching her eyes and pushing hard with her mind, she tried again. Finally the file slowly opened. It was long list of time stamps. Vaga shook her head and scanned through the list, coming to a random one in the middle.

SOLAR RESIDENTIAL COMPLAEX – GSAD 536.127.94:17

She accessed the file and an action feed began to play. First a darkened room. Then with a slight ping the lights came on, revealing a very well furnished living complex. Stately, the home had exotic plants resting on corner pedestals, a wycan burning fireplace, and even a few Calento art piece flickered on the walls. But what seemed odd to Vaga were the many glass cases hung on the walls. Each case contained various strange shards of metal, rock, and ancient paper.

The front door opened and a thin boy with dark hair entered the home. He immediately dropped a bag on a nearby chair and walked off screen. The action feed swapped to a different room and showed the young man entering a kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and stared at the food inside. Then he slammed the door and turned to a large fruit bowl on a counter. Carefully he picked through a few ashplums and sun pickles until he found a small lur melon and broke it open with his hands.

Eating the melon, he walked out of the kitchen and past the front door again. When he passed the door, it dinged and an older man entered, carrying a cylindrical metal container and a gift box. He looked hurried and worried. The young man passed him without looking at him.

“Palo,” said the old man. “Please. I know I haven’t been there that much. But you must realize what I am on to. If my theories are correct, this is big. Bigger than either of us.” The old man fumbled with his packages and dropped the gift box. He scrambled to pick it up and followed the young man.

The action feed split into two views to follow both Palo and the old man. Palo entered his room, eating the last clumps of his melon. He picked up a small remote on his desk and clicked it. A screen on his wall lit up in a vibrant color display and loud music erupted from the room. Palo flopped onto his bunk and stared at the ceiling.

In the other view, the old man entered a large laboratory. On the far wall was a white mantasteel door. It was large and affixed with a large korlock. As the old man entered the room, he spoke louder, trying to make sure the boy could still hear him. “I think I found a piece of it, Palo,” he yelled. “It’s magnificent.” The old man walked to the large door. There was a thin slot in the korlock. The old man set down his packages and inserted his right hand into the slot. A green light came on briefly followed by a snap. The old man winced in pain and removed his hand.

“Telo Solar,” said the vault door. “Proceed.”

Telo walked into the vault with the metal container and disappeared from view. Inside, there were clanks and whoosh as he secured the metal container. Then he walked out and back into view.

“I mean everything I have been working for,” he yelled. “I might finally be able to prove that those myths are true. I mean can you imagine?” He closed the vault door and the green light on the door lit up and the door said, “Secured.”

Telo grabbed the gift box and walked out of the laboratory and towards Palo’s room. “I don’t wish that you fully understand,” he said, arriving at the entryway to Palo’s room. The music was loud and Palo turned in his bunk to face away from Telo.

“I only ask that someday,” Telo said. “Some day, you give me a chance. I think you will look at what I do or what I have done and believe me. Trust me when I say that this could possibly change the way people think in this galaxy. I mean if this is true, imagine what this means.”

“Whatever,” Palo said. He grabbed the small remote and clicked it numerous times. The music blared and overwhelmed Telo. Telo shook his head and held the gift box in his hands. Then he placed it on Palo’s desk and backed out of the room.

“I just thought,” said Telo. “I’d get you something special.” Telo paused awkwardly as Palo ignored him. He sighed, turned and left the entryway. The music and the bright lights on the wall overtook the entire moment.

As the action feed played, Vaga felt that crumbling feeling in her head and her body. Palo seemed so sad and alone. Yet his father was there, trying to make amends. She watched again as Palo got up from his bunk and walked over to the gift. He opened the cover and looked at it, but from the angle of the recorder, Vaga couldn’t see what it was. Though she figured it wasn’t something too good, since Palo put the cover back on the gift box and tossed it angrily into an open drawer in his antique dresser.

Palo twirled to his remote, clicked it and left the room. As he entered the living room, Telo sat up from a chair and approached him. “I wish you would hear me out,” Telo said.

Palo turned to Telo and said, “Hear you out? You must think I’m –.”

The action feed suddenly stopped and the file structure faded away to black. Vaga shook her head and felt her connection with the mainframe slipping. Frantically, she winced her eyes and tried to recover the files, but they disappeared.

“You are quite strong,” said the Jade Tendril’s cool, smooth female voice. “I’ve been trying to isolate your location since you spliced in.”

Vaga pulled back her hand from the interface – her thin micro fibers receded back into her fingertips and she said, “I only needed to get away from them. You can leave me on Draedus. I can find transport out of there.”

“I’ll leave that decision up to the Captain,” Jade said. “Until, then, I advise you to stay put until the Captain can detain you.”

“You know what I am,” said Vaga. “You know what I can do.”

“I’ve beed upgraded with many illegal patches,” said Jade. “Patches designed to stop conduits.”

Vaga smiled and said, “You know there isn’t a patch through the entire GSA I can’t get through. There was a reason behind our extermination.”

“Surely,” said Jade as loud footsteps clamored above Vaga.

Vaga immediately began pulling herself through the spliceway. She didn’t know where she could go. They would eventually find her. The Captain, if he was anything like the Slavo captains she knew, would know every nuance of his ship and she would be caught. She stopped crawling briefly as her shoulder snagged a jagged piece of metal. Blood slowly slid down her back.

She continued on, passing numerous interfaces. There had to be an interface farther away, more secluded. But it was a risk. Even though she could get into the systems, Jade would see her fingerprint and triangulate her location within the ship. As she shimmied down the tight space, she looked behind her, blood streaking on everything.

Pausing briefly, she heard the footsteps of the captain pang right over her. Through the thin slits in the floor grates she could see ancient leather boots and a green sash waving in his wake. After he had passed her, she continued. The wound on her shoulder was healing. It always tickled when the nanomeds in her blood were at work. It would only be moments before the scratch would be healed.

“We’ll find you eventually,” said Jade. “It serves no purpose prolonging the inevitable.”

Vaga opened her mouth, but then closed it. They wanted her to speak. Jade was trying to goad her into revealing her location. There had to be something. Some way to get out of this. The captain’s footsteps were returning. This time they were slower, more meaningful. Vaga wiggled into a spliceway against a wall. She moved as quietly and slowly as possible. There were pipes and grates in front of her. And in the spaces between them, she saw an interface across the catwalk from her. There was one thing she could do.

That’s when she felt a blade slice into her shoulder. When she took her eye off the interface across the catwalk, she saw him and more importantly, the blade of some golden, crude weapon sticking out of her. The captain looked tired. His face was dirty and weary. He wore an old brown leather longcoat, a linen shirt, even older leather boots and a long green sash tied off around his head and trailing down his back.

Vaga said, “You look ridiculous.”

“And you appear to be quite gifted,” he said. “But I am really tired and I don’t have time for this.” With one hand holding his cutlass in place, the captain drew an old pistol out of his holster and aimed it at Vaga’s head. “Know what this is? It’s a Colt 45. It’s the rarest of artifacts from a long lost world. Crude device really. Uses metal rounds. Creates the nastiest of deaths. Skulls blown open and the whole bit. I have only found twelve rounds for this weapon across the GSA. I have seven left…or six after this. I save them for my better kills.” The captain looked at Vaga’s face hidden behind the piping. A trickle of blood dripped from her nostril.

“I don’t…don’t think you can afford that, captain,” she stammered.

The captain cocked his head and said, “And why would that be?”

“Because at the moment,” Vaga said. “I’m raiding your mainframe.”

The captain looked behind him and saw her microfibers crawling all over the interface behind him. They had flowed underneath the floor grating, right underneath his feet and into the Jade Tendril. He looked back at her, his face twisted with anger and a bit of sadness. Vaga saw the faintest glimmer in his eyes that pleaded with her to stop.

“Don’t worry. I’m leaving all her personality patches,” Vaga said. “I figured you made some custom modifications to her profile. I’m only taking the data you have hyper-encrypted.”

The captain pulled the hammer back on the ancient pistol and said, “Withdraw now, or the last thing that goes through that mechmind of yours will be this lead.”

Vaga was bleeding from both her nostrils now. She had never tried this big of a raid. “You – you can’t kill me,” she said again. “Everything that is precious to you-you is in me now. I’ve de-deleted the files. I’m the only thing you have now.”

The captain stared at her. There was a darkness in his eyes Vaga had never seen before, even in the Slavos. Was this the right choice, crossing a renegade like this? Blood streamed from her chin and onto her gray jumpsuit. Her whole body shook. Suddenly, the captain removed the cutlass from her shoulder and holstered his pistol. He held out his hand to her and said, “You cross me again, your neck will meet my blade.”

Vaga retracted her fibers and reached out to the captain’s hand and took it. He roughly pulled her out of the spliceway. Some piping came loose and fell on Vaga’s head with a clang.

Vaga rubbed her head with one hand and said, “I just don’t want to go back to the Slavos. I’ll do anything.”

The captain smiled crookedly and said, “I’ll see to that.”

As the suns set in millions of systems across the GSA, only one name rivals that of Grand Minister Withryn, the diplomat of the free galaxy, and that name is Hallastaare – a breathy name that conjures dying gasps, shadows and the deep asphyxiation of dark vacuums. Some myths say men have died from fright or worry just by hearing his name. Others spent their entire life and fortune hiding from him. But even the more curious don’t even believe he exists, or at least doesn’t exist anymore, that a long time ago the being known as Hallastaare perished, but his inner circle continually perpetuated the myth to keep his business going. To this date there isn’t a deal in the entire GSA that doesn’t have a thin connection to Hallastaare – even the government deals.

One thing remains the same throughout all the stories, no one has ever dealt directly with Hallastaare. Sellihca knew as much too, which got him to wondering if the soul that had contacted him was the true Hallastaare, or yet another one of his minions. But as he has for years, he’ll bite. The pay is good and no matter where he went in the GSA it was always nice to have that name at his disposal – especially in his field.

As Sellihca’s ship, the Broken Fang rocketed through the atmosphere of Yort – a planet teeming with primitive life – he was already planning the kill. Nevar Mar hailed from the Arma Cluster – a system notorious for their barbarians. Surely, Mar was a stout, thick-skinned, brute of a creature with horns adorning his arms and legs. Skilled in the ancient art of Hi-Keng, Mar was sure to be deadly. Sellihca watched Mar’s vitals flicker over his viewport as the ship jostled through entry.

“Big and strong,” he said to himself. “Shouldn’t be hard.”

Standing up, Sellihca turned the controls over to autopilot and walked to his armory. Inside, display lights lit up a tremendous array of weaponry and armor. Being a mercenary for more than 75 years, Sellihca built a sizable collection. But his prize had been with him since the beginning – the Saculian Armor. Gleaming smooth and golden, each piece was fashioned in the likeness of the Canaan Dragon – especially the helmet.

Sellihca looked at his dark reflection in the golden sheen of the armor – his deep indigo skin and burning white eyes stared back at him. He knew what this was. A test. By defeating Mar, Sellihca would become Hallastaare’s prime enforcer and with that position came almost limitless power. An image of his mother flashed in his mind – the many nights he spent with her guarding their sheva flock from the ravagers. She taught him how to use his keen eyesight, how to slip into the night undetected.

As memories washed over him, he reached into his open tunic and rubbed a great scar that ran vertically down his chest and sternum. Certainly if his mother were alive, she’d be proud of him, right? Or would she be embarrassed that deep down, he had doubts about what he was born, trained, and bred to do. The Broken Fang shuddered as it neared the temple for a landing. Sellihca slid the pieces of the golden armor over his body. Each piece whirred, hissed and beeped as it snapped into place. Twisting the helmet over his head, the entire suit pressurized and the eye-panels lit up with green light.

On the stone roof of the temple, his ship fired its retros and eased into a landing. Older and more worn than most, the Broken Fang still held a special place for Sellihca. Built to be a standard food transport, it had enormous amounts of cargo space, but after being hijacked and converted to a slave trader, it had been marked and scarred with plasma burns over the years – so much it was entirely black. He came into possession of the ship after his first kill – when he was hired to hunt down the captain of the slave ship. That was back when he thought all jobs would be righteous. Back when taking the ship was an act of pride – a token for his first kill; now it was a constant mark to him reminding him of the things he has chosen to do. Not that he could change any of that now. For him, it was too late to turn back.

* * *

Deep within the Un’Galli temple in the middle of a great sanctuary, the creature known as Nevar Mar hung suspended in a meditation field. A grey light poured down around him from the ceiling and Mar hung limp in the field, his arms and legs slack and his head looking up toward the source of the light. His body was stout and massive. Horns and spikes lined the sides of his arms and legs as well as down his spine. He didn’t move as Sellihca stepped into his sanctuary.

“You dishonor my temple with your technology,” Mar said, his eyes closed.

Sellihca continued walking as if ignoring Mar’s comments.

The grey light shuddered and disappeared though Mar remained suspended as if held there by his own will. Sellicha stopped a moment and watched as Mar slowly floated down to the ground.

“Without that armor you would have been dead years ago,” Mar said.

Sellihca continued toward Mar and said, “Good thing I have it, then,”

Mar brushed some dust off his shoulder and said, “If you knew how infected this galaxy has become with technology…an abomination,” said Mar. “There is no more faith. Faith and trust are no longer living things. They’re artificial. Have faith in the COM. Trust your ship. Your armor will protect you. Trust in Grand Minister Withryn. Find faith and you’ll never need again.”

“Are you always this talkative?” asked Sellihca.

Mar stretched his arms and said, “You mock what I believe in, but someday you’ll see. Death will be staring down those white eyes of yours and you’ll know someone was sent to correct all this. Life wasn’t meant to know this much about life.”

Sellihca held up his left forearm and a long green energy shield flared out, then he pulled his right arm back and a wrist blade emerged quickly from his gauntlet. “I think you’ve had too much time to yourself,” he said.

Mar took a deep breath and grunted until his skin turned deep red. Then he did it again. Each time, he grew larger and more massive. After a few huffs, he bit down and convulsed as his entire body pulsed and ripped upon itself, muscles growing over muscles, almost tripling his size. Sellihca looked up at the towering mass of muscle and horns and said, “The nanoscouts forgot to mention this.”

“I have been fending off would-be apprentices for over two hundred years. All of them were just like you.” Then in a booming voice, Mar said, “If you let technology run your life, you let it take your life.” Mar swung a heavy fist at Sellihca, catching him in the chest and blasting him across the sanctuary.

Picking himself out of the rubble, Sellicha looked down to see only a minor dent in his armor. Then as Mar swiveled and charged at him, Sellicha released his shield and blade again. But this time as Mar charged, Sellicha deftly dodged, parried and twisted around his opponent – thanks to the micro retros built into the armor. At every turn and twist, the armor precalculated his movements and fired precisely when Sellicha needed the extra assistance to dodge and lunge. After a series of dodges, he ended up behind Mar and sunk his blade into the lower part of his back.

Mar roared in pain and turned around quickly.

“Yes. Technology MUST be the bane of all life,” said Sellihca.

Mar charged again and with every swing, Sellihca dodged, ducked and counter-struck almost at will, with the ease of a telepath. They fought like that for minutes – Mar being the slow brute and Sellihca playing the agile deft insect. Sellihca even managed to grab one of Mar’s arm horns and swing up to his shoulder, where he sunk his blade deep into the base of Mar’s neck. Roaring loudly, Mar reached back and managed to grab Sellihca and slam him down onto the ground twice – each time shedding some of his armor. Then Mar threw him across the sanctuary and broke the altar.

Broken and bloodied, Sellihca could barely move. His armor was almost completely destroyed – only his helmet remained on him. Mar walked up to him and said, “I tried to tell you.”

But before Mar could land the deathblow, Sellihca dug his hands into the scar on his chest and with a painful scream, ripped open his own ribcage. The last thing Never Mar witnessed in his life, were the fiery red eyes and the sheer power of the Canaan Dragon as it fully engulfed him and left him as a pile of ash at Sellihca’s feet.

Staggering for breath and holding his broken ribcage closed with one arm, Sellihca touched his chin with his other forefinger and then ran it down the edge of his ear, activating his COM. The implants glowed dully under his deep, indigo skin.

“Could use a clean up crew in here,” he said. Then he removed a small glass vial from his belt. Struggling, Sellihca scooped up some of Mar’s ashes in the vial and fastened it back to his belt.

After a few moments, a whole team of Mintas emerged from the temple entrance hauling medical equipment and a retrieval skiff. A race of shrunken creatures with long arms and legs and round little heads, Mintas were extremely intelligent and were often found aboard ships as crewmen, mechanics and medtecs. Three of them helped Sellihca up from the temple floor and helped him to the skiff, while four others began hooking tubes and wires to him. One of the Mintas climbed onto the skiff, pointed a sealant applicator at Sellihca’s chest and pulled the trigger, emitting a thick, clear gel over the bloody crevasse. Beneath the gel, something small and pale writhed within the confines of Sellihca’s body.

As the medical crew loaded him onto the ship, Sellihca was handed a comtab that pulsed with light. When he touched the green button on the side, the screen revealed a starmap of the GSA with a red flashing beacon over the system of Param. He touched the red beacon and two visual files pulled up, showing two grisly and gnarled Carniv – their numerous teeth and fangs growing out at odd angles in their cavernous mouths. The last thing that scrolled across the message was a location – The Shrapnel Club.

Underneath all the tubes and wires, the beeping and whirring of all the diagnostic devices, Sellihca knew who sent the message. And it looked like he had to clean up a job his predecessor couldn’t handle – a pick-up. He ran an indigo skinned hand over the hardened gel over his chest and thought at least the next assignment wouldn’t be as hard as his initiation.

* * *

At the Shrapnel Club, Halfsie was closing down for the night – flushing out the drink lines and barking orders to the cleaning droids. The whole time he kept his back to the door, not wavering a second from his duties. Every once in a while he looked up to a dark spot next to the stage. There was nothing there of course, just dark space playing tricks on him. Ducking down to the drink lines, he continued his work until he heard a strange voice say, “The courier. What’s his name?”

Halfsie peered up at Sellihca with his mechanical eye – the space all around Sellihca bubbled like molten glass as if he were stepping into this reality from a far more distant one. “I was wondering when you were going to come out of that cubby and introduce yourself,” said Halfsie.

“Again, I’ll make this simple. I wouldn’t want you to lose anymore of…yourself,” said Sellihca. “The courier. His name?”

Getting up from his crouching position behind the bar, Halfsie raised his mechanical hand to the bar to help himself up, only his hand was not there – the robotic fingers had bent backward revealing a hidden plasma cannon in his palm. Sellihca noticed it only briefly before it fired, sending him backwards and to the floor. Halfsie scrambled up and peered over the bar to see him, but he wasn’t there.

“I offered to make this simple,” said Sellihca behind Halfsie.

When Halfsie turned, there stood his intruder with an energy shield around him that looked like bubbling, molten glass. The shield looked to be repairing itself until it disappeared from sight again. Halfsie mistakenly raised his good hand to the intruder, only to have it met with a quick slash of a gleaming, golden dagger in Sellihca’s hand. Falling to his knees, Halfsie watched his hand bleeding on the floor.

Sellihca bent down and grabbed his chin and jerked Halfsie’s face to meet his. “The courier. His name?”

This time Halfsie complied. “Palo Solar. He lives at that upscale Palladin Complex.”

Sellihca let go of his chin and picked up the severed hand. “This is mine. Souveneir for that plasma blast,” he said. “And you’ll be glad you cooperated. Now, I won’t kill your friend. I’ll just make him your better half.”

All around Sellihca, the colagenic shield bubbled until he disappeared from sight. Halfsie heard the bar door slide open as the intruder left. He shook his head in disgust for his actions, wondering if he made the right choice. At his feet scooted a dome-shaped floor cleaner. It beeped at Halfsie, who said, “Might as well.” At his command the dome-shaped droid rolled over the blood on the floor, scrubbing it cleanly away.

Outside on the balcony of Palo Solar’s apartment, Sellicha stood watching him from the safety of his shield. He had pulsed the electric lock and opened it to facilitate a smoother entrance. Inside he saw Palo listening to his daily messages and then eating a derr fruit. Beneath the shield, his vision was impaired – like looking through murky water. Seeing the fruit juices dribble down Palo’s chin made Sellihca hungry and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since before landing on Yort.

He waited until Palo was sitting on his couch. It was an unfortunate coincidence, but one that Sellihca thought he could use to his advantage. Seeing a person emerge from the shield for the first time often caused confusion and possibly fear. He unholstered his stunner and pressed the glowing red button on his COM bracelet. The gelatinous shield around him bubbled and evaporated away and Sellicha stepped forward. Stupefied, Palo sat there, his mouth agape in awe, as Sellihca shot him in the head. Palo fell over on the couch and the derr fruit rolled out of his hand.

While he was out, Sellihca bound Palo’s arms and legs behind his back, then took the opportunity to ransack the place. He doubted the scan was there. Even amateur couriers were smart enough to leave their work away from their homes. But none of that stopped him from tearing the place apart just in case Palo did make such a stupid move. After an hour, he concluded there was no possible way the package was here. Sellihca knew Palo had delivered it to someone else, otherwise he wouldn’t have to clean this up. Damn, couriers. Flash a little more cred and everything goes to hell. But who? It had to be someone who knew what he was delivering. Mar really messed this one up – no wonder Haalastare was looking for someone else.

His stomach still quaked for food, so he picked up the half-eaten derr fruit and sat down at the table to eat it. By the time Palo finally stirred from his slumber, Sellihca had finished the fruit and was eating from a box whetvine crackers. He watched as Palo came too, realized he was bound, and asked, “What’s going on? Who are you?”

Sellihca finished the last of the crackers, dusted off his hands and then stood up from the table and asked, “The package, courier. Where is it?”

Palo struggled on the sofa to sit up and get a look at his attacker. “The what?” he said.

Sellihca walked over to him and faced him, his back to the balcony. “The package you delivered to the wrong person.”

Palo looked into his attacker’s deep indigo skin. He had never seen a Saculian before. “I delivered it to someone who was willing to pay a lot more for it.”

Sellihca rubbed the short black hair on his head and said, “That’s not very ethical for your field.”

“Just as ethical as ethical as this whole display,” Palo twisted his hands toward him to show him that he was bound-up.

That remark got to Sellihca. He pulled out his golden dagger and held it to Palo’s throat as he said, “I’ll ask nicely one last time. Where is the package?”

Just as he finished his question, the outside wall to the apartment erupted in debris and rubble. Sellihca managed to turn just in time to see a large mechanical tentacle lunge at him. As it spun him around, he saw a ship hovering outside the window with a mass of tentacles whipping into the apartment. One of the other tentacles grabbed Palo and pulled him into the ship. Sellihca wondered if he was next and prepared to be drug into the bowels of that ship, only it didn’t happen. The tentacle lurched backward and then thrust him through four apartment walls.

Lying broken amid the rubble, Sellihca reached to his chest and felt for his sternum scar. It was healing nicely and there was no damage to the precious cargo within his ribcage. His head spinning and his body numb, Sellihca activated his COM on his ear and chin and gurgled the words, “I could use a clean up crew in here…again.”

Deep in the Outer Realm around the system of Vomisa a small contingent of Slavo destroyers were quickly losing a lop-sided fight against an armada of GSA battleships. Barrages of plasma cannon blasts punched holes into the Slavo ships, who spun out of control and launched a counter-attack of tunneler missles, designed to puncture hulls and either depressurize ships or deploy troop infiltration. The Slavo tunnelers leapt at the batlleships, and as if they had dealt with this tactic numerous times, the battleships opened fire – not on the Slavo ships, but on the incoming missles.

Plasma lit up the space between the ships, and even a few stray blasts connected with the Slavo ships on the other side. Missle after missle were blown apart. The last ditch effort of the Slavos was dwindling down and the GSA armada focused all their firepower at the few stragglers left. Soon only one missile remained, side-winding around blasts and floating wreckage until it slammed into the hull of the GSAS Redav.

On the bridge, the captain barked orders to his crew, “Get a welcome committee down there now! And arm your greenpacs. I don’t want any mixers aboard my ship!”

An officer stepped up to the captain and asked, “But what if their goal isn’t infiltration? Those men will be thrown into the vacuum of space.”

The captain disregarded the man and said, “I don’t want those abominations on my ship – no matter the cost.”

Below decks a column of marines donning plastellic armored airsuits waited outside a blast door. Nervous breath fogged the clear viewplates of their helmets. A few of them shook so hard their rifles wavered in their hands.

“Listen,” said the squad leader. “I know you’re afraid. But we don’t have time for that now. Many of you haven’t even seen a Slavo up close.” He pointed to a glowing green button on his suit’s chest plate. “This is your greenpac. It’s a biogenetic toxin. Don’t worry, it takes about forty-eight hours before it kills us. Until then, you’ll be fine. The upside is that if any of those damn mixers gets you, this toxin scrambles up your DNA when it hits their bloodstream, preventing them from absorbing it.”

“They eat their victims?” asked one soldier.

“They’re mixers. They eat the flesh of their victims to absorb their power, their knowledge. Why do you think we’re fighting them?” asked the squad leader. Then he turned to the rest and said, “Alright! Activate your greenpacs.” Throughout the squad rang a series of clicks and whooshes as the toxins were injected into the soldiers. Once clear, the squad leader nodded his head and a marine activated the blast door. The marines aimed their weapons at the thick metal door scraping open before them.

Once the door was open, the soldiers were awestruck and their weapons slowly relaxed as they laid eyes on a young attractive woman standing in the compartment by herself. She held her arms behind her and looked lost, confused and innocent. Her silvery hair was cropped short save for a thin stretch running from her forehead over the top and down to the base of her neck. She wore a tight, gray, one-piece jumpsuit with lines of red squares running down the sides of her legs and arms. The marines were so surprised at her presence that they never noticed the thin hair-like extensions sprouting from her fingertips behind her back. The thin fibers stretched to the floor and felt their way to the wall, where a control panel glowed.

The girl smiled coyly as the marines tried to ascertain what was going on. One of the marines looked at the control panel and saw the glowing fibers interfacing with the panel.

“A conduit!!!” he screamed to his squadron leader.

The squadron leader barked into his wristcomm, “We got a conduit, pull the PMT.”

An officer’s voice bellowed back through the squadron leader’s wristcomm, “But it’s experimental! We don’t even know if that will work?”

“Do you want to wait until she’s handing us and the ship over to the Slavos!” yelled the squadron leader.

Just as the squadron leader turned, a metallic pop echoed throughout the ship. Then the lights in the ship cut-out briefly and then shut off. Plunged into darkness, the marines scrambled to the primitive glow wands stored on their wrist guards. After a few of broke their wands and shook up the luminescent fluid, they noticed a different light source – coming from the girl. They looked and to their horror saw the girl’s eyes beaming white light and the rows of red squares lining her jumpsuit were lit up. One of the marines noticed a brief smile on her face, before he felt her foot break his jaw.

* * *

Maintenance crews scrambled around in the darkness of the Redav trying to restore power to the ship. In some places limited lighting blinked on, but most functional areas of the ship were dead. A crew near the escape pods was busily trying to retap into the ship’s systems to get their sector online.

“You really think there’s a conduit on board?” asked one of the technicians. He seemed frightened and inexperienced in the dull glow of their wands.

Repairing some wires in a console, another technician said, “That’s crazy. All the conduits were hunted down years ago.”

“Or so they say,” said another technician. “If they’re all gone, why’d they pull the PMT. It’s experimental. Supposed to drain all power within twenty ticks. Imagine a huge off switch for an entire fleet. No way they risk our ships falling into the atmosphere, if there wasn’t a real conduit on board.”

“Yeah,” said another technician, trying to hack into the system code. “No way the GSA is going to let one of them survive. You know what they do, right?”

The frightened technician looked around to the others and said, “Sure. They’re human interfacers.”

“No,” said the hacker technician. “Conduits are the bane of the GSA. They’re born into slavery and nanetically enhanced to interface with all technology. The Slavos built them to destroy the things that make this galaxy great. All it would take is one conduit in the right place at the right time and it could destroy the GSA – break it down to primitive levels. There would be no control. Chaos in system after system. No order. All of civilization would degrade into barbarianism. And who wins in those situations? The Slavos.”

“Oh,” said the frightened technician.

The hacker technician saw the fright on the young man’s face and smiled. Then he broke in and said, “Plus they think more like a machine than a human. Meaning in combat, they kill anything that will compromise them.”

Just then a shadow whisked behind them. The frightened technician said, “What was that?! Was that it?”

“Shut up,” said the lead technician, who stood up and began walking down the hallway near a battery of landing pods. He held his glow wand to the thick viewglass to each pod and checked each one. But he found nothing, so he turned around and rejoined his crew.

Inside the fifth landing pod, the conduit sat against the pod door. Moments earlier the glow from the technicians wand lit up the inside of the pod, but she didn’t think he saw her. When the glow went away, she frantically moved about the tight cabin of the pod. She had never felt this way before. Ever since she could remember, there was always a cool voice in her head directing her on what to do. And she always listened, or at least she felt compelled to listen. But that cool voice was now absent and she didn’t know what she should do.

She fumbled with numerous controls – flipping levers, twisting knobs and such. Nothing. There wasn’t any power in the whole ship. The crew did something that killed the ship and changed her – removed the cool voice in her head. Frustrated, she sat down in the pod seat and relaxed. Holding up her left palm, the glowing fibers grew out of her fingertips. The head of each fiber was lit up with light. They writhed like tiny snakes under her control.

Under her control. Of course. She leapt from the seat and held her palm over the pod controls. The fibers writhed out of her fingertips and entered the control panel, weaving an intricate web into the technology. Soon her eyes began to glow with white light, buttons began flickering and the console lit up. Systems uploaded and a launch sequence was initiated.

When the work was done, the fibers retracted form the technology and receded back into her fingertips. Stumbling from the console, she fell backwards onto the cold steel floor. In an almost completely weakened state, she pulled herself into the pod seat and strapped on the safety harness. She had no idea where she was or where she was going, but she didn’t care. Whatever this new feeling was, it felt good. She was free. Closing her eyes, the landing pod detached from the battleship and blasted off, away from the dead ship.

* * *

The conduit indulged in a deep sleep, a dreamy sleep she had never experienced since birth. Images of people she thought were her parents flashed in her head, memories that had long laid dormant in her mind. Then the fire and smoke of her abduction, her very own screams being drowned out by the Slavos. She saw herself strapped to a crude table with Slavo surgeons surrounding her, lowering a mask over her face. Then suffocation and blackness.

A sudden lurch awakened her. Startled by her dream, she lashed out with her fibers, only to retract them in embarrassment. She unbuckled her restraints and looked out the small window in the pod. She was approaching some sort of space station – a large disc, about ten ticks wide with a core of buildings running through the center. The pod was prepping for docking into the station. When it lurched into position, she waited for the rush of air to signal the bay had been pressurized, before she twisted the hatch release and opened the pod door.

After she passed through the bay doors, her senses were assaulted with the sheer commerce taking place on the concourse within the station. Lights flashed and music blared, selling everything from tac noodles and cartho boosters to pints of grommel and batucakes. As she walked past each vendor, she felt saliva pool in her mouth and her stomach began to quake. It had been so long since she had felt those feelings. Stepping over to a vendor selling kabo lizard skewers, she pointed to one of the fresh skewers of sweet meat rolling over the open flames.

“Ten credits,” said the vendor.

The conduit smiled and then felt up and down her tight gray jumpsuit, but it left no room for pockets to hold credits. And even as hungry as she was, she had to turn to the vendor and say, “Sorry.”

Around and around the concourse she roamed, unable to partake in any of the delectable goods. Frustrated, she sat down on a bench between two fracca plants and watched the various travelers pass back and forth. A family strode by with luggage and bickered at each other. Businessmen bustled to and fro. A tall lanky man stood by a machine. She watched him punch in a few codes and then withdraw credits from the machine. Holding up a finger, she extracted one of her fibers and looked at it.

“It isn’t really stealing, is it?”

Back at the kabo lizard stand, she sat at a small table devouring the sweet meat. Seven empty skewer sticks already adorned her table and she had three more to go. Even some of the other patrons looked at her weirdly, wondering where her appetite came from. When finished, she sat back and patted her belly and said, “That was good.”

Later, she walked about the concourse sipping on ado nectar and realized she was having the time of her life. She liked being in control, making her own choices. The food filled her with energy. The drink felt cool and tingling on the back of her throat. She wondered how much of her life she had missed. How old was she? Where were her parents? She vaguely remembered something about a colony ship and plating herbs in rusty soil.

In front of her a crowd had gathered near a gaming booth. Above all the patrons glared over a dozen viewplates showing pitfights. She shuffled up to the crowd and watched the fighters get ready onscreen. On the left side of the screen, a silver pedtech with blue pinstripes and quad panels swung its metal arms and loosened the ball joints in its legs. Emblazoned across the blue shoulder panels in jagged silver lettering was the name – Ring Bear. It held a large rusty chain with a spiked mace dangling on the end. On the right side, a pewter and red pedtech spun its torso completely around numerous times, brandishing blades running under its forearm plates. After spinning, it clapped the blades together in a shower of sparks. The name Sun Spot Sun gleamed in red down its pewter quarter panels.

The conduit looked around and found a Pentak bookie at the booth taking bets.

“Action! Action!” said the Pentak, his speech more bark than language. “50 to 1 on the Bear. 7 to 1 on Spot!”

And like that, the crowd went nuts handing and throwing credits at the Pentak bookie, who used all six of his hands to collect the money and register the bets. The conduit reached into the breast of her jumpsuit and pulled out her last remaining credits. Reaching through the crowd, she called out, “100 on Bear! 100 on Bear!”

Within moments, she felt the rough armored hands of the Pentak take her credits, then suddenly, she felt a different hand on her shoulder. She wasn’t able to get a glimpse of the person behind her until she was thrown backward and to the hard tile floor. As she skidded backward, she saw them – four Slavo scouts.

Being genetic mixers, Slavos all looked uniquely hideous. The only real way to know they were Slavo was by the uniform – tight gray jumpsuits with red squares running down the sides of their arms and legs. The leader, a hulking mass with head feathers, a toothy beak, four eyes and a reddish skin color, stood before the others – a cavalcade genetic mutations. One of them was a female humanoid with indigo skin, white eyes and one hand was larger than the other, loaded with long spindly fingers. Another was rather small, had three legs, skull tendrils, amber skin and no nose. The last Slavo was extrmemely thin, like an ikidu spider, with five arms, pale skin and a mandible mouth. A shiver ran down the conduit’s spine.

“Come with us conduit,” said the large Slavo. “And we won’t eat you.”

When she tried to stand up, the other three scouts reached down and dragged her to her feet. They walked her to the largest of the Slavos – his jumpsuit displayed the markings of an officer. He pulled out a wicked looking metallic injection gun from the holster hanging from his hip. “This will really, really hurt,” he said. Slavo voices were more like thick, wet gurgles than voices.

Then out of nowhere the viewplates at the pitfight booth shuddered and went black, just when Ring Bear was about to deal the death blow. The crowd grew into a frenzy. An ado nectar cup hit the large Slavo in the face. When the Slavos looked over to the crowd, the conduit kicked downward on her captor’s knee and bolted off to the expressway.

“Get her,” the officer shouted.

But it was too late. She had stepped onto the expressway and rocketed down the concourse.

When she arrived at the end of the expressway, she looked back to see the Slavos leaping down the expressway toward her. Running as fast as she could, she headed toward the nearest elevator and pressed the up button, but the elevator wouldn’t get to her in time. So she held out her fingertips to the controls and let the fibers weave into the wiring. Before long she saw the elevator falling down to her.

“I like this,” she said, before the elevator arrived.

Just then, she heard someone say, “There it is. Hit the PMT.”

To her right, a GSA police team bore down on her.

Frightened, she quickly extracted the fibers from the elevator controls and turned left where the Slavos leapt closer down the expressway. Her brow began to sweat as one of the GSA police said, “A PMT on the Kcid station? You’re crazy. Without power there’s nothing keeping this place in orbit.”

She turned around and saw the four Slavos almost on top of her before she heard the sweet “ding” of the elevator. The doors opened up and she quickly she stepped in and shut the doors. Interfacing with the controls she rocketed the car up the shaft and away from her pursuers.

Somewhere on deck 45, four Slavo scouts waited for an elevator to arrive and open its doors – but it was empty. The feathers on the officer’s head and neck fluffed up and he screamed into the empty elevator car.

Six floors up, on deck 51, the elevator shaft doors peeked open a sliver, then closed again. Then they opened a little further, only to close again. Behind the doors there was a frustrated huff, then a grunt as the doors opened just enough to let two female hands jut out and lever open the doors. With enough room, she lifted herself out of the empty elevator shaft, her face and hands covered in grease smudges.

On her feet, she staggered to the nearest docking bay door – 51-AA. Exracting her fibers over the doorlock, she heard the locks click from the inside and lurch open. Hidden off to the side, she waited until the occupant walked out. He was very eclectic. His clothes looked like they were from a different planet – a different era. Plus he carried a fantastically jeweled stick buckled to his clothes and he had a green sash tied around his head that wafted in the air as he strode away from the docking bay door.

Swiftly, she stepped into the docking bay just as it closed behind her. In the docking bay sat a fabulous ship, fashioned in the shape of an airshark. It looked to have many dents and gouges no doubt from run-ins with debris. It hummed dully and it soothed her. So she snuck up on it and holding out her hand, she interfaced with the ship and opened the entrance ramp.

As she boarded the ship, the artifacts that adorned Morigin’s ship amazed her. Old paper journals, maps, they all looked so alien to her. She ran her hand across all the golden trinkets, the medallions, she couldn’t help but smile. A rich history hung on these walls, a lot of stories to uncover.

The Amber D’Alsace Spire was once the finest hotel and casino in the heart of Param Eon. For centuries people from the entire system journeyed there to walk amidst its bronze tiled walls and granite staircases. Fortunes were lost and won, lives spent and renewed. Everything about the building was crafted to look like wealth – from the etcho wine goblets made from the finest Garubi crystal to the aquarium walls bustling with every fish from Tancarra to Rubiyat-2. Rumors even spread that the hotel had the last remaining Ispep fish in the entire galaxy. Children of all ages followed the walls well into the night looking for it, some claimed to have seen it, others debunked it as a marketing ploy.

But something happened. Like a knife thrust into a heart, the city around the hotel crumbled into corruption and crime and the disease spread until it overtook the entire city. The one place on the entire planet that stood for life, fun and hope, degenerated into a seeping canker that no one could escape from. That was before the “Renovatio,” and the rise of Grand Minister Withryn. His revolution, his uprising took back the city and as a result resurrected the planet – order returned and he was greatly rewarded, not just on Param Eon, but throughout the entire Galactic Systems Alliance. But he had help.

Since the “Renovatio,” the hotel was refabricated, fashioned into a lightning rod of peace and order – a mighty spire that housed his entire task force of Handmen. Living and working from a central location, these Handmen kept the peace and regarded each other as brothers, sisters, as family.

On the 99^th floor, in a spacious and magnificently fashioned apartment, full of ornate portraits and Meruduu sculptures, a beautiful woman named Kristol, wrapped from neck to foot in a large robe, shuffled across the hall to the bathroom. Her head, completely hairless except for two thin brown eyebrows, held two ice blue eyes and a thin nose. Reaching into the large crystal shower, she turned on the water. Only the water flowed pink – a cillin shower, used for the severely burned.

When she dropped her towel, the reasoning for the shower exposed itself. From the bottom of her nose to her feet, Kristol was covered with burn scars. Her breasts stretched gnarled and unrepresentable across her chest. Her navel – gone. Her lips drawn tight against her teeth. Her feet held only three and four toes, respectively. Like a clay figurine left incomplete, she lacked the deft hands of an artist to arouse her nipples, indent her deft navel and pout her lips.

Entering the shower, she let the pink water spread over her body. It soothed her. Sometimes, after long stretches of work, she felt the pin pricks across her burns. Never too bothersome, when it got bad, it felt like she had fallen into a vat of needles. The cillin took that away, filled her pores with biotics to keep the pain away. Massaging her hands over her face and scalp, she wavered in the shower, pink mist floating about her and the bathroom.

After turning the cillin shower off, she stepped out and put the robe back on, then walked down the hall to her bedroom. Inside, set against the far wall was a large bed draped in white moonsilk coverings and pillows. Two knockwood endtables highlighted the head of the bed and along the walls hung small paintings in black frames. Each painting contained an ancient symbol graphed onto the parchment. Kristol walked into a closeted room and touched the light pad. A pale light flickered and shone brightly.

On one side of the closet hung different types of military uniforms: black Handmen fatigues, sandy training tunics, her gray Handman armor, thick soled black boots, and a white officer’s uniform. On the other side – a weapons cache, where she had numerous types of plasma rifles, repeaters and ammo. In a polished silver case lied a reignfire pistol. And at the very back of the closet, all by itself, hung a thin, black dress. She stopped by the reignfire pistol and ran a finger along its smooth edge, but she continued to the back of the closet and grabbed the black dress.

* * *

The porter was late. Standing there under the tiled awning, Kristol waited, the black dress hugging her body. The busy street in front of her rushed with traffic – cabs weaving in and out of the airspace above her, a tickasha lumbered by hoping to deliver someone’s tac noodles in time for dinner, people walked the street looking for the next spirit pub. A streetlight across the way hummed and flickered in the light misty rain.

She hated these things. They always felt too forced, contrived. Diplomats and dignitaries all powered up and fat, working their way to fuller political teats. She shook her head and almost considered turning back and forgetting the whole thing – but he wanted her there. And when the Grand Minister of the GSA wanted you there, you went, even it felt like someone was removing your finger nails with a rusty plasma casing.

Around the corner sped a shiny black cab and stopped erratically in front of Kristol. The driver’s door slid open and the porter rushed to the curb, adjusting his hat as he ran. When he stood before Kristol, his eyes widened and he looked at her scarred arms, hands and legs. He swallowed hard a few times before stammering, “Sorry, I’m late, Ms. Bantashe…I was…There was a lot of…”

Kristol hated the staring, hated the stammering even more. But she had grown used to it – people gawking at her skin, their eyes horrified in one instant, apologetic in another, and finally landing on sheer pity. She held up her hand, walked toward the porter and said, “You embarrass your self. Shut your mouth and drive.”

The porter shook his head and opened the door for her. “I’m sorry. I just…I can’t imagine…”

“Don’t try.” Kristol said as she got into the cab and sat down. The porter closed her door, ran around to his door and got in. Moments later they were weaving between lanes of traffic recklessly trying to make up lost time.

“I don’t want to die in this silly outfit,” Kristol said. “There’s no rush, we’re already late.”

Outside and above the cab, great spotlights cut through the night, crossing themselves and ushering people closer. Only a few more blocks, she thought. It’s just once a year. Sit next to him. Listen to the story. Smile. Shake hands. And no wisecracks about the stares. Kristol took a deep breath and held it in. Political stuff didn’t interest her. She belonged on the street, keeping the peace.

The cab skirted to a stop in front of the Aerodrome. Kristol didn’t wait for the porter. She opened the door herself and walked to the large guilded doors. Two GSA servicemen approached her. One flashed a coder in her eye and the other one frisked her for weapons, finding a pocket reaver strapped to her thigh. “No weapons allowed, miss.”

Kristol showed them the palm of her hand, where a tattoo was inked in the shape of an eye.

The other serviceman holstered his coder and pressed a button on his compad. “It’s okay,” he said. “She’s a Handman.” He turned to Kristol and waved his hand to the door. “Go on in, Ms. Bantashe. The Minister is expecting you.”

The great guilded doors swung open and Kristol entered. Enblazoned with light and crystals, the hall hummed with voices and the clatter of dinner. On the far wall, a long table sat raised above all the others. Every seat was filled except for one at the right hand side of Grand Minister Withryn. Dressed in deep blue robes, Withryn chuckled and drank emto wine. His age was starting to show, thought Kristol.

She made her way to the long table in the back, then stepped up the short staircase and sidled to her seat next to the Grand Minister. He immediately paused his conversation and stood up for her. Amazingly, the entire hall also stood up. She hated that too. Kristol glared out at everyone. Representatives from a thousand worlds within the GSA stood before her. When she finally sat down, the entire hall did as well in a dull hush.

“Sorry,” she said to the Grand Minister. “The porter was late.”

Withryn took her hand in his and smiled. “No worries dear. Better to be fashionably late than boorishly early.”

Kristol forced a smile. Boorishly early was her style – always on time, always ready. To be anything else was to be unprepared. Unfolding her napkin, she looked down the long table. The Senator from Duta was there, her head feathers ruffled in a conversation with the Senator from Cisum. She couldn’t help but be amazed at the diversity within one room, and the fact that Withryn helped a lot of these worlds come together. A servant placed a plate of greens in front of her – cerumber salad. She smiled as she looked at every other plate that had the same creamy, dundo meat dish. Despite the awkward situation, she gave Withryn credit. He knew her better than she let anyone else know her.

Half way through her salad, she heard the words she was dreading all night.

“Why yes,” Withryn said. “That is her. My ‘saint’ as they would say.”

Kristol swallowed a large leaf of her salad – it went down hard and she had to swallow again to get it down.

“Do tell us,” the Senator from Dayhol said.

Kristol reached for her wine glass and downed a full gulp of the velvety drink before she heard Withryn begin.

“It was before all of this,” Withryn gestured his hands to the large hall of people. “Back then I was just a Senator, much like all of you. Of course, as with any position of power, there were always detractors. For as much as I fought for unification and the installation of peace, there were plenty to oppose as you all well know.” He paused to wet his mouth with wine and continued. “At the time Kristol here was just finding her feet in the Handmen. Young. Clean. The very vestige of innocence on this planet. Assigned to me and my advisors, we were launching the reconstruction of a desolate wasteland of crime, poverty and filth. Draggards the lot of them.”

“Midway through my dissertation, something happened. Before our security team was able to sweep the area, someone had stashed a fioregel plasma rifle in a sewer grate.” Withryn paused for dramatic effect as the occupants of the long table held their breath in amazement. “Yes. Quite frightening. I’ve since banned the production of that vile chemical. Anyway, Kristol, being the brightest of her class and the quickest on her feet, managed to put herself, between me and that blast of fioregel.”

The gasps coming from the long table were loud enough, the whole hall took notice, staring at Grand Minister Withryn, who had every pleasure in carrying on with the story. “Yes. Yes. Quite brave she was. Burned over 95% of her body. I of course brought in the best medunit in the GSA, but despite their efforts, she suffered greatly. Dead and revived over a dozen times, dear Kristol fought and fought for life. She spent the better part of three years in surgery, rebuilding the burnt muscle tissues, retrografting new skin for her.” He paused to take another drink of wine. “The end of the third year, we had almost 80% of her movement back, but she began denying treatment. Not because she gave up, but because she just wanted to get back to her life, to being a Handman. Every year, I offer to continue the surgeries, but she declines.”

Withryn paused to look at Kristol and take her hand in his again, a slight tear in the corner of his eye. “She is humble, this one. And I owe her my life.”

Kristol quickly reached for her wine glass again. Downing a large swallow of wine, she looked out the corner of her eye and saw it again. People throughout the hall slowly stood up. One by one senators from across the GSA stood until everyone, even the Grand Minister stood. The clapping started softly, but built into a great din, the echoes ringing in her ears.

Gulping down the wine, she wiped her mouth with her wrist and slowly stood up and bowed her head. As her burns became recognizable, she heard a few faint gasps, even a lone sob came over the crowd. As it had done every year prior, the story worked. Everyone in the room was captivated with her and more importantly, with Grand Minister Withryn.

That’s when Kristol felt her left ear get warm, her COM activated and she heard a message in her ear from dispatch, “131 at the corner of Distol and Korban.”

As the clapping subsided, she leaned over to Grand Minister Withryn and said, “Sorry, sir. We have a 131. I have to leave.”

Withryn smiled as Kristol turned and stepped down into the crowd. “Always working,” he told the crowd. “She’s so dedicated.”

* * *

“I don’t remember his face that well,” said Halfsie.

Kristol stood beside him, still wearing her black dress – a team of Handmen were scouring the Shrapnel Club for evidence. “You said he had deep blue skin and white eyes?”

“Yes.”

Kristol thought for a moment and ran a hand over her smooth scalp. “Probably Saculian. Nightfighters. Good huntsmen.”

Halfsie clutched his severed wrist with his metallic hand and said, “There’s something else.”

Kristol turned to him.

“I know where he was headed.”

Deep, down a bored excavation shaft about a mile beneath the surface of Typhon, rested a broken down, dust-filled bunker. The primitive steel walls peeled with rust, the archaic telecom technology had long since broken down and everywhere wafted the faint dry aroma of a millennia of rot. In the center of this dungeon knelt a man – a man who looked more of this place than he did of the galaxy far, far above him.

His hair was long and wild, as was his beard. A long green sash was tied around his forehead and dangled down his back. His clothes looked to be remnants – crafted by hand from different leathers, silks and fibers from every backwater planet in existence. Even his boots looked like they came off a corpse and his hands were decorated with ancient looking rings – one with a finely crafted serpent with red jewel eyes and another ring with a green triangular gem.

On the floor around him radiated a pool of blood. The dull yellow glow of the excavation lamps made the blood look muddy, almost black. Before Morigin laid the body – rather remains – of the man that had mentored him for over eight years. The body was disemboweled and nearly cut in half. The only thing that told Morigin it was his mentor were the ice blue eyes of Telo Solar.

Not knowing what else to do, Morigin scooped up the bloody corpse and carried it out of the bunker and up through the excavation shaft. He didn’t bother with the shaft skiff – he walked it the entire way up, using his own muscles, his own sweat. It almost took him two hours, but he made it to the surface – a barren, desert terrain of a planet. As he walked out of the shaft he stumbled and fell to his knees, casting the body into the sand.

Morigin looked through the torrents of sand blowing through the wind. Beyond the boundary markers he saw a magnificent ship, his ship, the Jade Tendril. Even in the wind and sand he could make out her outline – smooth talonsteel curves, its shape inspired by the Lodan airshark. A smile cracked his face and he struggled to his feet with Telo’s body, “Don’t worry, girl. I’ll get to you soon enough.” For the next two hours, Morigin dug a grave with his own bare hands, where he put the broken body of Telo Solar. Then he covered up the body and sensor-marked the grave. He stood before his mentor a few more moments in silence. He didn’t need any words.

After, he gazed across the dead horizon one last time – nothing but pale sand as far as his eyes could see. Somewhere deep inside him, he felt a nostalgia for this planet. Underneath its sands, he and Telo had found so much – learned so much. In a time when technology did everything for you, it felt good to get into the dirt and dig, break a real sweat, wash the dust from your face. Morigin felt a sense of worth and pride in doing things the hard way.

He shook his head and walked up the entrance ramp to the Jade Tendril. The inner workings of the Tendril were a cobbling of this century and eons of the past. Morigin made his way to the cabin and hanging above the entryway was a gleaming cutlass. It looked freshly polished and gleamed from the interior lights. He made his way to the captain’s chair and slouched into it.

“Jade,” Morigin said. “What’s the word?”

Out of nowhere a smooth, metallic voice swam into the cabin, “I’ve patched into the excavation cams. The intruders weren’t professional. Whoever hired them, will be very displeased.”

“I’m sure of that,” Morigin said.

“Would you like me to replay the communiqué?”

Morigin rubbed his lips with his forefinger in thought. Was he ready for this? “Play it,” he growled.

Across the cabin viewport began playing a recording of the events Morigin had missed. In the bunker, Telo worked on extracting information from the dead telecom system. Into the picture stepped two Carni. Morigin new them well. Carni were adequate assassins, but sloppy. Made famous working for the Slavos, the Carni were usually ritualistic in their assassinations – removing the internal organs and letting their victims blood. Carni wore ceremonial armor long ago, but these days they’ve upgraded to tornadium – splashed with glyphic tattoos they receive after every kill. The really vicious Carni looked like they didn’t wear armor at all – they had that many tattoos.

Morigin watched as the Carni restrained Telo. They placed a siphon over his skull and began scouring his mind for information – Morigin watched intently, noticing the deep struggle Telo was putting up, resisting the invading technology, trying to save the precious information within him. Morigin bit his lip as he watched his mentor buckle under the physical strain. The siphon whirred to a stop as a green light on the machine began blinking, telling the Carni it had finished its job.

Morigin then reached for a button on the vast ship console – he didn’t want to see what happened next. But before he could press it, he held back. Onscreen the Carni removed the siphon. Weakened, Telo spun around and tried to defend himself. But the Carni were all over him. One of them grabbed his left arm and violently pulled it – breaking it between the shoulder and elbow. Telo screamed in pain.

Morigin gritted his teeth.

Then the Carni who broke Telo’s arm, wrapped his arms around his head and throat, restraining him. The other Carni quickly drew a ceremonial blade – it’s curve long and wicked, serrated on one edge, lightning smooth on the other. As Telo watched in horror, the Carni slashed and slashed at his mid-section.

Morigin watched on the screen as blood sprayed across the room, splattered over the Carni, and pooled on the dirty floor.

When finished, the killing Carni sheathed his blade and the Carni holding Telo released his hold – letting the stumps of Telo’s body slump to the floor. Before they left, the Carni extracted the palm-sized memory card from the siphon, then they knelt on the floor facing each other and seemed to pray. They knelt in prayer for minutes before finally walking off-screen.

“I took the liberty – “ Jade began before getting cut-off.

“Not now, Jade,”

Morigin lurched out of his chair and stormed out of the cabin – but as he stepped out he reached up and removed the ancient cutlass from its resting place and ran down the entrance ramp to the ship. He leapt out into the sand thrashing and thrusting the cutlass – sand whirling about in his quick footsteps. His moves were deft and agile, as if he had been born to hold that sword. Surely if the Carni were still there, they wouldn’t have stood much of a chance. He spun around and leapt into the air and landed, thrusting the blade into the sand between his feet.

When he stormed back into the ship and placed the cutlass back in its place, he could hear Jade say, “Like I was trying to say before, I sense trace elements of funerol and polycarbons – exhaust similar to a Triad Class cruiser. From the richness of the exhaust, I think their wormdrive may be in need of repair.”

As Morigin stomped into his cabin and sloughed into his chair, he said, “I was just going to say that.”

“The course, Captain,” said Jade. “The comnav is plotted and ready for departure.”

Morigin strapped into his chair, leaned forward and pulled downward on the thrust. “Tally, ho,” he said.

On the desert floor, the dust billowed from beneath the Jade Tendril as the halo boosters fired and the great ship rose slowly. Once high enough, the nose veered upwards and the ship shot through the atmosphere.

* * *

And just as Jade had said, just as she has done every year under the service of Morigin, they were able to follow the damaged Carni cruiser to a repair depot on the outskirts of the Kcid system. The depot was a huge satellite built to service bulk cruisers and freighters along the nearby trade routes. As they approached, Morigin took in the rusty beauty of Kcid looming below the massive satellite station. The depot was disc-shaped – almost 10 miles wide – and running through the heart of the disc were spires of buildings forming a central axis. Around this axis the entire station rotated in orbit around the stormy planet below.

“The planets in the Kcid system are rich in ores and metals,” Jade’s smooth voice echoed in the cabin.

Morigin sat back in his captain’s chair and said, “That much starship repair requires a lot of resources.”

“Vessel JT-10928374,” a mechanical voice chimed through the cabin. “Prepare a landing course for dock 51-AA.”

“Jade, I need you to interface with the station –,”

“The Carni have docked at 03-TA, captain,” broke in Jade.

Morigin stood up from his chair as the ship idled closer to the station. He shook his head at the banter between himself and Jade and walked out of the cabin. Some days, it felt like she knew him better than he did. He still remembered the day he found her – floating in the rings of wreakage around Spectre. A scrapper on a salvage freighter, Morigin spent every off hour for five years repairing her himself. She was as custom as they come and Morigin thought of her as closely as one does a wife or sister. He trusted her more than anything with a heartbeat or blood running through its veins.

Standing at the entrance ramp, Morigin reached up for his cutlass and slung it around his shoulder. He held on to a nearby handhold as Jade fired the retros to ease the ship into the dock. There was a lurch and then a mad rush of air as the dock was sealed. Above the door a red light switched to green and Jade opened the entrance ramp. Morigin secured his cutlass and walked out into the dock.

As he strode to the docking bay door, Morigin reached up and ran a finger down the edge of his ear. As his finger swiped down the curve of his ear, a thin line of tiny green lights lit up around the curve of his ear.

“Jade?” Morigin questioned to the empty docking bay.

“I’m reading you, Captain,” said Jade in Morigin’s ear.

Morigin strode to the door and threw the switch to open the bay doors, then he said, “I’ll give you a visual in second.” As the massive bay doors opened, Morigin pressed his index finger to the outside corner of his eye – producing a pale green sheen filmed over the retinas of his eyes.

Back inside the Tendril, the navscreen lit up to show exactly what Morigin was seeing as he walked through the station. Onscreen, Morigin asked, “As soon as you locate them, let me know.”

“I’m working on it,” Jade said. “I’ve isolated the level. Go up to floor 23. Get there and I can get you a room number.”

In the station, Morigin stepped into an elevator with a few people. A bystander bumped into his cutlass and said, “What is that thing?”

Morigin tapped the pommel of the cutlass with a knuckle and said, “Good luck charm, you know.”

The elevator stopped, the doors opened up and Morigin stepped out. The rest of the strangers shook their head as he sauntered off. “Come on, Jade,” said Morigin to the thin air in front of him. “What’s with you today? You seem slower than usual – off your game.”

“I don’t know, Captain,” she said. “I’m working on it.” Across the screen in the Tendril’s cabin, a list of numbers scrolled quickly down to one lone number – 2313. On the screen, Morigin was already standing in front of room 2313.

“How did you know what room they were in?” asked Jade.

“These fellas stink. Really,” said Morigin. “It’s like a cross between a Joppa cave rat and swamp flitta. The dig site just reeked when I found Telo.”

“Oh,” said Jade.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“You know that isn’t possible, Captain.” Her wispy metallic voice chimed in his ear. He could sense her defensiveness and smiled secretly.

“You don’t have to enjoy it, Morigin,” Jade said.

She hadn’t called him that in years. When he first rebuilt her, he demanded that she regard him by his name, but she insisted on calling him ‘Captain.’ He shifted his weight to the other foot and said, “Relax. I still need you to decrypt the lock and open the door.”

The lock clicked loudly, almost defiantly. Morigin smiled again as the door slid open. Inside the air was warm and tropical. An ancient music played. And it stunk real bad. Morigin turned his head against the reek and silently stepped into the room. Thrown across the floor were the red plates of the ritualistic Carni armor. In the corner, hanging upside down from a bar in the ceiling, was one of the Carni devouring a meal of bloodgrubs.

After finishing its meal the Carni groomed his face and hands with its long tongue. The light from the dim kitchenette glinted off its head-scales as its tongue roved all across its face. When it was finished, it bent down and swung off the bar, but before it released its feet from the bar, Morigin strode in, unsheathed his cutlass and ran the blade through the Carni’s gullet.

As the Carni screamed, Morigin pulled up on the blade to keep it from freeing itself.

It seemed to be uttering something in Carnish. “Jade,” asked Morigin. “A little help?”

“Already on it,” Jade said.

And like that the Carnish went from indecipherable to standard as the creature said over and over again, “Nothing. I know nothing.”

“Where is the scan?” Morigin asked.

“Nothing. I know nothing,” the Carni said. “Other gone. He took the brain to Param Eon. Wrong one you have.”

“He speaks the truth, Captain,” Jade said into his ear. “The network logs show a Carni departing over 13 hours ago.”

“You have to be kidding me?!”

Morigin removed the blade from the Carni and before it could turn, he swung it into the thick scales and ligaments of its neck. The Carni wheezed and Morigin pulled the cutlass out, letting its body crumple to the floor.

“Tell me, we have another course?” Morigin said as he ran out the door

“Do you really have to ask,” responded Jade.

* * *

As the Jade Tendril rocketed into the atmosphere of Param, Morigin looked into the viewport at the blue giant sun in the distance. Across the planet he could see the yellow patches of lights were metroplexes burned in the night. He had a thought about it, but he couldn’t put words to it.

“Majestic, isn’t it,” said Jade.

Morigin shook his head and said, “Yeah, I was going to say something like that except with a little more eloquence.”

“You know, Telo’s son is here,” said Jade.

The Tendril began slowing as it veered into the city limits of Param Eon. Morigin looked at the ceiling and said, “I had thought of that.”

“Are you going to try and reach him, tell him about his father?” Jade asked.

Morigin folded his arms across his chest and said, “Let him come to me. For the last ten years he’s wanted nothing to do with his father.”

“Sometimes,” Jade said. “But a death has a way of changing people.” An alarm blared in the cabin, followed by a flashing red light. “I’ve traced the ID of the ship that blasted out of the Kcid depot. It’s a wingpod. I’ll throw it up on the viewport.” Soon the screen flashed a map of the city with a target reticle resting atop a tall building.

“There he is,” said Morigin. “The Skylar Vane. Tallest building in Param Eon. Strange place to make a delivery.”

“But very good for us,” said Jade.

In the cabin a different voice spoke as Jade picked up on the conversation on the roof. “The Shrapnel Club. Korban district.”

On top of the Skylar Vane, the second Carni was just handing the foil package to Palo Solar, when the Jade Tendril roared over the roof of the building. Palo grabbed the package and made for the side of the roof, when the Tendril veered sharply and lowered in on the roof. The blast from the retros, almost blew him over the edge. The Carni had fallen over in the blast. The last thing Palo saw was Morigin leaping from the hatch of the Tendril, his cutlass blazing into the Carni’s shoulder, before he leapt off the edge of the Vane.

As the Carni slumped dead at Morigin’s feet, he watched as Palo leapt off the building with the package. Morigin ran to the edge and said, “This can’t be happening. What do I have to do to get this damn thing?” He watched Palo plummet over a hundred stories before he began glowing white and veered off into the distance. Morigin shook his head and was about to say something, when Jade chimed in and said, “Pretty resourceful kid, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Morigin. “Pretty wily.”

Just the beginning draft of my foray into everything anti-grad-school-program-writing. If I wrote about my own life, I'd make the shit up anyway.

When plummeting 530 stories from the tallest building in Param Eon with the blue giant sun casting a violet sunset between the glass buildings, most people scream and watch all their days unravel in their eyes, before greasing themselves on the streets below. But not Palo Solar. At least not this time. He kicked his legs upward into a free-fall, diving position. Below him, the streaming lines of air traffic rifled to him at an alarming speed – delivery skiffs, wingpods, even some business shuttles. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw it – his package.

“That was real swift,” Palo said as the traffic and the spiraling package grew closer to his outstretched hand. The city below lurched toward him, the twilight casting long shadows between the buildings. Headlights zipped below, streams of them criss-crossing, merging and weaving into a tapestry of dazzling light ribbons. Exhaust fumes burned his throat and nose as he caught up to the package – a memory kor. It fluttered in the freefall, the lights refracting through the thick laminate that protected the data film inside.

Palo stretched out his arm, closed his fingers around the kor and deftly tucked it into his vest. Then, reaching to his belt, he pressed a wide pale blue button on the buckle. A high-pitched, humming noise erupted from his belt, his boots and gloves. Lifting his hands, he began to slow and bank upwards – the stabilizers in the palms of his gloves glowed whitely, providing Palo the lift to change his course. By the time he kicked his legs downward and banked hard, he barely missed a diverting convoy of skiff traffic.

Then with a sudden burst from the stabilizers, Palo streaked off above the traffic and between the pillars of glass and intergalactic business.

* * *

Hours later, sidled up to a slythium bar in the Korban District, Palo waited for his client. In his right hand he held his drink of choice – a torrpidu – one third proto, one third phalogin, and one third sundra water. But besides the immense buzz it gave him, he really drank it for its color – a bright blue. He lifted the thin glass to his lips and poured the neon liquid into his mouth.

Behind him, all along the wall were slythium booths. Fashioned from chrome and glass, each booth had a unique dome over the head of the seats. Pumped into the glass dome was slythium gas – a paralytic to humans, but a popular narcotic among humanoid alien species.

Palo scanned the crowd. The Korban District had a high population of Densii – a multi-limbed species skilled with their hands – and this being a shipworks district, there were many at the bar relaxing with a bit of slythium after their shifts were done. Palo turned his head the other way. Again, more Densii, but a few more humans. Back deep in the corner were two Flugas, their tendrils strangely entwined in a mating ritual. Palo smirked and let out a huff-like laugh.

The bartender was a thug of a man. He looked out of place – like he should be with the corps on Raval-9 duking it out against the Slavos. Then he shifted his massive body toward Palo revealing what war could really do to a man. The entire left side of his body had been stripped away and replaced with archaic cybernetics – they had corroded over the years, making his metallic, artifical side almost as rusty as his bronze skin. His clothes were simple and hung baggy on his robotic limbs.

He limped over to Palo, the metallic thud of his left foot slowing down his entire gait. As he approached Palo, his left optic squealed as it zoomed in on him.

“Need another, Solar?” he asked.

Palo turned to him and said, “Yeah. This might be a while, Halfsie.” He’d known Halfsie for years, yet he still felt himself staring at him from time to time. And when he caught himself staring – he felt awkward looking away quickly, so he kept staring.

“Another shady contract?”

Palo finished off his torrpido and slid the glass to Halfsie. “You know, you’d think with all the technology and the massiveness of the COM, that people wouldn’t need couriers anymore. But business has been good lately. Big contracts. Big names. Last month, I delivered a package from the Outer Realm Magistrate’s office.”

Halfsie ran a rough metallic hand through his hair and said, “The Outer Realm Magistrate, huh?” He grabbed Palo’s glass and turned to the bundle of glass tubes at the bar. Each tube glowed in different colors. He held the glass under the pale blue tap and poured until the glass was full, then he swung around and slid it over to Palo.

Palo grabbed the drink and said, “You bet.”

Halfsie leaned into the bar and said, “You must be making a pretty penny then.”

“Where do you get these?” asked Palo.

Halfsie’s eyebrow raised as he asked, “Get what?”

Palo drank from his glass and said, “Those phrases. ‘Pretty penny?’ What are you talking about?”

Halfsie shrugged his shoulders and said, “I get a lot drifters in here. Each one of them gots a gem from one world or another.” Halfsie rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “A ‘pretty penny’ means a ton of creds…money.”

Palo wiped his mouth after another drink and said, “Creds, huh? Yeah, a few more jobs and I’ll have enough credits to get the ship of my dreams.”

“The Phuron Enix?” asked Halfsie.

“Yep,” said Palo.

“I heard old man Olos wasn’t going to sell his baby?”

“I heard different,” said Palo. “He’ll sell. I know a few people.”

Halfsie paused, knowing what he was about to say would sway the tone of the conversation. “Talked to your pop lately?”

Palo stopped and eyed Halfsie with a stare that could breach hulls, then he lifted his drink to his lips, downed his entire drink and slammed the glass down on the bar. “I have nothing to say to him.”

Halfsie grabbed Palo’s glass and turned to fill it again. He knew Palo and his father were estranged, but he persisted. He never liked to see families pulling themselves apart. “At some point you need to forgive him, don’t you think?” Halfsie turned and handed the drink to Palo.

“He left me and my mother to dig around on a dead planet,” Palo said. “Not exactly anyone’s idea of a good father.” Palo kicked back another shot of the drink.

Halfsie slumped at the bar and moved his head closer to Palo. “Did I ever tell you about my family?”

Palo jeered his head to the side to check out the two Flugas again, then said, “No. No you didn’t.”

“Me and my wife. We had a huge fight. I had re-enlisted with the corps without talking to her. I never seen her so mad. I shipped out the next week to fight the Slavos. Spent a year and a half in a death spiral. And while I was gone, the Nerge ravaged my home world. Everyone was killed. The planet was drained dry. And the last feeling my family, my wife had about me, was anger.”

“When I heard word of the devastation, I wasn’t the same. A berzerker awakened in me. I began killing everything in my path – Slavos, animals, even my own men. I decimated my own platoon. Then the Slavo cavalry came – I took a screamer in the side and the rest is history. The best the medunit had was this fine ensemble,” said Halfsie as he displayed his cyborg half. “I never had that chance. I’d hate to see you pass up yours.”

Palo swirled his glass in the condensation pool on the bar, then he paused. “Maybe,” he said.

Palo looked into his glass – the cool blue liquid sparkled and swirled like a galaxy. He hadn’t thought about his father for months and it felt good to him. His father didn’t deserve the thoughts. Forgiveness wasn’t an option. What man chooses excavating ancient alien artifacts over his own son? Not even the Nerge were that heartless. Then out of nowhere a memory entered Palo’s mind – sail-banking in the deserts of Draedaus with his father, their arms pulling the sails tight, the trino boards buffeting off the sands.

“Make it more than a maybe, kid,” said Halfsie.

Palo shook his head and looked at the old barkeep. “When I get that ship, you’re going to be my first mate, right?”

Just then, a robed being entered the bar and proceeded to a dark table in the back. Both Palo and Halfsie watched the stranger as they positioned themselves at a booth. Palo finished his drink and told Halfsie, “That’s my cue.”

Palo walked through the crowd of Densii, past the romantic Flugas, and to the table in the back. The robed being was mysterious, but appeared to be human. As Palo sat down across from the man, he carefully eyed the man’s face. Beneath the shadows of the hood, he could make out the sheen of a mask of some kind. He sat down across from the man and said, “Your friend had a tail.”

The robed man did not move, but a cold metallic voice hissed from beneath the hood – obviously coded. “Did he now?”

“Well in the struggle the package fell off the Pyras Tower,” said Palo.

“Was it saved?” hissed the robed man.

Palo ran his hand through his hair and said, “Of course. Nothing a little 300 story swan dive can’t fix, right?”

“Excellent,” said the man. “May have it?”

Palo opened his vest and took out the memory kor and held it across the table. The robed man reached for it – exposing his hand from the robe. It was not armored save for a couple of ancient looking rings – one with a finely crafted serpent with red jewel eyes and another ring with a green triangular gem. But Palo pulled the package back.

“Of course, there is the matter of my payment,” said Palo.

The robed man reached into his cloak and removed a credit chip and threw it on the table. “Fifty thousand,” said the stranger. “Now. The package?”

Palo grabbed the credit chip and handed over the package. “The deal was for ten thousand.”

“Perhaps you’d prefer the lesser,” said the stranger.

Palo tucked the credit chip in his vest and quickly said, “No. I’m fine.”

The strange robed man rose from the table and said, “Good. I wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

And like that, the man was gone. Palo sat in the booth and flipped the credit chip between his fingers. He’d delivered dirty packages before, but he had never willingly taken more creds to deliver the package to the wrong guy. As the round chip rippled over his knuckles, he felt a distant pang in the depths of his brain – a small hint that suggested he had made a mistake. Then he flipped the cred chip into the air, and caught it. As he walked through the bar and towards the exit, Halfsie said, “Looked like a tough customer, Palo.”

Palo said, “Just another delivery, Halfsie. Just another delivery.”

* * *

Above the Palladin Complex, an upscale apartment development, cabs and the occasional drunk ion bike rider whistled overhead, the fluttering knocks of their engines fading into the night wind. Arching between the traffic, Palo lurched to a hovering stop above the roof. As the repulsor disks wound down, they lost their glow and Palo’s feet touched the wet tile of the roof. Palo strode towards the building elevator, zipping up his flight vest and shaking off the cold. Inside the elevator, he leaned on the back wall as the doors closed, flipping the cred chip in the air.

On the 224^th floor, the elevator opened and Palo stepped out. After passing over a dozen apartments, he finally stopped in front of one door and pressed his thumb to the scanlock by the door. After a brief moment, metallic locks whirred and chunked as the steel door slid open and he walked in.

Sensing his arrival the lights beamed on – only they flickered for a short time before coming on full power. “That’s weird,” Palo said. Since he had the place, the lights had never surged like that. As he scanned the inside to his apartment, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but he couldn’t help shake that feeling he had at the bar. A mistake. He willingly delivered the package to the wrong person. He looked at the cred chip in his sweaty hand. His hand was sweating. He shook his head and ran his sweaty hand through his long hair. “Get a grip,” he told himself.

Walking past his coffee table, he pushed down the top of his COM beacon – a white plastic sphere the size of a bunta melon. Activated, the small lens on the top crackled to life in a mid-broadcast hologram of the day’s events.

“…steady economic decline in the Bethel system is an indication that the minor skirmishes in the Outer Realm may be sign of what’s to come in the future,” said a cool, plastic voice from the COM. “Palo Solar – You have 318 communiques. 289 from your father. Would you like to experience them?” The holographic visage changed to show a file listing – pulsing with unopened mail.

Palo stepped out of the small kitchenette with a ripe yellow derr fruit in his hand, his brow furrowed. “Not now,” said Palo as he disappeared back to the kitchen. Then out of nowhere, he shouts, “Wait! Save them...save them.” The hologram fluttered as it saved the messages, then went back to the broadcast.

Palo slowly walked out of the kitchen and slumped onto a plush chair in the corner. He bit into the fruit and wiped the bittersweet juices from his lips onto his forearm. The COM flashed with news. Asteroid crashes into the Pento moon. Local governments plead for aid. Nebulaic cruise ship docked due to outbreak. New shipworks opens in Notwen Belt – employment rate increases one point. But as he looked out his long patio window, to the city sprawled out in front of him, lights careening before his eyes like firing synapses, he missed his father for the first time in almost twelve years.

Then right before his eyes, his patio window shimmered slightly and began to melt around a figure. Palo dropped his fruit and cocked his head as something walked toward him, his patio window seemingly dripping off their body. And right when he was about to make out any detail, the figure emitted a blinding flash of light so bright, Palo thought he saw the back side of his brain inside his skull – and then blackness.

©2008. Scott R. Welvaert