He smiled.
Desperate people made the easiest marks of all.
2
Chapter 1
Good plans needed time to cook, and this one was still raw.
Raaze turned his back on the landing pad, the itch between his shoulder blades staying right where it was. He needed time to map every angle on that slabcrete before he committed to a play that would either get him off this rock or get him killed. But it didn’t matter. He’d been studying the comings and goings for weeks, and the departure window for today was closed.
Which meant those pilots weren’t going anywhere. He had time.
Which was good. Because right now, he was stuck babysitting a bunch of over-muscled toddlers who thought tripping over their own feet constituted a tactical maneuver.
Crossing his arms, he surveyed the disaster area the garrison laughably called a warball pitch. Calling it a pitch was an insult to pitches. Hell, it was an insult to dirt. It was a patch of baked misery, hard enough to shatter bone and hot enough to fry eggs. Every idiot out here, him included, was baking.
Which was almost enough to distract him from the fact that the drills the team was running were worse. Almost.
“Left!” He bellowed. “Cover the draanthing left, Bravnak! Lady’s tits, you’re leaving a gap big enough to fly a dropship through there!”
Bravnak scrambled to adjust, his feet skidding on the loose shale. The player on his left wobbled like a drunk on payday, corrected the wrong way, and the pass went wide.
For draanth’s sake.
Raaze hissed through his teeth and scrubbed a hand over his face. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Back in the leagues, this kind of incompetence would have had them running perimeter drills until their lungs bled.
Just another Tuesday in hell.
Draanth it, what did he care? He didn’t. He wasn’t their captain. He wasn’t their coach.
But he couldn’t help himself as he tracked the play. Automatically, he dissected angles, calculated velocity, and spotted the weakness in the defensive line.
“Again,” he barked, ignoring the glares aimed his way. “Draanth’s sake, try to at least look like you’ve seen a sphere before.”
They reset. Daavyn, a big draanthic of a male who relied on mass over mechanics, lined up opposite Sorrath. Raaze narrowed his eyes. Trall. Those two had been circling each other for weeks. A grudge looking for an excuse. Daavyn was all heavy shoulders and resentment; Sorrath was leaner, altogether meaner, and unfortunately had a mouth that moved faster than his brain.
“Ready… break!”
The sphere flew through the air. Daavyn lunged forward. Sorrath sprinted toward him.
Neither of them even pretended to go for the sphere. Daavyn dropped his shoulder, driving hard into Sorrath’s chest a full second after the pass was gone.
Sorrath didn’t stumble. He whirled around and faced up to the bigger male with a snarl. “Watch it, you piece of trall!”
“Watch yourself, runt.” Daavyn shoved him.
Sorrath shoved back.
Then the claws came out.
Snick-snick-snick.
Black, serrated razors extended from both their fingertips, glistening in the harsh sun. The other males on the teams scrambled back. Standard procedure. When the claws came out, you got clear, or you got bled.
Oh, for draanth’s sake.
Raaze moved before the thought finished and hit the gap between them. Sorrath was winding up, telegraphing a strike that would gut Daavyn like a fish. Raaze didn’t bother grappling. He didn’t waste the energy. Instead, he drove his shoulder into Daavyn, checking him back a step as he slammed a flat hand into the center of Sorrath’s chest.
