“I will not lose faith amongst the faithless,” she whispered to herself. She shook her foggy head and continued following the crowd through a wide entrance of the Ceres Prime Inter-Conduit Terminal.
A small transport shuttle waited at the opposite side of the long line that moved surprisingly fast. She fell onto it, making sure to appear like she’d done it a hundred times before. That didn’t keep her from carefully analyzing her surroundings.
The native Ceresians were incredibly pale—as white as the tundras of Mars’ poles. New Terrene’s ceiling filtered in some natural sunlight for its populace, and tanning salons in Tribunal settlements helped citizens retain a healthy glow. The same as if they lived on ancient Earth. And the Ceresians’ skin always had a dry, crusting look to it, likely from the stale air pushed through overtaxed air-recyclers throughout their settlements, in desperate need of repairs.
Many of the Ceresians were noticeably lankier than her people too. As if someone had tied two ropes to their arms and legs and pulled. Others rode on wheeling chairs or used half-mechanical crutches. Some were missing hands or feet, or had deformities on their faces. They just looked… unhealthy.
The man directly in front of Sage, however, was as enormous as any man she had ever seen, and a growth on his neck only made him seem larger. Muscles bulged from his crummy, sleeveless shirt that could barely contain him. When the line moved forward a spot, a young boy in front of him glanced back over his shoulder and apparently noticed who he was.
“You’re Culver, aren’t ya?” the boy asked excitedly. “The Hammer of Pallus Major!”
“I am. What’s it to you, kid?” Culver responded gruffly.
“I’ve seen you fight in the pits a dozen times! Please, please tell me you’re headed to Dome 534 for the fights?”
“Course I am. Now bug off.”
Culver gently shoved the boy forward toward the security officer at the entrance of the transport shuttle.
Sage wasn’t sure what awaited her on Ceres Prime, but “fights” was all she needed to hear. She’d heard about the underground Ceresian arenas. Clearly, since Culver had his own nickname and fans, there was a great amount of respect to be earned by proving she could handle herself in an organized fight.
She intended to put the rumors to the test. It was a perfect way to earn an important role in the Ceresian underworld. Get her name out there. None of the combatants would have any chance against a trained executor.
Culver presented his CP card to security before boarding the shuttle. Sage pulled hers out of her belt and did the same, half-ignoring whatever the officer said as she watched to see where Culver was going. She had no doubt that the Tribune-forged ID would work.
When the officer finished taking his sweet time looking her over, she stepped onto the shuttle and strapped herself into a seat as far from Culver as possible where she could also keep an eye on him. It was time to do what she did best.
17
Chapter Seventeen—Talon
Talon sat on the edge of a precipice overlooking West 534. The spot was carved into the rockscape at the lower end of the living blocks, so secluded by two walls of metal shanties that few other people even knew it was there.
His parents used to take him there when he was a child before his father died in the Earth Reclaimer Wars and his mother abandoned him to a cluster home, but for whatever reasons he kept coming back.. It was a quiet place far above the colorful Dome. A place to be alone with his thoughts, but more importantly, a place where no prying ears would hear his conversation.
“So, what is it you brought us here for?” Vellish asked, taking a seat on a ridge of rock across from Talon. “And where’s that beautiful little girl of yours?”
“She’s with her mother for now,” Talon said. “Where’s yours?”
“Mine?” Vellish’s brow knitted with confusion.
“C’mon, Vellish. Really?” Julius gave him a light slap on the back of the head as he took a seat beside him.
“Oh, I get it… Ulson,” Vellish said, his cheeks going red. “Ha ha, very funny, Tal. Just ’cause Julius here ain’t as tender don’t mean you gotta be jealous.” They shared laugh before Vellish finally answered the question. “He’s with his real wife. I suppose we should all actually be jealous of that.”
“I don’t know,” Julius responded. “Things got pretty rowdy last night. Not sayin’ I can remember all too well, but there were some beautiful ladies down there.”
“Yeah, but he don’ have to pay for his,” Vellish remarked.
Talon struggled to hold back his amusement. “All right, guys, we don’t want to end this partnership before it even begins,” he said. “Besides, who said that Julius needed to pay for anything last night?”
Vellish stared at Julius. The big man only offered him a wink.
“You guys are both liars,” Vellish said. He shook his head and leaned back against the rock. “Okay, that’s enough of that. Spill it, Tal. I plan on headin’ down to the Dome sometime before I die. I rested up good and proper for it.”
Julius flashed a nervous look at Talon. Death had been a shaky subject around him since he found out he’d contracted the blue death.
“I told a little to Julius already,” Talon said, moving on. “The Morastus Clan made me an offer to help make things right after I deprived them of one of their best miners.”
Vellish rolled his eyes. “That’s a stretch.”
“I know,” Talon agreed, “and if I had any other choice, I would’ve told Zaimur to shove it up his own ass. But you both know that’s not an option.”
“Ancients know if I ever got a chance to meet the Morastus prince personally, I’d sure hope that I wasn’t still a damned miner,” Vellish said matter-of-factly. Julius nudged him in the arm. “No offense, but not all of us chose this life like you did, Tal.”
“I know, but this job may keep us all out of the mines for the rest of our lives.”
Vellish leaned forward, itching his synthetic nose. “Now you have my attention.”
“Zaimur wants us to rob a Tribunal freighter traveling from Earth to Mars.”
“Now I know you’re lyin’!” Vellish exclaimed. “What the hell is it carryin’?”
“Gravitum,” Talon pronounced, accentuating each syllable. If Vellish and Julius were leaning in close before, that word almost made them fall forward from their seats. “Most of the New Earth Tribunal gets their stores from the Circuit, the same as we do,” Talon continued. “Now, I don’t know how much you two know about it, but the major clans are beginning to think that the Keepers favor the Tribune now. Every year since the Reclaimer War, our shipments have been getting smaller and smaller, while the Tribune’s remain steady. The Tribunal Council even has the nerve to personally harvest gravitum from the mines on Earth.”
“I’ve heard rumors.” Vellish shrugged. “Who hasn’t? Never thought anything more of it.”
“Well, that’s the truth of it. We have tons of natural resources the Tribune needs, water not least among them, but it’s nothing they couldn’t figure out how to get if we stopped supplying the solar-arks. We need gravitum to survive now, and they control the only source.” Talon noticed them trying to mask their skepticism. “I know it seems impossible, but if the solar-arks stopped trading with any faction who stands against the Tribunes, then we’ll all be as screwed as the Earth.”
“That’s a big if,” Julius said. “In half a millennium since Earthfall, no faction has ever been able to buy the Keepers. What makes you think they’d turn for the Tribune?”
“In all that time, no faction has ever controlled the entire planet until recently. I’m not saying the Keepers will turn completely—I don’t even know if I believe Zaimur that they’ve been slowly being bribed for years—but there is another war coming. You can be sure of that. And this time, we’ll wind up being the fathers who die in the fighting.”
“So what’s that all have to do with one shipment of gravitum for one lazy-ass Tribune?” V
ellish asked. “We’ll need a hell of a lot more than that.”
“Not one,” Julius said. “Must be why there’s been talk of other Tribunal freighters being robbed throughout the belt recently.”
“I couldn’t tell you. Zaimur knows as little about that as we do,” Talon explained. “But whoever’s responsible for those attacks has somehow been able to avoid unbreakable Tribunal security protocols. They’ve been taking the freighters, completely intact, and disappearing into thin air.”
“And we get to follow suit?”
Talon shook his head. “Fortunately, Zaimur only wants the cargo. He doesn’t care if we slag the ship.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Vellish said, his sarcasm obvious. “What if we run into whoever these mystery pirates are while we’re there?”
Talon opened his mouth to answer but wasn’t immediately sure of what to say. He hadn’t begun to plan for that possibility. “We’ll just have to hope that they’re on our side,” he decided.
“I’d be more worried about the Tribune,” Julius said. “They’ll have beefed up defenses.”
Talon sighed. He stood and faced out over the tremendous cavern. “Look, I won’t force either of you into this. To be honest, I’d rather you both say no and make this easy. I don’t want to be the reason anyone joins me in dying, but I don’t have many people I trust. This may very well be a suicide mission, but I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back to Ceres alive. That I promise.”
They all went quiet for a long moment, too long. Talon couldn’t help but fear the worst.
“You ever done anythin’ like this before when you were with ol’ Zargo?” Vellish asked finally.
Talon began listing his accomplishments with neither pride nor disdain. He’d simply done it. “I’ve helped steal from all of the clan leaders in the asteroid belt,” he said. “I’ve killed rich men for him that were born so close to the surface of Ceres that I’d never have met them otherwise. I’ve commandeered ships and escaped brigs all the same. But never a Tribunal one. And never with so little intel to go on.”
Talon was struggling to gather another thought when suddenly two hands fell upon his shoulders. He turned around quickly to see Julius and Vellish wearing crooked smiles.
“We’re in, Tal,” Julius declared.
“Kill me if I have to serve another shift in the mines,” Vellish said. “Let’s blow those Tribunal bastards back to their Spirit.” His eyes glinted with a hawkish enthusiasm that Talon didn’t even know he was capable of wielding. He’d always seemed to be going through the motions on Kalliope.
“I can’t promise you’ll never have to go back, but if we pull this off, the pay is solid,” Talon said. He was trying his best to hide his excitement, but he could feel the muscles above his mouth desperately seeking to raise his lips. It’d been a while since he had good news. This wasn’t really that, but working with a crew he trusted was the most he could hope for.
“We ain’t ever had a choice before.” Julius gave him a lighthearted shove, forcing Talon to give up on his attempts to remain stoic.
“I thought you guys would never say yes.” Talon exhaled. He leaned forward and embraced them with one arm each. “C’mon, let’s head down to the Dome. No better place in all of Ceres Prime to find mercs as mad as we are.”
“Hey, you’re definitely the only madman here,” Vellish said as Talon began to lead them toward the path down from the promontory. “We’re just following along. Right, Julius?”
“Of course,” Julius answered. “Just two innocents trying to make an honest living.”
Talon tightened his arms around their necks. “Keep it up,” he said, “and I’ll tell Zaimur not to pay either of you.”
“So serious all the time,” Vellish said, ducking out of Talon’s grip. He backed up in the other direction. “We’ll need a pilot, and I know Ulson used to run a smuggling ship out of Fortuna. Heard there’s no one better. I’ll wake his ass up.”
“He can wait,” Talon said. “C’mon, man. There are fights down under the Dome starting soon. Culver the Hammer is here. They say he’s never lost. Could be perfect for us.”
“Nah, go on ahead,” Vellish said. “I’ve never had the stomach for those things. I’m sure you’ll be able to find plenty of crazy fucks down there, but let me handle getting us a pilot.” Vellish slipped away and hopped down a formation of sharp rocks.
“Suit yourself.” Julius shooed him away. “Screw ’im, Tal. His loss.”
They headed back down to Dome 534, where a crowd was already building. Arena combat was a huge part of Ceresian culture. The rich bet on them and sponsored the best fighters, helping them with cyber enhancements and workout regiments in high g environments. The poor lived vicariously through champions. A necessary distraction from the lifetime of mining or factory work most of them endured.
The rules were simple. Battle until your opponent either surrendered or died. Most career fighters would surrender to live another day, but criminals thrown into one of the many arenas throughout the Ceresian worlds weren’t given that choice. And volunteers… they usually wound up dead before they could think about waving the white flag.
It took a while for Talon and Julius to squeeze down to the front row, but Julius’ size helped as always. The Dome 534 arena was famous around the asteroid belt, even if it wasn’t very opulent in appearance. A cage surrounded the lip of a pit where the fighters were unleashed.
Patrons without enough pico packed the edges on their feet, while glassy private boxes protruded from the surrounding rock walls above for those with it. Flickering holoscreens were projected all across the ceiling for anybody who couldn’t get a good view.
Talon leaned against the cage, watching excitedly as the announcer came strolling out from a tunnel into the arena.
“My people!” the bearded old announcer began, earning a roar from the crowd. He made a show of every word, moving across the space side to side on two spindly artificial legs that bent the wrong way. And he had a voice like a bass drum.
“Tonight, Dome 534 is happy to bring you a treat,” he said. “An undefeated legend, who has traveled all the way from Pallus Major to take on your Ceres champion! But first, I’ll whet your appetite, my fair Ceresians. Challengers have thrown in their cards. Hopeful combatants, eager to die at the hands of Culver the Hammer!”
The crowd erupted with boos as a mountain of a man emerged from the tunnel. His shoulders bulged with so much muscle that it appeared to be a challenge for him to turn his head, and the growth on his neck didn’t help. He raised his fist like a conquering hero, absorbing insults as if they fueled him.
Julius looked to Talon. “You think the Hammer would join us?”
“No, probably not him.” Talon chuckled. “But any volunteer mad enough to take him on might. If one of them survives, that is.”
The announcer turned to the arena’s other entry tunnel. “His first challenger may be small in stature, but what she lacks in size, she makes up in apparent insanity.” He laughed at his own joke, and some of the crowd joined him. “But sometimes, it’s the unexpected who thrive here. Can she finally vanquish this mighty foe, or will she join so many others? Bets are open!”
The entire arena seemed to go silent as Talon watched a woman emerge from the shadows. Her face was difficult to distinguish from so far away, but her green eyes were framed by dark hair, and those glowed bright and fierce. The tight boilersuit she wore hugged her toned figure in all the right ways.
Usually only gutter trash and men desperate for money volunteered for preliminary matches against champions. She was… unexpected. Talon couldn’t help but feel his heart break a little for the woman’s life he had little doubt was about to come to a brutal end.
18
Chapter Eighteen—Sage
Sage struggled to regain her senses. Thick beads of sweat trickled down the loose strands of her tousled hair. Her pulse throbbed in her eardrums, only not worse because of her implant.
She was on her knees, panting wildly. Her hot breath bounced off the rocky surface in front of her to warm the drying blood sticking to her lips.
The crowd in the surrounding arena grew more raucous as they anticipated her impending defeat. They rattled against the fence, saliva and drink spewing from their mouths like a mob of rabid animals. Even though they’d booed her opponent, apparently brutality meant more than loyalty. Typical.
Her fists pushed off the uneven ground. She’d only been on Ceres Prime for a little over a day, but finding a fight in one of the colony’s underground arenas proved all too easy. She’d followed Culver the Hammer here and was the first in line to volunteer to face him in prelims.
The tall, brutish man approached her, muscles flexing with every step. His veins bulged in a way that was in no way natural, and the growth on his neck glowed a dull red. Some sort of knockoff Ceresian attachment under the flesh, probably augmenting his muscles with some serum that would kill him before he turned thirty.
The man wore a wicked smirk, knowing he had her on the ropes. The ground rumbled with each nearing step. The crowd’s enthusiasm amplified like a rising storm, but all Sage was worried about was settling her pounding head so she didn’t see two of everything. It seemed her body wasn’t fully acclimated to her repaired executor implant yet.
But she’d been in that position before. She wasn’t used to this lot of bare-knuckle brawling, but a fight was a fight. Just be patient, she told herself. Remember your training.
Feigning defeat, Sage kept her head lowered. While doing that, she repositioned her limbs to be ready to pounce. There was no way to take her much larger opponent down with sheer strength—that she had already been assured of—but there was a reason she was an executor of the Tribune.
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