The street was cast in harsh shadows as the brilliant red sun began setting on the distant horizon. Half the town was swallowed by the darkness; the edges of buildings and darkened alleyways disappeared into nondescript lines that defined the separation between the structure and the ground on which it sat. A hot breeze blew across Pteraxis, carrying clouds of sand through the streets of the small mining town. The fine particles of sand settled over Keryn as she and Adam stepped into the street.
In the failing light, the town took on an eerie look. Shadows lengthened as they watched, giving them the impression of constant movement out of the corners of their eyes. They glanced from side to side, but they found only longer shadows and darkened corners. Where before the mining community looked like a ghost town, now it appeared as though the dead had awoken and sought revenge on the living. Just the thought of it made the hairs on Keryn’s neck stand on edge.
When a gruff voice suddenly whispered in Keryn’s ear, she nearly screamed in surprise before she realized that it was only her radio.
“Talon Six, this is Talon One,” Rombard called over the radio, his voice more subdued than Keryn remembered ever hearing it.
“This is Talon Six,” Keryn replied, her heart pounding in her chest.
“We’ve reached the corner of the alley and are ready to move in.”
Keryn shook her head, though she knew Rombard wouldn’t see the movement. “Negative, Talon One. Hold your position on the secondary street. Wait for my command.” Without speaking it aloud, she finished her thought: if we need you, you’ll know right away.
Having been inside when Rombard began pursuing Cardax, Keryn could only make assumptions on which alleyway the Oterian was cutting through. She had assumed that they would have plenty of sunlight left to find the smuggler before the red orb disappeared over the horizon, but the rapidly setting sun caught her off guard. At the rate the sun was disappearing, it would only be another twenty minutes or less before they lost the meager light they had remaining.
Motioning ahead, Keryn drew her pistol as she and Adam moved cautiously forward. Cardax was hiding from her, toying with her while they quickly lost their sunlight. In spite of the heat of the Pteraxis afternoon, Keryn felt a chill at the thought of getting stuck on the planet after dark. A knot formed in her stomach, as though her body was reacting to the unseen danger. The planet itself seemed to want them gone, and Keryn was all too willing to oblige once they’d captured the smuggler.
Though there seemed to be movement from every shadow, Keryn was still surprised when one of the shadows detached itself from the side of a building. Still a block away, the towering figure moved slowly and deliberately until he slipped out of the shadows and into the dim, red light. Even from a distance, the Oterian smuggler towered over both the Pilgrim and the Wyndgaart. Standing over eight feet tall, he was swathed in dark fur. His long horns bent forward like spears. Though the Oterian appeared to smile, it came across significantly more like a sneer of displeasure.
“Cardax,” Keryn growled at the smuggler.
“You reek of it, you know?” Cardax yelled across the distance. “You and all the rest of your little group. You all carry the disgusting scent of the Alliance. I smelled you the second you entered this town.”
“Spare me,” Keryn yelled back, raising her pistol. “One way or another, you’re coming with us!”
“Such dangerous threats from such a little girl,” Cardax said, raising his arms to the side as he started stepping forward. “There’s really no need for all that. In fact, if you were smart, you’d go ahead and put that toy gun down before someone gets hurt.”
“Are you threatening me?” Keryn asked indignantly. “You turn your back on your race and the entire Alliance, and you still have the audacity to threaten me?” The anger built within her and she ground her teeth together while she spoke.
In response, Cardax laughed heartily. “Betray the Alliance? That’s rich. This is the same Alliance that hunted me like a dog from one end of known space to another. I spend just as much time now fleeing bounty hunters as I do conducting my business.”
“You betrayed us!” Keryn screamed. Try as she might, she couldn’t understand how Cardax was so blinded by his own arrogance. Though she kept her eyes on the Oterian, she also scanned the buildings around her. Their conversation was far from quiet; the townsfolk had to have heard them. Yet no faces peered from closed windows to see the disturbance. Keryn longed to have the Voice once again. Its consult would have been useful in a situation like the one she now found herself, and it was always capable of watching the periphery while she focused on the task at hand. Realizing how lost she felt without the Voice, Keryn felt a pit grow in her chest, filled only with a dull ache of loss.
Cardax, blissfully unaware of Keryn’s inner turmoil, continued talking. “I never betrayed them. They betrayed me. I made one of the greatest discoveries in history when I found Deplitoxide. I was a businessman and only wanted to profit from my discovery. And what did I get for my troubles? The High Council sent Alliance Warships after me; chased me all the way into the Demilitarized Zone. I was captured by the Terrans because I was trying to save my own life! You have no idea the tortures I endured at the hands of the Terrans. A weaker man would have died, but I persevered.”
“Enough talking,” Adam interrupted, pulling his rifle free from under his jacket. “Get on the ground.”
Cardax continued walking forward and talking, as though he hadn’t heard Adam speak. “But I learned an invaluable lesson as a result of being the Terran’s captive. I learned that loyalty has nothing to do with oaths of allegiance to one side or another. Loyalty, just like everything else in this universe, has a price. You find how much someone charges for their undying loyalty, and even the most devoted soldier will willingly die for your cause. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re with all your friends, ask them how many would continue to serve the Alliance if they no longer received a paycheck. None of you are doing your job because you have some unfailing sense of loyalty to the Alliance. Take away the money, and every one of you would find a new line of work.”
“What’s your point?” Keryn yelled, though Cardax was now only a few dozen feet away.
“My point is that this entire town had a price, and I had a lot of money to spend. My point is that these people appreciate the money I give them and aren’t eager to lose it. My point is that they’re willing to do anything to protect my donations…”
Cardax smiled wickedly, his dark eyes glistening in the dying light. “…even kill your friends guarding your ship.”
“Is someone there?” Penchant called out in a coarse voice. His Lithid eyes, covered by his Uligart disguise, worked like a solar panel, absorbing the dim light and amplified it, allowing him to see well in darkness. Even with his enhancements, however, he didn’t see anyone nearby. In a normal situation, that would be a blessing. Just moments before, though, the entire landing zone had been teeming with life. Now, as though whisked away on the warm Pteraxis breeze, the place was dangerously quiet.
“No one’s there,” McLaughlin said in his thick accent. Sitting on the ground with his back against the Cair Ilmun, the Pilgrim tilted back his hat so he could see the Lithid. “You’re hearing things.”
“Lithids don’t have an active imagination,” Penchant said. The Uligart face he wore wrinkled its forehead as he strained to hear another sound.
“You don’t say?” McLaughlin said sarcastically. Pushing off from the ship, he stood and dusted off the back of his pants. “You’re just on edge, and there’s no reason to be. We’re on guard duty, the absolutely most boring job they could find for the two of us.”
“Something’s wrong,” the Lithid said, turning to stare at McLaughlin with a stern glare. “We should contact the others.”
As Penchant reached toward his throat, the Pilgrim reached out and grabbed his wrist. Though Penchant looked angry, McLaughlin simply shook his head. “If there was trouble, don’t you think we would have heard something by now? We’re close enough that we would have heard gunfire or explosions. Since we didn’t hear anything, then I think you probably need to relax a little more.”
Penchant pulled his wrist free of McLaughlin’s grip and turned the opposite direction. McLaughlin shrugged before rolling his eyes. “Listen, if you’re that’s worried about them, let’s just ask someone if they’ve heard anything from town. That way, we don’t have to bother Keryn with radio chatter if nothing is really going on.” Glancing toward town, McLaughlin smiled. “We’ll just ask one of these people.”
Turning quickly, the Lithid saw figures materializing from the dark shadows cast between the ships. From the angry expressions on their faces, Penchant knew they came with deadly intent. Though the smile never faded from McLaughlin’s face, Penchant noticed that the Pilgrim slid his hand beneath his coat in an innocent gesture, but one that put his pistols easily within reach. A noise behind him alerted Penchant that other crewmen from the various ships had circled around and now had the pair trapped.
“How’s it going, gentlemen?” McLaughlin asked, stepping toward the approaching group. “How about this weather?”
Penchant eyed movement from his right as well, meaning that they were now completely encircled. To his left, the Lithid noted the narrow clearance between the belly of the Cair Ilmun and the ground. Though the space would be an incredibly tight fit for the other races, Penchant’s malleability would enable him to slide easily under the ship. McLaughlin, however, would never be so lucky.
“Anything I can help you with?” McLaughlin asked generally to the crowd as the pair searched for an escape route. “You all don’t seem very talkative. What’s wrong? Seque got your tongue?” The Pilgrim’s voice took on a nervous tone as he continued to speak rapidly. “Whatever your problem, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement, but only if we’re able to talk about it.”
“I’ll talk,” a gruff Terran said as he stepped forward and reached to the pouches clipped to his belt. From within one of the pouches, he pulled a small blue orb. “The Empire sends you a gift!”
As the Terran pulled back his arm to throw, McLaughlin drew his pistols blindingly fast. His first round caught the Terran in the wrist, blasting through both the bones and completely severing the hand. The severed extremity, along with the sphere still clutched in its grasp, disappeared into the darkness as it was flung away from the Terran. Firing his second pistol, the Terran was struck in the chest. The bullet shattered ribs, sending both metal and bone fragments into the soft tissue of the Terran’s heart and lungs. Wordlessly, the would-be assassin clutched at his chest before falling to the ground.
McLaughlin began firing wildly into the crowd, all the while laughing excitedly as he pulled the triggers on his pistols. Penchant, falling into place at his back, drew his own rarely-used pistol and began firing as well, trying to keep McLaughlin from being flanked. Caught entirely by surprise by the ferocity of McLaughlin’s attacks, the crowd began to fall back, scrambling to find cover as round after round cut through their ranks. Soon, however, the mob mentality reasserted itself and they surged forward toward the gunmen.
McLaughlin fell back toward the safety of the Cair Ilmun, as he alternated firing into the advancing crowd and reloading his weapons. Blinded as he was with keeping his enemies at bay, he never noticed the second blue orb rolling across the dirt toward his feet. Penchant, noticing the grenade, yelled a warning before diving under the ship. His Uligart facade melted away as his body elongated and thinned enough that he could fit into the cramped crawl space. McLaughlin, entirely focused on keeping the approaching crewmen at bay, never heard the warning from Penchant and only looked down as a loud pulse of noise that preceded the explosion caught his attention.
As the shockwave lifted him from the ground, the shell of the explosive broke apart and filled the air with deadly metal projectiles. McLaughlin’s head snapped backward from the blast as metal fragments bit into his exposed flesh. Smaller fragments cut into his legs and set his pants and shirt ablaze. His body hair burned away and filled the air around him with an acrid smell. As his body was flung wide, larger fragments of the grenade tore into his right arm. Cutting through the muscle and sinews, the jagged shrapnel ripped free fragments of flesh and bone as it passed through his muscular arm. The bone shattered under the assault as all but a small strip of flesh was obliterated in the blast.
McLaughlin fell to the ground nearly ten feet away from where he had been standing before the explosion. To the amazement of all who were nearby, he let out a scream of pain as his ruined arm landed beneath the weight of his body, the limb held on by little more than strips of worn and burned flesh. Blood gushed from his numerous wounds, soaking immediately into the dry and thirsty ground.
The crewmen close to the incapacitated Pilgrim raised their weapons and stepped toward McLaughlin, ready to end his pain.
On the far side of the Cair Ilmun, unnoticed by the enemies that had surrounded them on the other of the ship, Penchant slid from underneath its belly and growled in anger.
Keryn turned with a start at the loud explosion and jets of flame that lit up the sky from the direction of the flattened landing zone. Turning back furiously toward Cardax, Keryn pulled back the hammer on her pistol as tears stung her eyes. Though she already knew the answer, she asked the question anyway.
“What was that? What have you done?”
“That,” Cardax growled sinisterly, “was the beginning of the end for you and your team, little whore. Say goodbye to me now, because mine is the last face you’re ever going to see in this universe.”
“Ambush!” Cerise yelled over the radio as the town seemed to explode to life.
All around Keryn and Adam, doorways opened and shuttered windows flew out wide as armed townsfolk stepped out into the near darkness, their weapons trained on the team members and a murderous look in their eyes.