Chapter 6: 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.”

Chapter 5: Little Toys

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.”

Chapter 4: A Secret Weapon

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.

Chapter 3: Burned

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.”