“Welcome to Hephaestus,” the guard said, staring through me with cool, dark eyes.

I took in the spartan room. Featureless gray walls on all sides. No doors save for the circular airlock portal behind me. The guard stood a few feet away. He was a head shorter than me with smooth, fair skin you’d expect in a Fleet officer, not a prison sentry. I lifted my hands and the guard disabled my magnetic restraints with a control unit. My arms fell to my sides.

“Now strip,” said the guard.

I watched him curiously. He looked to be in his twenties with fine black hair, clean shaven.

“Did you hear me?” he said flatly. “Remove your garments.”

I drew in cold, disinfectant-tinged air. Carefully, I began to unzip my jumpsuit.

“Do you need assistance, Marko?” The man’s glare was starting to get on my nerves. His close-cropped hair mimicked that of a corpsman, but he was built like a tech, not a soldier. Had we been on my turf I might have been able to take him.

I disrobed and stood naked before him. The cool air rose bumps on my hairless skin. They lasered out your pubic hair in the Corps. It made it easier for biosuit interface. I’d never missed it until now.

A rectangular opening appeared in the wall behind him. He stepped aside and motioned for me to enter the room beyond. “Step forward, Marko.”

I walked into the room, what I quickly recognized as a decontamination chamber. The wall sealed behind me. A rectangular section of it became transparent, through which the guard watched with a sort of distant fascination. Jets sprang to life all around me, spraying me with soapy water. It was freezing, which suited me just fine. The world I came from was so hot and dry that any water at all was considered a blessing, regardless of its temperature.

The shower lasted less than a minute, and then ultrasound waves shook the water off my skin and into a drain beneath me. A door opened on the other side and I walked out into an open room where two men wearing white smocks grabbed me by my biceps and directed me to a metal chair in the middle of the room. They forced me down, fixed my restraints to the chair’s armrests.

One of the men approached, his face concealed behind a white mask. He shaved what little of my hair remained and then dipped my head forward while his compatriot lasered something onto the back of my neck. Security barcode, I realized as the smell of my own burnt flesh stung my nostrils. You weren’t a human being here. You were property.

When they were done they pulled me up and walked me over to a row of storage lockers where I was given my prison grays. They looked remarkably similar to Corps-issue undress, minus the silver piping. I pulled the onepiece on and was then taken to a room full of similarly dressed individuals. This room was much larger than the others, though, its ceiling a good twenty feet above our heads. Row after row of rectangular photopanels cast their sterile glow down over us.

I fell in to the first rank of prisoners. A line of guards stood before us, the metallic tortoise shells of two station sentinels floating soundlessly in the air above them. They were the real threat here, not the guards. The station was AI controlled. The sentinels were merely an extension of the construct, physical manifestations of a cold, godlike intelligence without mercy or understanding.

One of the guards stepped forward as the last of the prisoners were brought in from other rooms.

“On this day,” the guard bellowed, “you all cease to be men. You have betrayed the Empire and in doing so have also betrayed humanity.”

I raised my brows and looked at the woman beside me. She stood straight, arms held stiffly at her side, eyes forward, focused on nothing in particular. Nice stance. She’d have fit in perfectly with the Thirty-Ninth. Assuming, of course, she didn’t make the same fatal error I had. You didn’t hit your commanding officer, no matter what he did to you. You didn’t hit, and you certainly didn’t strangle him to death. Even if the bastard deserved it.

“By the order of the Empress,” the guard droned on, “Her Imperial Majesty, Rosaline IV, potentate of the Duquesne Dynasty, ruler of humankind, you have all been sentenced to life imprisonment.”

My forearms grew heavy, the magnetic bands felt as if they were digging into my skin. I’d heard all this before. They were beating a corpse, here.

The guard continued. “You will be issued contraceptive meds. Should you waive your right to the meds and proceed to procreate, which, I might add, is highly inadvisable, the resultant offspring will be considered station property and thus may never be released.”

I wondered how many prisoners living on the station fell into that category. Mom and Dad were criminals, so you must be too. What kind of fucking silly law was that? Then again, the Empire didn’t need justification for its laws.

“Let me emphasize,” the guard said, “there is no escape from this station. If you attempt to leave you will find nothing but hard vacuum waiting for you outside. If you’d like to try an escape attempt, be my guest. But rest assured, you will fail, and I’ll be more than happy to pick up the pieces.”

His speech ended quicker than my first lay, though it left me feeling somewhat less satisfied and not nearly as sweaty. I waited for the sound of an alarm that never came. It was hard not to feel nostalgic standing amongst ranks of uniformed men. It felt like the Corps. Like home.

My concentration was broken as we were led out one by one and taken through a series of armored doors to an open bay where people of all classes, all races and post-Expansion genotypes scurried about. It was an endless sea of gray. There were booths along the ceramoplast bulkheads below where vendors sold cigarettes and cheap vids for station credit or charged them to a tab. Entertainment wasn’t illegal on the station, but it was heavily regulated. There would be limited interactives, no virtual porn, no holofiction. Educational material was permitted, however, as were antiquated hardbound books, the likes of which I don’t think I’d ever even heard of before arriving at Hephaestus.

I crossed the catwalk and down stairs to the main level where I fell into the crowd. Guards waited above, their uniforms the same flat white and gray that seemed so prevalent here in Hephaestus station. The silver ends of heavy blasters poked out from holsters on their thighs. Armex Volkov 38ps from the look of the casings. The older models had external radiator fins, whereas these used reabsorption frames that converted any waste heat into energy to charge the power cells. We never had anything so fancy in the Corps. Of course, we spent most of our time hopping backwater worlds. The best weaponry was always reserved for the front lines.

I stopped at a stall and picked up a pack of cigarettes—Totenkopf Blacks, since you asked—and a hardbound book with a krocleather cover and some half rubbed off script embossed along the front, simply out of curiosity as I’d never seen such a relic before. The damn thing was made out of paper. Pulped tree for fuck’s sake! It was hard to believe such barbarism had once existed in our great, benevolent Empire. But, then again, it could have been pre-Imperial. Hell, it might have even been pre-Colonial. I took the book under one arm and tore into the Totenkopfs. The cigarettes were thin and black, rolled from flavored dendro-fiber and resequenced tobacco laced with amphetamines. I drew one from the pack, broke off the end, and took a drag. Purple smoke curled in the air.

“You,” a voice called out to me.
I continued on my way. The guards could go fuck themselves with a rusty screwdriver. I wasn’t in the mood.

“Hey, you. Yeah, big guy.”

I spun about, cigarettes clutched in hand, book under my arm.

She wasn’t a guard, but a prisoner like me. In fact, I recognized her. She was next to me in the ranks. The one who looked like she’d make a good corpsman.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

I took my cigarette in my free hand and blew scented smoke from my nostrils. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m Sasha,” she said. “Sasha Luiz.”

“Marko,” I replied.

“Just Marko?”

I nodded. I had a first name, but I’d never used it. As long as I could remember I’d always been Private Marko. Now I was just Marko.

“I saw you staring at me,” she said.

“I wasn’t staring at you,” I replied.

“Oh, really?”

I turned to walk away.

“Wait,” she said.

I stopped.

“What’re you in for?”

The cigarette was burning between my fingers, chewing up precious tobacco with a dull chemical flame. I raised the cigarette to my lips and drew. Smoke burned in my lungs. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“You killed someone, didn’t you?”

I turned and looked into her eyes. “What makes you say that?”

“Most people here have killed someone,” she replied. “It’s a statistical probability.”

My lips twisted into a wry smile. “You kill someone?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Someone important?”

“A senator.”

“Which planet?”

“Alcyone Four. It was a paid deal.”

“What party?”

“Someone in the Righteous Fist. I didn’t ask who.”

I laughed. Righteous Fist were terrorists, ones with close ties to the Insurrectionists in the Outer Rim. “So you’re an assassin?” I asked.

“Was an assassin. Now I’m nobody.”

I smiled. “Aren’t we all,” I said solemnly. Then I started on my way.

“Where are you going?” Sasha called out.

I glanced over my shoulder. “Where is there to go?” I replied. “Downspin, I guess.”

“What is there Downspin?”

I shrugged. “Dunno. That’s why I’m going. I want to see what else there is besides walls and…” I motioned with one hand. “Walls.”

She smiled. “Care for some company?”

She was young, probably in her early twenties. Her skin was fair and her eyes were the color of fuel. She was moderately attractive, despite the lack of hair. I’d never cared much for the stuff, anyway. “Come on,” I said, then turned back into the crowd.

###

Downspin was the bowel of Hephaestus.

The station itself was a big cylinder, so I’d judged from the inner layout, though you never could tell with modern engineering. I hadn’t actually seen it from the outside. Prison transports didn’t have the luxury of windows. The docks were located somewhere near the end of the cylinder and the levels of the prison were stacked horizontally, one inside the other like a Russian doll. Gravity was a result of centrifugal force, spin. Upspin was low-G, while Downspin, the outermost shell, was about .2 Gs heavier. It didn’t sound like much, but it was certainly noticeable, especially after having adapted to Upspin.

Sasha and I took a railcar down the axis to a radial lift at the station’s midsection. The lift took us through two surrounding strata and into the outermost shell of Downspin. People lined the circuitous streets and alcoves carved into the ceramoplast walls. Some slept on the floor, others were hunched up in crawltubes, smoking cigarettes or sipping tonic from proscribed containers. The smell of cooked meat wafted through the air and I could just make out the faint hum of a stringed instrument somewhere in the distance. The lighting was low and everything seemed awash in dull red. Sprayglo grafitti decorated the matte gray walls, some in a language I’d never seen before.

“This your first time in the slammer?” Sasha asked, as we wove our way through a web of bodies. We past a number of exotic bio-adapts, two heavy worlder colonials and a four-armed combat mod, two of his upper arms ending in dull black sockets that awaited weapon plug-ins. A stench of sweat and stale urine hung everpresent in the air, masked by the cooking meat and alcohol.

I nodded. “You?”

She shrugged. “I did a stint on Ragnarok.”

I pushed my way past a female desert-dweller, her golden skin a mat of metallic-looking scales, her eyes like fire. I turned back to Sasha, trying not to look too startled by the woman’s appearance. “What for?” I asked.

“I helped a group of Insurrectionists jack an Imperial transport ship.”

“And they didn’t hang you for that?”

“I got off easy because I was only hired help.”

“You a sympathizer?”

She shook her head. “Not really. I hate the Empire just as much as the next guy, but I’m not a nutjob. Insurrectionists are fanatics. I’ve never had the stomach for fanatics.”

I smiled grimly. Back in the Corps I spent my days killing Insurrectionists by the bucketful. Thirty-Ninth was auxiliary though, reserved primarily for the Southern Campaign, half a galaxy away from the real war. We fought on planets where humans were still killed by other humans, in the barbaric backwater of civilization.

“You?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“So what brings you here, Marko? You’re not a heretic, so what’s so bad about your crime?”

“I killed someone,” I said.

She arched a brow. Funny, I’d never been able to master that trick. “Well?”

“What the hell is this?” I replied. “You show me yours, I show you mine, that what you think?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

I sighed. “I killed my superior officer, okay.”

“So you’re a soldier.”

“Was a soldier. I was a private in the Imperial Marine Corps, Thirty-Ninth Planetfall Battalion.”

“Why did you kill him?”

“What?”

“Why did you kill your superior officer?”

“Because he was a prick, that’s why.” I turned away from her. She was starting to get too personal for my tastes. I was the laconic type. Didn’t care much for small talk, let alone personal confessions to a complete stranger.

“What did he do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Well, he must have done something. You don’t seem like the unreasonable type.”

I laughed humorlessly. “I don’t seem like the unreasonable type? We’ve known each other for about thirty seconds and you’ve already got my type pinned down? Who the hell do you think I am, lady? I’m a fucking prisoner.”

“We’re all prisoners, Marko.”

And that’s when I had a realization. She was right. We were all prisoners. What did it matter what I said to this woman? I was done with the Corps. They’d tossed me out like week-old garbage and I was still acting like I was one of their soldiers. Lips tight, back straight. Don’t speak unless spoken to. What did it matter anymore?

“He fucked us,” I said. “The bastard fucked us.”

Her brows narrowed. She didn’t understand.

“I was raised in the Corps,” I explained. “Conscripted when I was thirteen and placed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hannigan. Boot was tough. If you screwed up, you were beat. You screwed up twice, you got to spend the night with the Lieutenant Colonel. Let’s just say his tastes were a bit…unusual.”

She cringed. “He molested you?”

“Not just me. All of us. For fifteen years I wanted to kill him. I wanted to slice him ear to ear for what he’d done to us. But there was the fucking chain of command. You didn’t cross your commanding officer. He could seriously screw you the rest of your military career, and I don’t mean just sexually.” I swallowed hard. “You see, Hannigan used sex as a means of control. He raped all his charges. It was his sick little way of showing us who was in command. Who was the boss. Like beating a dog into submission.”

“How long did this go on?”

“He stopped when I was seventeen. I guess I wasn’t attractive to him now that I was more of a man. He always preferred the younger ones.”

“You killed him?”

I nodded. “We had a…tactical disagreement. Our battalion was deployed in the Caspian Gorge on Medusa Nine. We were supposed to seize control of an Insurrectionist base, but they had the place surrounded with sneak mines. Nasty little buggers, they hide in higher dimensions until it’s too late. Hannigan wanted to send our squad in anyway. He didn’t give a shit about us. We were just property to him. Besides, he’d be sent a whole new batch of recruits from the Core Worlds as soon as we were all blown to cinders. I’d had enough.” I stopped for a minute and drew in cold air. I hadn’t talked this much to anyone in a long time, especially someone I hardly knew. “I choked him to death outside the barracks. Thirty marines stood by idly and watched me do it. I think some would have cheered me on if it weren’t for the obvious repercussions.”

“They didn’t kill you?” She watched me steadily.

“I surrendered without resistance. I think the guards were glad I’d killed him. I got it easy.”

She broke her stare. “I never would have guessed.”

“Why’s that?”

“You don’t look like a killer to me.”

I crinkled my brow in confusion. “Really? And what exactly does a killer look like?”

She pursed her lips and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You, perhaps,” I said with a smile.

She frowned. “Freelance terminator,” she said.
“What?”

“That’s what we’re called. Officially.”

“Oh okay. By ‘freelance terminator’ you mean assassin, don’t you?” I said. For a cold-blooded killer she had an awfully playful demeanor.

“You have a problem with my profession?”

I shook my head. “Not particularly. A dead politician’s a good politician as far as I’m concerned.”

“That the soldier in you talking?”

“No,” I said. “Just me.”

We found a stall near the lift on the far end of the corridor down which we walked, the smell of grilled meat drawing us in. My stomach gurgled audibly. I hadn’t eaten since the prison transport left Chantico. “You want some?” I asked, motioning to the curtained-off alcove.

Sasha nodded subtly.

I pushed the curtain aside and a man leapt to his feet. “—the fuck?” he shouted, hand reaching toward his side.

“Whoa, buddy,” I said. “You sellin’?”

He lifted his hand from the knife at his waist and slowly sat back down. “What do you want?”

“What’ve you got?”

He stood again and closed the curtain behind us.

“You’re new,” he said, watching me with eyes that were almost black.

“How can you tell?”

“No hair,” he said.

I noticed his own head was covered in a fine carpet of jet-black hair, laid in a configuration not unlike the standard Corps cut.

I looked at his blade. “How’d you get that in here? Can’t be legal.”

He drew the carbide knife and ran his thumb along the top. “It’s not.”

A stirring from the corner of the stall drew my attention. A girl about Sasha’s age pushed tattered covers off and slowly sat up. “Gabe’s a whiz with machines,” she said. “All the station sensors are dead in this stall. The AI can’t see or hear us.”

“How’d you manage that?” I asked.

“Wasn’t easy.” He slid the blade back into its sheath. “We’ve got kroc, iguana, and splythe.”

I looked at Sasha. “I know what kroc and splythe are, but what the hell’s iguana?”

“Old Earth animal,” she said. “It’s good.”
“Earth?” Now there was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. “I thought Earth was left uninhabitable after the Solar System Wars.”

“It was,” the woman in the corner said. “The survivors took some DNA profiles with them. They were only a fraction of a percentage of the world’s indigenous species, though. It’s why iguana’s so prevalent in the colonies.”

“Really?” If it was so prevalent, then why the hell had I never heard of it? Oh well, I thought. Might as well give it a try. “I’ll take the iguana.”

Gabe handed me a piece of meat on a stick from the little bowl-shaped thermo that sat in the middle of the floor. The thermo was a retrofit, an old heater coil wound inside one half a cracked cargo pod. The pod had been retooled as a grill. A circle of chainmesh rested over the bowl, meat sizzling appetizingly over the glowing red coil. “What do you have?” he said. “For payment.”

I shrugged. I didn’t have anything. In fact, I was already thirty credits in debt to the guy that gave me the book and cigarettes. I raised the pack of Totenkopfs. “You smoke?”

He took them graciously.

“Gabriel Hsu,” he said. “That’s my name.”

“Marko,” I replied. We shook.

“Sasha Luiz,” Sasha said.

“You just arrive?” He drew a cigarette from the pack and took it between his thin lips.

I nodded. “Just inducted.”

“Well,” he said with just the slightest hint of sarcasm, “welcome to the family.”

Over the next few days I got to know Gabe and his woman, Verdine. Sasha and I camped outside his stall until we could find one of our own. Downspin seemed awful crowded compared to the rest of the station. Probably because security was heavier in Upspin. I’d considered staying in Upspin, but I was deterred by the number of guards. No one stayed in Upspin. Too many eyes. Too many chances to get hassled by security. That left us to Downspin. The place was a dump, even for prison standards. Not everyone we met was as civilized as Gabe. In fact, most were aggressive and highly territorial. I’d gotten into half a dozen fights just two days after we’d arrived. Gabe had explained to me about the various gangs and their territories, but, as stubborn as I was, I’d learned the hard way. I now knew what parts of Downspin to stay away from, who owned what, and where never to venture after lights out, most of this knowledge obtained from some rather severe beatings, a cracked rib, and a black eye. I’d never been beaten up much, except of course in my early boot days. But, then again, I’d never been to prison.

On the fourth day Gabe roused me from a dreary half-sleep and told me to prepare my tribute. I wasn’t sure what he meant at first, but when I came to my senses I told him I didn’t have any credits. I was in debt, in fact.

Station economics were complicated. Hephaestus wasn’t simply a prison colony, but a small city in space. The Imperial penal network functioned under what was officially known as the “Open Prison System,” in which there were no cells, minimal security, and a functioning economy. The reasoning behind this was simple. The Empire needed cheap labor, particularly in the area of asteroid mining. With an ever increasing number of hostile forces closing in on Imperial space, production of weapons, ammunition, and warships had skyrocketed. Worker robots were expensive and prisoners were abundant and cheap. They earned no real money, but limited currency accredited to station accounts. Station credits could be spent on various foodstuffs and supplies. Some prisoners chose to buy large quantities of a particular item such as books or interactive virtuals, and sell them to new arrivals in Upspin. Since the arrivals had no credits, they would have to charge to a tab, which the sellers would then call in whenever they had the sudden need for a large sum of credits. Credits were also used to pay tribute to various gangs, what essentially amounted to protection money.

“I’ll cover you,” he said. “This time. But you better get some work in the smelter. They pay credits for manual labor.”

I nodded. I’d planned on looking for work, just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. “Who are we paying tribute to?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

I shook my head. Gabe smiled, revealing yellow teeth, some of which had silver crowns. “You’re in for a surprise, my friend,” he said, patting me on the back. “Shiva’s coming to town.”

###

They called her Shiva, a name she’d acquired from some Old Earth deity, back in the days when religion didn’t require cerebral augmentation. She stood about four foot seven, her scalp adorned with two rows of piercings, silver bars that formed an almost reptilian pattern on her skin. She had little hair, save for a fluke of silver that ran from her crown to the base of her neck. Her lack of eyebrows was rectified by triangular black tattoos that traced narrow curves beneath her eyes. Rings covered her ears, some of which trailed silver chains to piercings in each of her nostrils. She looked like a tribal warrior queen, a native of some long lost colony in the Outer Rim. She was the leader of the Cult, one of the most notorious, feared gangs in all of Downspin. And we had to pay her tribute.

“What the hell’s going on?” Sasha asked as the people around us moved to the walls.

“Shiva,” I said.

She looked at me in puzzlement.

“Don’t ask.”

Shiva’s lackeys arrived first, four burly men with just as many tattoos and piercings as the queen mother herself. I found it odd that a young woman with such a miniscule stature could control men twice her size and three times as strong. What was it that gave her that power? From what I heard, women were treated as lesser beings in Imperial prisons. They were objects of lust that were often traded as currency. How she had escaped such treatment and climbed to the top was all but a mystery.

Her men proceeded down the row, collecting various items and credit chips for tribute. As Gabe had explained it to me, we paid Shiva and the Cult to keep the other gangs from taking over. The Cult was bad, but there were others that were worse. At least routine rape wasn’t a staple of Cult society as it was with the Brood, ritual torture with the Trinity, or genital mutilation with the Brotherhood of Plath. All the Cult cared about was money. At least they were economical. I preferred paying tribute to being raped by one of the other gangs, but that was just me.

“You,” one of the men said, looking at Sasha.

Her eyes flicked to me. “I don’t have anything.”

I turned to Gabe. “I have enough to cover one of you,” he said, “but not both.”

I sighed. “Cover her.”

“But what about—”

“Just do it!”

He paid the man, handing him a green, fingernail-sized credit chip. “That will cover me, Verdine, and this young woman,” Gabe said. The man nodded, slipped the chip into a reader, and when he was satisfied with the amount moved on.

Then he came to me.

I handed him my book. “This is all I have,” I said.

He looked at me like I was trying to pull one over on him. “That’s worthless to me,” he growled.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any money. I just got here.” I wondered how many times he’d heard that before.

“No tribute, no protection. Shiva will see you.”

I nodded. So the lady wanted to rough me up, what’s the worst that could happen?

I found out soon enough. Two men took me by the arms and led me to Shiva. The locals kept a stall for her, what everyone called Shiva’s Den, near the main common area of Downspin. Guards waited by either side of the stall and my escorts pulled me through a curtain made of glass beads and a miscellany of spare parts strung along thread from the frame. Shiva sat in a metal chair in the back of the stall, smoking a cigar and thumbing through some pre-space volume with a title I couldn’t quite make out. She looked up as I entered, her angular face pale and shark-like, thin lips drawn close to sharp teeth. Carefully, she closed the book, placed it on a side table and stood. She stubbed her cigar out in a black glass ashtray that rested on the circular table.

She approached me, hand outstretched. She stroked my chin and looked deep into my eyes. “You have no tribute?” she said, her voice low but still quite feminine.

I shook my head. “I just got here. I don’t have any credits. I’m already in debt, what the hell do you want from me?”

“You know how this works, don’t you?”

I nodded. “We pay you and you keep the other gangs from moving in, right?”

Her lips curled into a devilish little smile. “That’s right.”

“All I’ve got is that book. I paid twenty credits for it.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have any credits.”

“I don’t…I didn’t. I charged it at one of the stalls. I owe the seller thirty.”

“You just said twenty.”

“I bought a pack of cigarettes as well.”

“Really?” she said, her gaze narrowing. “And where are they?”

“I gave them to Gabe.”

“Gabe?”

I nodded. “Gabriel Hsu.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m afraid you must be punished,” she said coldly.

“Punished? What the hell does that mean?”

One of her men punched me in the gut. My eyes watered and I felt the air forced from my lungs. I fell to my knees. Another kicked me from behind. I hit the ground, hands flat.

Instinct kicked in and I pushed myself up, rolled onto my back. I brought my legs up and hooked them around one of the men’s necks. I pulled him down like a bag of rocks. The other man came for me and I tripped him. His face hit the floor and blood poured from his shattered nose.

Shiva watched, arms crossed and brow furrowed like a condemning mother’s.

The first man, the one I’d gotten with my legs, dove for me, hands closing around my throat. His face hardened, teeth clenched, spit frothing at the corners of his mouth. I head butted him and rolled over, grabbed him by the hair and bashed his head against the deck. All the fury and rage from the Corps bubbled up inside me. My own hands closed on the guy’s throat. I saw Hannigan and proceed to squeeze harder. I felt something give way. I crushed his trachea. His eyes grew red around the edges and blood pooled in his mouth. His arms went limp, but I was still squeezing.

A klaxon went off and before I knew it a station sentinel was floating over me like some metallic hell crab, a dozen spiky appendages extended. Guards arrived from a lift somewhere in the common area and rushed into the stall to pry me off the dead man’s body. I looked up, anger still boiling in my veins, and Shiva was gone. Her other lackey lay motionless on the floor, blood still running from his broken nose. He must have gotten a concussion from the fall.

The sentinel shot me with a netgun and I was pinned to the floor under a monofilament web. The guards drew their blasters and leveled them on me. I felt helpless under the net, trapped like an animal during hunting season. I’d made a mistake killing that man, I realized. All because I couldn’t control my anger. Despite my guilt, I quickly discovered that the worst was yet to come.

Gang violence wasn’t just permitted on Hephaestus, it was practically encouraged. You could fight, you could break bones and skin, but if you killed, security came for you. Hephaestus was more than just a prison. It was a recruiting station. The presence of rival gangs produced competition, and competition suppressed the weak and put the strong on top. It was a Darwinian hierarchy in Downspin, and that’s exactly what the Empire was banking on. The strongest of the strong would be recruited by the Involuntary Service Corps, a branch of the Imperial military devoted to using prisoners as front line soldiers. Neurological overrides were implanted in recruits’ brains, allowing their bodies to be puppeted by an AI subprogram. In the Corps we called them implant zombies. Prisoner recruits were strong, cheaper than soldier robots or trained marines, and most importantly, disposable. Why waste good soldiers on grunt work when you could just send in the ISC troops? With so many enemies on so many insecure planets, the death toll was bound to be high. Marines like myself would rarely have been sent into a hostile situation without a group of ISCs to clear the way. It was standard practice. Of course, there were always exceptions. Like Medusa IX.

After the stunt I’d pulled in Downspin, I figured I’d be the first aboard the next recruitment ship to arrive at Hephaestus. Instead, I was taken Upspin to the Rehabilitation Center, where I was subjected to a form of rather uncomfortable discipline.

Isolation was a bitch. They didn’t waste space on a prisoner they didn’t have to, let alone one charged with the murder of another inmate. The isobox was a three by six foot chamber that looked like an upright casket. I stripped per the guards’ request and stepped inside. A door sealed behind me and I felt a dull prick at the base of my neck. My heartrate dropped, my breathing grew slow, and I felt the world around me dwindle.

I woke in a void. There was no light, no sound, nothing at all. It took me a moment to realize I wasn’t in a physical space but a virtual one. They were running a null program, a virtual reality totally lacking in stimuli. The result was surprisingly uncomfortable. I was trapped here. Trapped inside my mind. I tried to speak, to scream, but nothing came out. Even if it had, I wouldn’t have been able to hear it. This was hell, plain and simple.

When they removed me from the isobox I was mentally exhausted. I’d only been in there four days realtime, but the simulation was kept at one quarter standard speed so it felt like an eternity. The guards dressed me, walked me out of the room, and took me to a lift. They left me inside and the door licked shut. I collapsed to the floor, my motor functions still not up to par, and I sat as the lift plummeted toward
Downspin.

Sasha found me in the lift, brought me to my feet and I threw one arm around her shoulder. Gabe came to help.

“We thought Shiva had killed you,” Gabe said later, when we were all sitting in his stall. “Then Verdine found out they had you in isolation.”

“How’d she manage that?” I asked, my lips still a bit numb.

“I have connections in station security,” she said. “I did my best to get them to lessen your sentence.”

“Lessen? I was in there forever!”

“You were given half the usual time.”

My gaze fell to the floor. “Oh.” It was surprising how weak I really was. Despite the physical conditioning, despite the genetic enhancements, I was as mentally frail as any other human. That scared me.

“You killed one of Shiva’s men,” Sasha said.

I nodded. “Yeah.”


“She’s coming back for you, you know,” Gabe said.

“I figured as much.”

“You can’t escape her forever.”

I sighed. “What can I do?”

Gabe shook his head. “Don’t ask me. I’ve always paid tribute.”

I compressed my lips. “Thanks. You’re a real help.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s not much I can do for you. You’re going to have to find somewhere else to stay.”

“What? Why?”

“If Shiva knows I’m harboring you, she’ll come down on me and Verdine hard. I’m not about to sacrifice our safety for yours. We’ve spent too much to make what we have. You’ve got to understand that.”

I did understand. But where else could I go?

“If you throw Marko out, I’m going too,” Sasha said.

“No,” I replied. “I’ll go.” I stood up.

“Marko, wait!” Sasha called out.

“Watch out for her,” I told Gabe. Then I pulled the curtain aside and left the stall.

Sasha came out behind me. “You can’t go.”

“I’m a danger, okay,” I said, grabbing her by her shoulders. “You don’t want me around. You don’t need me around.”

She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, staring into me with eyes that felt eerily familiar.

“You have a good thing here,” I said. “Don’t throw it away over something stupid.”

I turned to walk away.

“Marko,” Sasha called out. “I’ll find you.”

I said nothing, just kept on walking.

###

It wasn’t until I found work in the smelter that I realized how Hephaestus got its name. The forge was a smaller, more compact cylinder connected to the bulk of the station by the axial shaft that ran through the core. The guards that worked the smelter took my name and identification, thumbprint IDed me and took a sample of my blood. I was then given a hardsuit and escorted to a transpod with a number of other prisoners.

The pod was an utterly unimpressive sphere of gray carbonized alloy with enough interior space for four. I was crammed inside, my suit wedged between two others, and the guards closed the outer door. Red light filled the cramped compartment and I felt my stomach do backflips as the pod was jettisoned into space. Maneuvering thrusters carried us around the outer shell of Hephaestus, past the gaping maw of the smelter, what resembled a series of concentric thermo rings crowned in radiator panels. The smelter was being warmed up, heaters glowing cherry red as power was transferred from a number of pinch reactors in the heart of the monster.

Our pod slipped past the smelter and headed for space. A thousand miles out we arrived at an asteroid, a dull lump of gray-brown chondrite that was captured and slung into orbit by a deep space rock trawler in the outer system. I stared out the square of hypercrystal that served as our one and only viewport. The dead world of Hephaestus II hung in space below, most of its pockmarked surface occluded by thickening nuclear dust clouds and raging superstorms, a deadly reminder of the costs of war. This system was annexed by the Kyrdocs, an aggressive xeno species that controlled its own vast empire bordering human space. We took back the system, but it was a pricey venture and Hephaestus II had yet to be salvaged from nuclear winter.

We landed on the asteroid, grip claws extending into the misshapen surface of the rock. We exited the pod and proceeded to place rocket boosters at the designated areas along the asteroid’s surface. The boosters were self-anchoring, so all we had to do was drop them in the right position. The rockets would be triggered automatically by the station AI and guide the asteroid into the mouth of the smelter. The heavy outer doors would then close, a mechanical device not unlike a high-tech blender would crack the asteroid and the heaters would flame the ore. Then the metals were extracted and pressed.

Once our job was done we bounded back toward the transpod. I stopped for a moment outside the pod and looked up at Hephaestus in the distance. Running lights along the outer shell washed the central portion of the station in ghostly white, while the rest was engulfed in the darkness of Hephaestus II. The planet was a circle of shadow, a thin sliver of golden brown tracing its outer edge where the terminator slowly receded. The sun was peaking over the rim, a silver blip in the void of space. And just beyond that was freedom. I wanted it so bad I could taste it. Had my suit had enough fuel, I would have left the asteroid and headed for open space. But, of course, there was nowhere I could go. Space, as the old adage went, was big. I remembered what one of the security officers had said the day I’d arrived at the prison. Escape was futile. There was nothing outside but hard, empty vacuum.

I drew in a deep breath and dropped the notion like a stone. Then I crawled back into the pod and waited for the low thrum of engines to carry me back to the station.

###

Shiva’s men found me in a corridor near the eastside of Downspin. I did my best to escape them, but it was no use. Three men grabbed me and threw a bag over my head. They forced my hands behind my back and walked me down a series of arteries off the main corridor to a dank, dark alcove, where they removed the bag and forced me to my knees. Shiva stood over me, hands clasped behind her back. She watched me with those hawklike eyes of hers, her elfin features accentuated in the pale overhead light.

“Hello again,” she said.

“What do you want?” I replied through clenched teeth.

“You killed Remus Falco, one of my best.”

I watched the light play across her face. She looked like a reanimated corpse. “Yeah. Sorry about that.” I looked down at the floor. “I have money now,” I said. “I can pay you tribute if you let me go.”

She smiled and stepped forward. “I should probably kill you,” she replied, totally ignoring my offer of payment, “but my better judgment says you’re more valuable to me alive.”

“Why’s that?” I asked foolishly.

“You’re strong. Very strong.”

“I was in the Corps.”

“Strength is a valuable asset, don’t you agree?”

“I guess. Where are you going with this?”
She knelt before me and grabbed the sides of my face with her hands. Her thin fingers were icy, the tips of her nails hard against my skin. “I’m offering you your life,” she said. “In exchange for submission.”

“Submission?”

“Yes,” she hissed. “You work for me.”

I swallowed. This was the last thing I’d expected. “What do you mean?”

“You do what I tell you when I tell you. I’m asking for your undying loyalty. I’ve heard you were a soldier in the Empress’s Corps. If that’s so then you must know what fidelity is, what duty is.”

I nodded.

“I am your empress now,” Shiva said. “You are my subject. I offer you protection from the other gangs and all I ask for in return is your service and ten percent of your income.”

This woman scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want anything to do with her or her Cult. But then again, I would be an inside man, one of the upper echelon here in Downspin. It could be quite advantageous, for the time being anyway. And ten percent, well, that wasn’t half bad given the alternative.

“Well?” Shiva stood, towering over me despite her otherwise short stature.

I thought for a minute. I felt like I was betraying Sasha, Gabe, and Verdine, so far the only friends I had. But, then again, if I kept Shiva close, I could make sure nothing bad happened to them. As long as I was protected, so were they. Finally, I spoke. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

She smiled. “Excellent.” She looked to her guards. “Release him.”

Two of the men let go of my arms and I stood, looking down at Shiva from a foot above. She ran a skeletal hand over my chest and narrowed her gaze. “An impressive physique,” she said.

What now? I thought. Was she going to come on to me?

“Don’t worry,” she said, almost as if she’d read my mind. “My sexual interests are of a different persuasion.”

Shiva let me go, said she’d call on me when she needed me next. I left the alcove, my heart thumping audibly in my chest. I brushed cold sweat from my forehead and pushed my way past two of her bulky subordinates. I stumbled out in to the common area, still shocked I’d made it out alive. She didn’t even ask for the tribute I owed her!

I made my way through the crowd, elbowing through refrigeration-suited ice worlders and other genomodified humans, pushing toward Gabe’s stall at the western side of Downspin, nestled near the endcap opposite the smelter. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be happy to see me, but then again, I had credits, and in prison, credits seemed to be the root of all happiness. At least, that’s what I hoped.

###

I found Gabe, Sasha, and Verdine back at the stall. Gabe wasn’t exactly happy to see me at first, and when I explained what had happened he was really unhappy to see me.

“You joined the fucking Cult?” he said angrily. “What is wrong with you?!”

“It was that or be killed,” I explained.

“But why, Marko?” Sasha interjected. “After what they did to you—”

“I had no choice. Look at the advantages here. I’m a member of the Cult, I have ties to Shiva. I can make things better.”

“Oh no,” Gabe said, shaking his head. “Things aren’t going to get better.”

“Look, this is it, okay. I have ties to the Cult, Verdine has ties to station security. What do we have to worry about?”

“What don’t we have to worry about?” Gabe snapped. “Security’s had their eyes on you ever since you killed that guy. Now that you’re a Cult member, they’re really going to have eyes on you. When you’re around here that means their attention is directed here, at me and Verdine. I can’t allow that, especially not with…” he trailed off.

“With what?” I asked. “What is so fucking important that you had to kill the sensors in this stall? What are you hiding, Gabe?”

He drew his knife and pressed the tip under my chin.

I breathed heavily, sweat beading at my temples. “What are you going to do, Gabe? Kill me?”

Sasha stood and watched in shock.

“Maybe we should tell him,” Verdine said, grabbing Gabe’s shoulder.

“Tell me what?”

He lowered the knife and sighed. “This is a mistake.”

“Just tell him.” Verdine sat down on Gabe’s cot.

“What is going on?” Sasha asked.

“For the last six months,” Gabe said, “Verdine and I…we’ve…”

I clenched my fists. “Spit it out, goddamn it!”

“We’ve been planning an escape.”

“What?” I felt my lips twist into a smile. “This is a joke, right?”

“No. We’ve got everything down to the date and time. You have no idea how much planning has gone into this. I can’t afford to let you screw it up.”

I sat down. “What’s so important about this room? Why kill the sensors if all you have to hide is a knife?”

He shook his head. “There’s more. Much more.”

“Well?”

Verdine looked at Gabe. “Show him.”

He stood and produced a screwdriver from a box under his cot. He knelt and removed a series of screws in the floor, lifting a sheet of metal to reveal a hidden compartment.

“How did you…?”

“I told you we had ties to station security,” Gabe said. “This stall is built over an old control junction. This piece of the station was originally from a scrapped freighter. The junction box was used for manual access to gravity control, atmospheric processing and the like. Verdine worked out a deal with a guard she…knows…and he made sure we had access to this stall. I pulled the control circuits from the box. Now it’s like a safe, hidden under this panel. I had to kill the sensors though, or the AI would know we were up to something.”

“How’d you do that?”

“That…well, that’s another story. A rather long one, I might add.” He opened the junction box and removed a pair of blasters.

I took one. “How the hell did you get a hold of these?”

Verdine smiled. “I said I had friends in security.”

“They’re Dekker PKNs, antiques by today’s standard, but the targeting sensors are good.” Gabe removed a set of blast canisters from the box.

I took one of the canisters and rolled it around in my hand. Supercooled hydrogen wrapped in an alloy cylinder, field suspended and under pressure. Standard ammunition for a blaster weapon.

“Power cells are fully charged,” Gabe said.

“So what’s the plan?”

“Simple.” Verdine slid forward on the cot. “Transport ships arrive every three weeks to get the refined metals. They dock with a loading bay near the smelter. The process is totally automated, and the area of the station is a virtual blind spot for the sensors. The area is depressurized and the temperature ranges from extreme hot to extreme cold. No regulators, no atmospheric processors. That’s our point of entry.”

“How the hell are you going to survive that?”

“Enviro suits,” Gabe said. “One of Verdine’s contacts managed to get his hands on two from the refinery. They were being repaired at the time and weren’t registered as missing. They’re not calibrated for extreme temperature, but they’re made of bonded silicon composite, so they should maintain their integrity until we board the ship.”

“Then what?”

“Once we’re aboard, we hide in one of the auxiliary water tanks adjacent to the transport’s cargo hold.”

“Hide in the water tanks? Unless you’ve got hidden gills somewhere, which I’m pretty sure you don’t, how’s that going to work?”

“The tank will be empty,” Verdine replied.
Gabe removed a data chip from the box under his cot. “That’s where this comes in.”

“And that would be?”

“Computer virus. I smuggled it on board the station in my stomach. It’s scan-shielded so they never detected it. It will confuse the transport’s internal sensors into thinking the water is contaminated. It will auto eject the tank’s contents into space, then repressurize.”

“How do you keep the sensors from detecting you once the ship’s left dock?”

“The virus will jam the sensors in that particular compartment. They’ll never know we’re there until…”

“Until what?”

“Until we hijack the ship.”

“Oh.” That would be where the blasters came in. “You can do that?”

“The transports only carry minimal crew. That means two or three officers. The rest is run by computer.”

“I see.”

“We’ll take over once the ship’s cleared the station’s defense perimeter. We’ll jam communications and alter the nav coordinates to wherever we want.”

“Where are you planning on going?” Sasha asked. “Once you get off the station, I mean.”

Gabe looked to Verdine. “We’re heading for Empyrean,” he said, “it’s one of the Fringe Republics, outside the realm of the Empire.”

I sat back. It was a good plan, I’d give them that much. “Tell me, Gabe,” I said, on an afterthought, “what exactly did you do to get thrown in prison?”

He smiled. “I hacked the datanet on Phoenix Prime.”

“Capital City?”

“Knocked out the whole power grid, including the substation that supplies the Imperial Palace.”

“Wow.”

“What for?” Sasha asked.

“That,” he replied, “well, that’s a bit complicated.”

“Is it?” I said. “I think you owe us an explanation.”

Gabe stood up. “I don’t owe you anything. You could get us all killed. You’re too damn reckless!”

Verdine grabbed Gabe’s shoulders. “Calm down, it’s okay.”

“I don’t even know why we trust him! He’s working for Shiva now.”

“Hey,” I interrupted. “I don’t work for Shiva, okay. The only reason I agreed to help her was so I could protect you!”

“What?” Gabe furrowed his brow. “You’re saying you did this for us? Right. Excuse me if I keel over from uncontrollable laughter.”

“It’s true. I like you. I like Sasha and Verdine. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. You gave me shelter, showed trust in me. I don’t want to betray you, Gabe, I want to save you!”

“Why? What’s in it for you, Marko? How the hell does this benefit you?”

“Because I need you,” I said. “I need all of you. If I’m to survive, then you must survive too. It’s called interdependency, it’s something you learn in the Corps, something that’s real damn hard to forget.”

Gabe relaxed, anger evaporating from his expression. Verdine eased him back down on the cot.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused,” I said, “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Shiva means nothing to me, but she’s useful, can’t you see that? As long as I have her protection, so do you, I can guarantee it.”

Gabe closed his eyes. Verdine put her hands on his neck and pulled him close. “You’re right,” he said. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it worries me. The only way Verdine and I can be safe is if we attract as little attention as possible. You’ve got to understand, Marko, you’re a magnet for trouble.”

I looked down. “Yeah. I know.” I fished around in my pocket and produced a small green chip. I tossed it onto the cot. “Here,” I said. “I owe you this.”

Gabe opened his eyes and leaned forward, taking the chip between his thumb and forefinger.

“Keep it,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”

###

I woke to the sound of ruffling in Gabe’s stall. Dust motes caught in a ray of light from the overhead glistened in front of me like a thousand tiny stars. I sat up and peered in through the curtain. “Gabe?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Oh, sorry, did I wake you?”

“What’s up?” I crawled out of my sleepsack and stepped into the stall.

“Verdine just got news from one of her contacts. There’s a ship coming in from the Outer Rim.”

“A transport?”

“No, this is something else.”

I narrowed my brows curiously. “What kind of ship?”

“It’s the Resolution.”

“Shit. What the hell’s she doing at a prison colony?” I knew the ship. It was under the command of Admiral Alexei Gustev, one of the most renowned officers in all the Imperial Fleet. He’d been awarded the Imperial Cross, the Silver Hawk’s Wing, and the Medal of Courage. He was known almost universally as the Hero of Procyon, the man who drove off a superior Kyrdoc armada with a collapsed lung and a half-pressurized ship.

“Apparently she’s pulled in for repairs. Hephaestus is the closest station and she’s recently taken damage in a battle with Insurrectionists a few light years away.”

“Where’s Verdine?”

“She’s with her contact, giving him…his payment.”

“Payment? What do you mean?”
Gabe sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “She sleeps with them, okay. That’s how we get what we need. She gets information in exchange for sex.”

“I’m…sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Forget it,” he said. “It’s what’s kept us alive this far.”

“You love her, don’t you?”

He sifted through a stack of miscellaneous items on the small plastic desk near his cot. “Yes. But she does what she has to so we can get out. It’s our only hope.”

I nodded. “When are you planning to leave?”

“Soon,” he said. “There’s a transport coming in a few days.”

I pursed my lips. Now was my last chance to ask. “I don’t suppose Sasha and I could come with you, since you’ve told us your plan and all?” There, I said it.

He looked up, his eyes like coal. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mind if we hitch a ride?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “As a matter of fact, I do. This is a two person trip, that’s it.”

“Then why even bother telling us? We could rat you out.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know? You don’t know me, Gabe.”

“Yes I do,” he replied. “You risked your life trying to protect us. You’re not going to just turn us in. Besides, who’s to say they’d believe you anyway? Security’s just looking for an excuse to toast your ass.”

He was right about that. Chances were they’d think I was being cute and throw me in isolation again. I couldn’t take that kind of punishment, not after what I’d already been through. Not to mention Verdine’s connections with station security. She could make my life a living hell if she wanted. It wasn’t up to me, it never was. “Can’t you just modify your plan?” I asked, digging myself a bit deeper.

“What?”

“Yeah. So Sasha and I can come.”

“Look, Marko. I like you and all, but it isn’t going to happen. Verdine and I have planned this for a long time. We’re going. You’re not. That’s final.”

I clenched my fists. “Whatever you say.” I walked out of the stall.

“Marko, wait.”

I stopped in my tracks. “Yeah?”

“I wish things could be different, but they can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” I said. Then I walked out the door.

###

“What are you going to do, Marko?” Sasha asked, watching me with those warm amber eyes of hers.

I sat back and looked toward the curving ceiling, saw the tangled, arterial mess of Downspin recede into the distance. The open walls around us were a jumble of random parts and sheet metal welded onto a conglomerate of hull plates. Yellow caution symbols clashed with blocky military text that spelled out everything from SHIP’S MESS to AIRLOCK. All was lit by naked photopanels that flickered in sickly reds and yellows. We sat at a table in what was affectionately known as the Courtyard, a clutter of tables and chairs arranged around a central heating unit from which cables twisted sinuously underfoot like thick black snakes. The air around us was warm and smelled of lubricant and grime.

“Well?” Sasha said, resting her hands on the metal table.

I turned toward her. “I don’t know, okay.”

“It’s not fair, you know,” Sasha replied. “Gabe shouldn’t leave us behind. You tried to protect him!”

“That’s his prerogative. He didn’t have to do anything for us. He didn’t have to let us hang around, but he did, okay? He deserves to get off the station. He’s been here a lot longer than we have.”

“What ever happened to Marko the survivor?” Sasha asked. “Don’t you want to escape?”

“Of course I want to escape,” I snapped. “But it’s not a matter of what I want. This is the way things are, we can’t change that.”

“You can and you should.”

“What do you suggest I do, then Sasha?” I could feel the tension growing in my voice. “What’s your expert opinion?”

“Threaten to go to station security if he doesn’t take us with him.”

“I can’t do that. They won’t believe me. Verdine will discredit me and there’s a good chance I’ll get thrown back in isolation, or worse.”

“But you have to do something.”

“Why? If you want off so bad, go talk to Gabe yourself. Threaten to turn him in, see if that gets him to change his mind.”

“I…can’t do that.”

“But I can? Why can’t you, Sasha? You’re a big bad assassin, right?”

She looked down at the table.

“Right?” I repeated, leaning in.

“Actually…” she muttered. “I wasn’t entirely honest when I said I was an assassin.”

I sat back. “Shit, Sasha, what are you talking about?”

“I never actually killed anyone for money. I never worked for Righteous Fist.”

“But why the deceit?”

She lifted her chin and, in this light, suddenly looked much younger than I’d initially thought. “I was afraid,” she said. “I’ve never been in a real prison before. That whole Ragnarok thing was an exaggeration. I didn’t help Insurrectionists hijack a ship, they took me hostage when I was onboard and when the Imperials retook the ship they thought I was an accomplice. I sat in a cell for two days and then I was released when they couldn’t produce any evidence of conspiracy to commit treason.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said, prying. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t want to get hurt. I know the rumors, how women are supposedly treated in jail. I didn’t want that to happen to me. When I saw you during the induction I thought that if I could somehow make friends you’d protect me. I didn’t want you to think I was weak and try to take advantage of me so I made that whole assassin bit up.”

“So what was your crime?” I asked.

“I did kill a senator, and it happened on Alcyone Four, but not in the way you think.” Her eyes looked down as she chewed a nail. “Alcyone was my home world and the senator…he was my stepfather.”

I dipped my head, brought my eyes level with hers. “What did he do?”

“He did things to me. When he was drunk. Once he…raped me. I wasn’t on contraceptives at the time. He had the baby aborted. Mom never knew.”

I swallowed hard. It’d been a long time since I’d been so uncomfortable in my own skin. But then again I’d never met anyone whose personal trauma hit so close to home. I suddenly felt much closer to her, like I’d known her far longer than the time we’d spent on Hephaestus.

“One night I snuck into his room while he was sleeping. Mom was off on business. He kept a pistol locked away by the bed. I stole the key when he was drunk. I only shot him once, but it was enough. I didn’t realize he kept the gun loaded with explosive rounds. I guess he was more paranoid than I thought. By the time the authorities arrived there wasn’t much left above the torso to identify. They had to go on DNA alone.”

I took Sasha’s hand in mine. It felt so small, so fragile. “Sasha,” I said softly. “How old are you?”

She looked up, blinked tears out of her eyes. “I’m seventeen.”

I sat back. Christ. A seventeen year old girl in this hell hole! I remembered how hard my teen years were in the Corps, how I’d never wish that on anyone my age. I could barely imagine prison.

“They gave you life imprisonment for killing a rapist?”

“He was a senator,” she said. “A highly respected pro-Imperial one at that. I was charged with murder and high treason.”

I drew my hand away and rubbed my brow. “Sasha, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry with you.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “You’ve been so kind to me, Marko. If it weren’t for you I don’t think I’d have made it this long.”

I bit my lower lip and watched my fellow inmates scurry about the Courtyard. How many of them were rapists? How many murderers? I closed my eyes and listened to the vast mechanical sound around me. My head was starting to hurt. This was the belly of the beast. The worst possible place for someone like Sasha. I stood up and touched her shoulder. “You should get back to Gabe’s,” I said.

“But what about you? Where are you going?”

“I’ve got something I need to do.”

I took Sasha back to Gabe’s and left her at the door. She begged to come with me wherever it was I was off to, but I told her no. She respected me too much to disobey. She entered Gabe’s stall and watched me through the curtain as I walked away.

I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t just wait around while our only chance at escape passed us by. I had to get Sasha off this station. If Gabe couldn’t help me, I knew someone who could. Sometimes, to get what you truly want, you’ve got to make a deal with the devil.

###

“You want to what?” Shiva said, hands on hips.

“You heard me,” I replied.

“That’s not possible. No one’s ever escaped.” She turned away from me and looked at herself in a dirty old mirror that adorned the wall of her stall. The place was gaudy, weighed down with stuff taken from all over the station. An old bookshelf occupied one corner of the room. I saw a leather bound volume tucked away on the top and realized it was the one I’d gotten the first day I’d arrived on Hephaestus. I’d been wondering where it got to after that fight with Falco.

“Not until now. What I’m proposing is a joint operation. I know someone who has a perfectly laid plan and has access to weapons.”

“What kind of weapons?” Her eyes widened as she turned back toward me. Now I had her complete attention.

“Two compact Dekker PKN blasters.”

“How?”

“They’ve got ties to security.”

She clenched her teeth. “We have a rat.”

“No, it’s not like that,” I said, throwing my hands up. “They have a way off the station. They want to steal a transport ship.”

“How’s that work?”

“That’s not important right now. What is important is that there’s a ship heading here now, only it’s not a transport. It’s an Imperial warship.”

She nodded. “I know. I’ve heard.”

“I want to make a few changes to their plan, only I need your help.”

“Why should I trust you? My men tell me you’ve gotten awfully close to some of our subjects in Downspin. It’s dangerous to get too close, Marko, you risk making yourself a liability.”

“Honestly, Shiva, I don’t have a good reason for you to trust me. However, I’m suspecting your desire to escape might help.”

“This is ridiculous.” She smiled without the slightest sense of humor, bearing sharp teeth like a predator’s. “You must think I’m a complete moron.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I need your leadership skills.”

She turned away and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and middle finger. “Let’s just say I believed you for half a second. How are you planning on escaping?”

“I want to hijack an Imperial ship, Admiral Gustev’s ship actually.”

She laughed. “Hijack a warship? You really are insane.”

“So they keep telling me.”

She sat down in her chair and poured herself some water from a glass decanter. “What makes you think I want to escape?”

“Everyone wants to escape, Shiva. We’re prisoners.”

“I have it pretty well here, all things considered. I’ve got servants, a nice stall, plenty of entertainment.” She motioned to the bookshelf with its stacks of books and microdisks. “In fact, you might say I’m quite content.”

“But you’re not free,” I said. “None of us are free. You can get up and walk outside this stall, go Upspin, Downspin, to the smelter, but you can never, ever leave. You’re trapped. No way out. Unless, of course, you work with me.”

“Let me enlighten you, Marko,” Shiva said, sipping from her tin cup. “I was born on this station. That’s right, I never committed a crime. Well, not in the beginning at least. Does that surprise you at all?”

“All the more reason to leave,” I said. “You don’t know what else is out there, beyond these walls, out across those stars. There’s a whole universe out there, Shiva. You’re going to miss it all.”

She brushed my comments aside and placed her cup back on the table beside her. “My parents were Ecoprotectionists, so I’ve learned from the station’s database. My father was killed during a violent protest on Eurydice and my mother was arrested and sent to Hephaestus. She was pregnant when she arrived. She died shortly after giving birth to me in a crawltube here in Downspin. Not too far from this stall, actually. A man named Marus found me, my birth cord wrapped around my throat. I would have died if he hadn’t saved me. He brought me back to his stall and raised me as his own. That man, my adoptive father, was the leader of the Cult.”

“Let me guess, you inherited the throne, right? Not unlike our benevolent Empress, I presume.” I smiled, the bitter taste of irony crawling along the back of my throat like a hairy spider. Everyone knew the story of Rosaline IV. She’d had her father and brothers poisoned just so she’d be the next in line for the throne. Of course, no one could ever prove anything. Such was the benefit of political clout.

“I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Oh, not at all,” I said.

“He was murdered by a rival gang. I was furious. I rallied my father’s men together and we took our revenge. I killed Tynes, leader of that particular gang, myself. I cut his head off and stuck it on a pike in the commons so everyone could see. I was only nineteen at the time, but I was already on my way to the top. Though I may not have been his biological progeny, I was my father’s daughter.”

“Station security didn’t punish you for killing him?” I asked.

“Oh, they did. I may have been nineteen, but I was still a prisoner. They gave me isolation for a month. It didn’t destroy me, though, it only made me stronger.”

I felt an unsettling warmth in the pit of my stomach. I was playing a very dangerous game here. This wasn’t Sasha I was dealing with. Shiva was the real deal, raw fury to the core. It was like teasing a kroc with a piece of fresh meat. Sooner or later, I was bound to lose a limb or two.

“Don’t you want to get back at the Empire, though? For what they did to you. They never even gave you a chance. You were born into imprisonment, Shiva. Don’t you ever want more?”

“Of course I want more,” she said. “But there isn’t any more. This is it. These walls and these floors…it’s all there ever was and all there ever will be.”

“What if I told you we could escape?”

“You already have. And I don’t think you’ve been here long enough to realize that there is no escape. That notion is a fantasy.”

“I have the means, but I need you as well.”
“You need me?” She smiled. “I think you’ve got the chain of command a bit confused here, Marko. You see, you don’t get to tell me what to do. I don’t care what you need.”

“Tell me you haven’t dreamt of what’s out there, Shiva. Tell me you don’t want to escape so bad you can feel freedom just waiting out past these walls and these floors. Tell me that, and I’ll walk away right now, and leave you to your books and your virtuals.”

“I want to escape, Marko, but I don’t think it’s possible.”

“But you can. We can! Together.”

She sat in silence for a lingering moment, fingers splayed over her chair’s armrests.

“If we take that ship,” I said, “you can go anywhere in the galaxy. Anywhere your heart desires.”

I saw the sudden notion of freedom flicker in her dark little eyes. She wanted it more than sex. More than food or water. As intangible as it was, it was the sole thing worth fighting for, worth dying for.

She leaned forward and opened her mouth to speak.

“You say you’re content here,” I interrupted. “That you’ve got everything you ever wanted. Well, I’m telling you that’s not true. You may be a queen, but you’re queen of the rats. There’s a real world out there, Shiva, and you can have so much more. You can be so much more.”

“If I agree to help you, Marko, you’ll have to do something for me in return.”

“Of course,” I said, telling her whatever she wanted to hear. She was my pawn as much as I was hers. “Anything you ask.”

“I want to get as far away from the Empire as possible. We head for deep space and we don’t ever turn back.”

I nodded. “Shiva, my friend, we’ve got a deal.”

###

“Forget it,” Gabe said, collecting his things from under the cot. “I don’t trust her, and I’m not entirely sure I trust you anymore.” We stood alone in his stall. Verdine had taken Sasha to get some food, so I had plenty of time to say my piece.

“Come on. This is it. Our way out!”

“I already have a way out.”

“But this time we can all get out.”

He stopped for a moment. “Look, it’s a nice thought, but the less people involved the better. I should kill you for telling Shiva, anyway. You might well have blown my plan.”

“All the more reason to act sooner.” I grabbed his shoulder. “Trust me, Gabe. We can do this.”

“Let me get this straight,” he replied. “You want to use the Cult to start a riot, preoccupying station security while we sneak aboard an Imperial battleship in order to steal it. Does that about sum it up?”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Do you have any idea how fucking insane that is?”

“Of course. But this could be our only shot.”

“Stealing a transport’s one thing. There are millions of those, they’ll never miss it. But a battleship? You’ve got to be kidding! They have crews of hundreds, not to mention the fact that they’re AI run, unlike transports, which have limited computer systems.”

“So, kill the sensors like you did with the station.”

“That’s an extremely complicated process. Do you have any idea what kind of—”

“No, but you do.”

“But I—”

“You killed the power to the Imperial Palace, Gabe. The Imperial Palace! The most secure facility in the known galaxy and you’re telling me you can’t shut down the eyes on a measly ship?”

“That was an accident!” Gabe shouted. “I was trying to pirate a sub-AI that controlled the power distribution network in the Imperial district. It wasn’t the Palace AI itself. The power outage was short, no more than a few minutes, but they traced my program.”

“I don’t need you to take control of the AI, just lock it out of the ship’s systems. Can you do that?”

“Ability and will are two very different things, Marko.”

“So you’re saying you can but you won’t?”

“I don’t even know if that’s possible. And even if I did, why the hell should I help you?”

“Because,” I replied. “I’ve got Shiva on my side.”

“Is that a threat?”

“I wouldn’t call it a threat, just an incentive.”

Gabe turned and shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m even talking to you.”

“Look, Gabe, Shiva’s got an army, okay. We have the will and she has the way. She’s willing to throw everything she’s got into this so long as we hold up our end of the bargain.”

“Our end of the bargain?” Gabe grabbed the front of my prison grays and pulled me close. His eyes were like vitrified marbles. “When, exactly, did I agree to any of this shit?”

“Well…you didn’t, actually.”

“Right. So it’s you, my friend, who has to answer to Shiva. Not me.”

I pulled away from Gabe and paced the room. “We have to get off this station, Gabe.”

“Find your own way off, Marko. You haven’t even been here that long.”

I nodded. “Take Sasha with you,” I said. “If you insist on doing this by yourself, just take Sasha too. Okay?”

“No,” he replied. “I can’t. I’ve told you already, it’s a two person trip.”

“She’s seventeen, Gabe. Did you know that? She’s a seventeen year old girl. Do you even know what her crime is?”

Gabe shook his head. “No, I never bothered to ask.”

“She said she was an assassin, that she killed a senator on Alcyone Four. Well, that was a lie.”

He raised his brows curiously. Now he didn’t look so angry anymore. “But why would she lie about her crime?”

“She was afraid that if we knew she was younger, that she wasn’t a cold blooded assassin, that we’d take advantage of her. She was scared, okay. She didn’t want to get hurt.”

“What did she do, then?”

“Killed her stepfather for raping her. She was imprisoned for treason.”

Gabe lowered his head and sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So now you understand. She shouldn’t be here, Gabe.”

“None of us should be here!” he snapped. “But we are. That’s just the way it is.”

“Not if we can get off.”

He sat down on his cot and leaned back against the wall. The weight of the situation was beginning to sink in. I saw his expression shift from hard-bitten anger to gentle remorse. “I wish there was something I could do, Marko, but I can’t. It’s out of my hands now.”

I squatted down in front of him, my eyes meeting his. “That chip you’ve got, with the computer virus, is there any way you can modify it to affect the station’s AI?”

“Modify it with what? I don’t even have a handcomp. Besides, that virus was designed to subvert simple computer systems, not Turing-level AI, it won’t work.”

“Can you override the net, then, isolating the AI from the security systems?”

He shook his head. “It’s too complicated.”
“What can you do?”

“At this point,” he snapped. “Not much.”

“You’re certain?”

“Look, on this short of a window and with access to only the most rudimentary of computer systems the best I can offer is temporary encryption on some of the security protocols. I can shut out a limited number of sentinels, but they have to be in the same area, and it won’t last forever.”

“I don’t need it to last forever, just long enough to get what I need.”

“And what’s that?”

“A bargaining chip,” I said.

Gabe sighed. “This is stupid.”

“Yeah, that seems to be the general consensus. Can you lock out the sentinels in the main security office or not?”

“I think so.” He looked down at the floor. “If I do this you’re going to have to promise me something, Marko.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll make sure Verdine gets off this station alive. I’m not compromising on that.”
I nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

He bit his lower lip.

“Second thoughts?” I asked.

“I’m long past second thoughts.”

I turned toward the door with a smile. “Oh,” I said on my way out, “we’re going to need those blasters.”

###

I waited in the lift with Verdine as we sped toward the security office Upspin. She was quiet most of the way, her thin lips pressed together like the hangar doors of a space carrier. She pushed a strand of black hair behind her ear and rubbed her pant leg with one hand.

“You scared?” I asked, trying not to let my own fear bleed through.

She nodded.

I cleared my throat and looked away. “You know, you never did tell me what you did to end up here. What was your crime?”

She glanced up at me, hazel eyes catching the light. “I was born. That was my crime.”

“You were born on the station?”

“Yes. My parents were convicts. They were both killed when I was very young.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. It’s fine. I grew up here. A security officer named Dunbar took care of me when I was a child. He’s gone now, transferred to another station, but he treated me quite well. I got to know his friends once he was gone. Unfortunately some of them have…appetites.”

I nodded. “I see.”

“They get me and Gabe what we need and I…do things for them.” She looked down. “I’m not proud of it, but it’s allowed us to have a pretty decent life, given the alternative. We’re not dead. The gangs leave us alone for the most part.”

Until I came along, I thought.

“Listen,” I said, “I know how much you and Gabe mean to each other, and I’m sorry to spring this on you the way I did, but you’ve got to understand, Sasha and I want to get off this place too.”

“I know,” she replied solemnly. “I don’t blame you. You’re a survivor, Marko.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. I only wish I could be more.
The lift came to stop at the inner cylinder of Upspin and the door slid open. We stepped out and then followed a winding corridor to the security office. The office was a steel box surrounded by stubby shield generators that looked like high tech rivets framing the door. Two guards waited outside and a number of sentinels patrolled the area. As prisoners our free reign of Hephaestus ended here. I wondered why they had the office out in the open like this, it was kind of an easy target, but then again, knowing the director and his type in general, overconfidence in their security measures was a given. The same went for the Corps, and maybe even the Empire as a whole.

“Tell me something,” I said, leaning close to Verdine. “How good is Gabe?”

“He’s good,” she replied. “Damn good.”

The lights flickered and the guards looked around in confusion. The shields wouldn’t go up unless the AI detected a threat; they required too much power to remain active for an extended period of time. As long as the sensors were jammed we wouldn’t have to worry about that particular obstacle.

The guards reached down toward their blasters. They knew something was up.

Verdine opened the top of her prison grays. Her hand found its way inside.

“Not yet,” I said, grabbing her shoulder. “Just wait a minute.”

She nodded.

A sentinel floated out from the office, its array of biomech arms and demonesque optic sensors flicking about organically.

“Wait,” I breathed.

Suddenly the sentinel crashed. Its sensors went black and its AG generator stuttered and died. It fell to the ground with a clatter, arms twisting and snapping as sparks shot from its mushroom-shaped head. Other sentinels crashed around us. The guards looked around in surprise.

“Now,” I whispered.

Verdine drew the blaster from her uniform and fired. Two pulses ripped across the air with a deafening crackle. Then she switched to continuous beam mode. A line of actinic plasma connected with the far wall and the shield generators blew out. The guards fell to their bellies. One returned fire, pulses arcing in toward us and exploding against the floor. Structurally speaking, their blasters were a lot better than ours, but then again, it’s what you did with them that counted. Verdine fired, raking the beam across the guard’s arm. The hand holding the blaster fell to the ground, stump sizzling as he shouted in agony.

We rushed forward. Verdine laid down covering fire while I sprang for the guard’s blaster. The other guard shot me in the leg, the pulse grazing my calf. I fell. Pain shot through my nerves and I caught a whiff of the all too familiar smell of burning skin. Despite my injury I went for the blaster, scrabbling across the floor. I managed to get my hands around the grip and swung it around, leveling it on the other guard’s head. He had his own weapon trained on Verdine.

“Don’t,” I said.

He lowered the blaster. His compatriot moaned in pain beside me, clutching his arm close to his chest.

“Now,” I said, grabbing the guard’s shoulder and pulling him close, my blaster pressed against his temple. “I want to see the security director.”

###

I watched the Resolution come in to dock from the director’s main office. The wallscreen projected images taken from the station’s external cameras. The director sat in his chair and I on the desk across from him, the barrel of my blaster pointed at his chest. He gave me a stern look, brow furrowed, eyelids half shut, not bothering to take in the beauty and pride of the Empire as she drifted in to port. Verdine did a fine job of tying his hands to the chair’s armrests. She would have gagged him as well, but we were lacking in material.

“You’re never going to get away with this,” he muttered.

“Why don’t you keep quiet and do as I tell you,” I replied. “If you want to keep on living that is.” I didn’t have anything personal against the director, but he was in my way. I handled this situation just as I handled any other. I had no desire to bring him harm, but if he resisted, I would kill him without mercy. It was scary, the things you could do without even giving them a second thought. But that’s the way I was trained. Fifteen years in the Corps taught you a lot about survival.

I turned my attention away from the director and studied the ship in the wall projection. Resolution resembled a sleek, black shark with the end of its tail lobbed off. Radiators, comm antennae, and weapon turrets were flung wide like stabilizing fins. Conic fusion engines stuck out from the rear. She was powered down for the most part, now that she was in dock, ion thrusters making a few minute adjustments as she came to rest against the boarding tube. The ship’s hull was marked in the angular, silver script of the Empire, her name, registry, and Imperial markings emblazoned across the forward curve like mercurous tattoos. Twin plasma projectors jutted out in front like filed-down fangs. Fed by two high-energy pinch reactors and with an extended range imparted by tubular containment fields, the weapons could burn through a ship’s hull at up to three thousand miles. She was an impressive beast. Taking her would be no easy matter.

“What are you going to tell Admiral Gustev when he asks to come aboard?” the director asked, attempting to throw a verbal monkey wrench into my haphazard plan.

“I’m not going to tell him anything,” I said. “You, however…”

“I won’t lie for you.”

“Oh, I think you will.” I tapped the back of the Volkov 38p with my hand. “Tell me, what do you think you’ll look like after I blast you at maximum power?”

The director squirmed in his chair, sweat pouring down his face.

“Care to reconsider?”

He nodded.

“That’s what I thought.” I stood up, putting most of my weight on my good leg. The other still burned like hell, but Verdine did a good job bandaging it. We’d found some burn cream and disinfectant in a medpack in the security office. “Now,” I continued, trying to take my mind off the pain, “when the admiral asks to come aboard you tell him yes. In fact, I want you to ask him if he’ll join you for dinner in the security office. Tell him you have security measures under control and that he need only bring minimal escort.”

The director agreed.

Minutes later an incoming comm from the Resolution was bounced to the security office, as I’d told the director to demand from his staff in charge of communications. I stepped out of the way as the link was established and a desktop camera locked the director in its frame. Off the vid, I kept my blaster leveled on him. He knew what to say.

###

The airlock door opened with a hiss. I stood waiting, arms at my sides, blaster weapon dangling from one hand. A fine mist cleared and a shadowy figure stepped forward, two men at his side. He was a good half-foot taller than me with broad shoulders, a scarred face, and a square jaw that looked like it could crush steel. He stopped a few paces away and studied me with his famous prosthetic eye. I raised the blaster, resting the cylindrical barrel against his chest.

“Who the fuck are you?” he growled. His escorts reached for their weapons.

“Do it and I kill him,” I said.

Gustev looked to his men and nodded. “Hold your weapons.”

I smiled. “Hi. I’m Franz Marko. I’ll be taking your ship now.”

He watched me angrily. “Where is the security director?”

I motioned over my shoulder. Verdine held the director at gunpoint, his hands tied securely behind his back.

“Shit,” Gustev bellowed.

I led him and his escorts back to Resolution and we took a lift to the ship’s bridge. Doors slid open and a dozen officers leapt to their feet, surprised that the admiral had returned so quickly.

“Do as they say,” Gustev ordered. “Give them your side arms.”

Verdine collected a number of slug guns and a mini blaster from the security chief and stowed them in the captain’s chair while I slapped the modified jammer chip Gabe had given me into the chair’s reader.

The bridge was ovoid in shape, with consoles arranged around the outer edge and a central command chair nestled in the middle. Holoscreens covered the in-curving walls and touch panels ringed the room’s midsection.

We corralled the officers and kept them at gunpoint while I brought up communications and established a link with the station.

“Attention all station security officers,” I said over the comm, trying not to be too melodramatic. “We have seized control of Her Majesty’s Ship Resolution and will open fire if you do not meet our demands. Respond on this channel and this channel only. Any attempt to deviate from my commands will end in bloodshed.”

I directed Resolution’s gunnery officer to train the ship’s weapons on the station. I would have done it myself but I didn’t have the bionetics. Imperial technology was programmed to read the signatures in the cell-sized machines in every crewman’s blood, if they didn’t match then the controls would simply shut down. He hesitated at first but Gustev told him to obey. The admiral didn’t appear fazed in the slightest. Here was a man that had faced blood-thirsty monsters on the edge of civilized space. We were nothing compared to the horrors he’d seen. His calm perturbed me to no end.

I sat down on the edge of the command chair, my blaster pointed at Gustev’s back.

“What is the meaning of this?” the admiral asked.

“Nothing against you, Admiral,” I replied. “We just want to hitch a ride.”

“The Empress will have your head!”

“No doubt.” I looked to Verdine. “How long did Gabe say he’d keep the AI busy?”

“The program he’s running should keep its secondary systems in diagnostic mode for thirty minutes.”

“We’re running out of time.”

“What about Shiva?”

I stood up. Before I could open a new communication channel to Downspin, the main holo tank came to life and an incoming communiqué interrupted our signal. Shiva’s image appeared in the tank.

“We’ve taken Downspin,” she said. “Securing it’s going to be a problem, though. I’ve lost several men in a firefight. The guards we can handle…” the image fuzzed and I nearly lost her “…the sentinels are the main problem. They’re shielded. Even with captured weapons we can’t even scratch them.”

My glance passed to Verdine. “Gabe said he’d take care of the sentinels.”

“He said he’d take care of the ones in the security office.”

I nodded. Then I looked to the ship’s comm officer. “Can you patch me through to the station AI direct?”

He glanced at Gustev for orders.

“Don’t look at him. I asked you a question.”

He nodded.

“Then do it.” I wove my blaster in his face and he scurried across the bridge to the comm station. His hands played across the touchplates and another comm screen appeared in the wall display. “Communications established.”

“Hephaestus station AI,” I said aloud. “If you can hear me I wish to negotiate terms for your surrender.”

“Signal return,” the comm officer announced. “Audio only.”

Of course, it would be. The AI had no face.

“Let’s hear it.”

“You have corrupted my systems,” the AI said. “I have lost control of eight percent of my sentinels. A virus has locked out my command protocols. Explain.”

“We’ve jacked your mainframe,” I said. “And I’m sitting on the bridge of an Imperial battleship with all its guns trained on your proverbial head. I’ll restate my terms one final time. You surrender Downspin and allow my people to board this ship. We’ll leave without any further trouble and you can go about your business. Is that clear?”

“This is treason!” the AI snapped. “The Empire will hunt you down and you will be executed.”

“Assuming they can catch us,” I replied. “This isn’t about me, it’s about my people. You will allow them safe passage to this vessel or I will open fire. Do you understand?” My eyelids narrowed as I spoke, and I found myself somewhat confused by my own statement. When did I cease being Private Marko and suddenly become Marko the Revolutionary? It seemed totally ludicrous, but at the same time somehow fitting.

“I understand.”

“Well?”

“Give him a warning shot,” I said.

Verdine slid over to the weapons officer and placed her blaster on the back of his neck. Sweat ran down his face.

Then I leaned forward and pointed to a schematic of Hephaestus floating over the gunnery station’s holoplate. “Right there, in the secondary docking port.”

“Do it,” Verdine said through clenched teeth, working the blaster into his skin.

He slid a hand into a recess and the computer scanned his bionetics, linking in through the nanodevices in his blood. He closed his eyes and willed the weapons into action. Somewhere outside the ship a turreted pulse cannon spat a tungsten-cored, steel-jacketed round into the docks, shattering the assortment of cranes and bridges in a small, nova-bright explosion.

“Acquire secondary target,” I said. “Lock onto the AI central processor.”

“But that’s in the core,” the gunnery officer replied. “We’d have to blow up the whole—”

“Now!”

The cannon redirected and a full salvo was loaded from internal magazines.

“Last chance,” I said over the commline. “It’s their lives for yours.”

There was a brief silence. Then the AI replied. “As you demand.”
###

I greeted Sasha and Gabe at the airlock. They’d both confiscated weapons from station security. I found the sight of Sasha toting a Volkov 38p somewhat disconcerting. No, not an assassin at all, I thought. I directed Amdiral Gustev and the majority of his bridge crew back onto the station. They knew better than to try to resist. Verdine still had the ship’s tactical officer at gunpoint. One word from me over the comm and he blew the station’s AI into cybernetic oblivion. Without the AI to run the myriad of station systems, everything from atmospheric processing to water reclamation, everyone left on that station would die. Not to mention the fact that they already had a riot do deal with.

Once Gabe and Sasha were aboard I headed for the bridge. We had to break away now, before things got worse. On the way up, Sasha grabbed my shoulder.

“What about Shiva?” she asked. “Didn’t you promise her safe passage?”

I sighed. “We can’t wait around all day, Sasha. Once Gabe’s program gives out the AI will signal for backup. In an hour or two this whole system will be swarming with Imperial forces. We’ve got to go.”

“So you used her?” Sasha said, eyes widening.

“No, not exactly…” I shook my head. “I never intended to leave them behind, but…but maybe it’s for the best.” Despite the cold, hard logic, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. In a way she deserved to get off that station. She never should have been there in the first place. Training told me to forget her, you couldn’t save everyone. But something deep inside me just didn’t feel right.

Once we were on the bridge I ordered Nav and Conn to take us out. With Verdine’s blaster just inches from his face, the helmsman found it hard to protest. We broke away from Hephaestus and moved out as fast as we could in such a tight space, keeping our guns locked on the station core all the while. One suspicious action from the AI and we hit it with everything we had.

I settled into the command chair and watched the station recede in the holo tank along with the dull red-brown world of Hephaestus II. I let out a sigh.

“Where to?” Sasha asked, leaning on Gustev’s command chair.

I looked to Gabe. “Empyrean,” I said. “We’re going to the Fringe Republics.” He smiled warmly.

The stars were a welcome sight in the main screen, a billion tiny specks of light, each with its own host of worlds and civilizations.

Gabe took a seat on the stairs that ran by the command chair and into the nav pit at the foredeck. “I want to apologize for any doubts I had before,” he said. “You are trustworthy.”

I said nothing, just smiled.

“I still can’t believe that idiotic plan of yours worked.”

I shrugged. “Sometimes you have to take risks.” I stood and stretched. Then I looked to the gunnery officer, Verdine still hovering over him like a hawk.

“We’re clear of the defense perimeter,” he said nervously.

“Good. You can power down the weapons now.”

He nodded.

“Prep for displacement jump. Nav, set a course, random vector, preferably somewhere outside the Empire.”

The doors opened on the far side of the bridge, drawing my attention from Nav and Conn. Shiva entered, followed by three of her guards.

“Shiva,” I said matter-of-factly, trying to hide the shock. She must have snuck aboard just before we took off.. Somehow, it didn’t really surprise me. “How…er…nice of you to join us. We were just about to depart.”

She took the stairs down to the nav pit and stood before me, skeletal arms hanging at her sides. “You did an excellent job,” she said. “I’m impressed. Your years of military experience seemed to have served you well.”

“Well…sure, I guess.”

“Now there’s just one more thing I’m going to need from you.”

“Oh,” I replied, folding my arms across my chest. “What’s that?”

She raised a blaster and pressed the barrel against my forehead. I swallowed hard. Her smile was that of a shark that had just cornered its prey. “I’m afraid I need your ship.”

End.

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