Chapter 1:
The city, drilled into the dark side of a planet thought to be lifeless, teemed with life. Most of it was life that wouldn’t survive the day-night cycle though.
Blade sidestepped a grinning shambler—a person so strung out on the illicit brew of drugs and contaminated water known as Bleck that they literally shambled—when they could even manage to stand or walk that was—and slid into a dark pocket of shadow. His hand went to his waist in an automatic gesture and his body tensed as his eyes searched the shadows that crawled around the fusty-smelling entrance to the trash-strewn alley he had just stepped into.
Lights lit the stinking streets beyond, and he could hear the pop and sizzle of some idiot’s body as it hit the laser-wired netting that lay above the city, a deterrent to anyone who would try to just jump in. The netting was a brutal killer, and few survived it. Those who did, found themselves slaughtered by the roving gangs of criminals who had laid claim to the territory of the city’s sides.
The dark grew thicker, took on the shape of a body. Blade didn’t breathe. His suit, a specially designed thing that damped down his heat sig and his infrared, clung to every inch of his taut and toned body.
Whoever was out there, they were big and very silent—two things that were the hallmarks of the better killers. But better wasn’t the best.
He was the best.
The sound of a fight broke out and diffused any other sounds his would-be assassin made as he crept closer to the mouth of the alley. Small blanket snakes, deadly poisonous things with ruby bodies and four eyes, slithered across the toes of Blade’s boots. He ignored them. He still didn’t breathe.
His body moved, all silence and intention. His knife was unerring, and it went right to the neck. The scent of Bleck and human odor filled Blade’s nostrils, making them flare. His lip curled in disgust. His voice was a hiss. “When did you start hitting the garbage?
The back pressed against Blade’s strong body stiffened. The voice was one Blade knew. “I didn’t come to kill you.”
“Good thing too,” he returned. “You’re not cut out for it anymore, Hacksaw. If I hadn’t heard you, I damn sure would have smelled you.”
Hacksaw grunted. “I came to warn you, so if you wouldn’t mind not cutting my throat, I’d appreciate it.”
Blade didn’t lower the knife. Nobody did anything for free, not there. “Name your price, and I’ll decide if your warning is worth it.”
Hacksaw said, “I should have recalled you give no fucks about living.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” He didn’t. His life had ended a long time ago. Now he only lived to spite the Federation, to make them pay for what they had stolen from him.
That thought made his gut tighten, but he kept his voice steady. “I guess you want more of the poison and are out of coin and credits.”
Hacksaw said, “Yeah I am.”
“All right.”
Hacksaw said, “I just need a little something, you know, to get me out of the agony.”
Blade sighed inwardly. Once a fool started on that shit, there was no way off. It ate into every system in every species’ bodies and took control, addicting them from the first swallow. Some fought it off and never tried it again.
Most didn’t.
Stopping, even after a single swallow, was hard. It was so highly addictive that the pain that came from not having it was terrible. Blade had seen people throw themselves into the netting just to escape that pain, or kill themselves in other and equally horrific ways to stop that withdrawal. “I can give you that, for the intel. Spill.”
Hacksaw said, “Coin or credit first.”
Blade only moved one hand. It slid down to his belt. He tapped out five heavy credits and held them before Hacksaw’s eyes. “Speak.”
“They come for you. The Wallens Clan. They say you took some shipment they meant to take and they intend to see a piece of the profit, over your dead body if necessary—and even if not.”
Terrific. Just what he needed. The Wallens were human, but just barely. They’d come from Old Earth, and they’d interbred to the point of madness and deformity. They believed only humans were a race worth being, and so their ideology was as screwed up as their genealogy.
They were violent and foul, and they’d kill each other in the blink of an eye for no reason at all but cross one of them, and the whole massive clan would be on you like stink on feces.
Hacksaw held his fingers out. “You vowed the payment.”
“I did. I said I’d give you something to get you out of the misery.” His blade pressed deep, separated skin from veins and bone. Hacksaw let out a startled groan, and then the sound of his blood gurgling sounded out. The little snakes crawled across his burly body as it dropped to the filthy ground of the alley.
Blade said, “Best way to save you from it, you know.”
